"Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?" Yuval Harari
Born in 1976, Yuval Harari is an Israeli historian and professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The quote above is from his previous book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, (2011), which makes the point that human culture in the post-tribal age of large populations (over 300) derives its coherence from "fictions," mental constructs with no concrete reality, such as gods, money, laws, nations and human rights.
Born in 1976, Yuval Harari is an Israeli historian and professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The quote above is from his previous book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, (2011), which makes the point that human culture in the post-tribal age of large populations (over 300) derives its coherence from "fictions," mental constructs with no concrete reality, such as gods, money, laws, nations and human rights.
In Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tommorow, (2015) Harari describes our future: Through
bio-engineering, artificial intelligence and advancing medicine we will
become, by definition, gods, with indefinitely long lives and complete creative
license to design ourselves and our environments.
Harari's logic is compelling, though one might add that we don't know
what a god is, only what it does. As in physics, where we label atomic
particles in terms of their behavior and effects on other particles- not in terms of what
they are, which we don't know- so, even though we may define a god as "a super-human being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or
human fortunes" (OED), that describes what a god does, not what it is. Whatever a god is, though, that's what we're going to be, Harari writes. The transformation will usher
in the age of Homo Deus, and herald the eclipse of Homo Sapiens. In other
words, we're about to go extinct.
Harari writes:
"Every day
millions of people decide to grant their smartphone a bit more control over
their lives or try a new and more effective antidepressant drug. In
pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one
of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be
human."
Harari is as much concerned with our progeny's difficulties
in figuring out how to be gods as he is with our extinction:
"When humankind
possesses enormous new powers, and when the threat of famine, plague and war is
finally lifted, what will we do with ourselves? What will the scientists,
investors, bankers and presidents do all day? Write poetry?"
He may have
answered his own question. Others have come to the same conclusion about our final purpose. In Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars (1956) a vision of ultimate humanity features
two small human settlements on a desert-covered Earth of the far future. One of the groups lives in a self-sustaining mechanical environment of which no one knows the origin and which no one has any idea how to
operate or repair (fortunately it operates and repairs itself). Inhabitants spend their time
writing poems and sending them to each other. The other group lives a tribal, nomadic life in
portable tents. Their distinguishing feature is that they are telepathic,
so no one can lie. Presumably they handle honesty by communicating in poetry.
Speaking of which, I ran
the Homo Deus idea by my friend Harry the Human and his friend Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster (see link below).
Robert was skeptical. He said humans will need a little practice before they can be proficient gods. He said gilas have dabbled in it for millions of years, adding that the transformation represents a re-bonding with the cosmic womb, which Robert says is
humankind's goal anyway, though we won't admit it.
Harry responded with a poem:
Deus ex machina
By Harry the Human
If I were a god
I'd find it odd
that even a
clod
who'd been so
awed
by seeming
divinity
though he felt
no affinity
would be flung to the void
feeling scared
and annoyed
where a soul
should have buoyed
godlike views,
not destroyed
them.
Yes, imagine! We
are gods, writing poems like this for all eternity!
Be that as it may, Harari is an exceptionally thorough, clear and fascinating author, the perfect antidote to the infantilism of the U.S. electoral season now unfolding.
[For my desert friend Harry the Human's take on Harari, along with that of his companion Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, see: http://harrythehuman.harrythehumanpoliticalthoughtsfrombeyondthepale.com]
