You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
Everyone should read this. That's it.
Another dense and (physically) heavy book that I'm so glad to read. The possibilities presented here feel scary to me, but that might just be a function of fearing change as a human. But to know that a lot of this stuff is approaching as each day passes, it's another thought to wonder what kind of a world we will leave to our children and their children. Beyond climate and environmental issues. I'm so curious to see how this all plays out in 100 years--or will it be less than that? Whenever I read about history, it really puts in perspective just how short life can be. Maybe in my generation, I experience advancements at a faster pace than past generations who are still alive, so the next generations will likely experience changes even faster. It has started. Where will it end?
"If we are indeed bringing famine, plague and war under control, what will replace them at the top of the human agenda? Like firefighters in a world without fire, so humankind in the twenty-first century needs to ask itself an unprecedented question: what are we going to do with ourselves? In a healthy, prosperous and harmonious world, what will demand our attention and ingenuity? This question becomes doubly urgent given the immense new powers that biotechnology and information technology are providing us with. What will we do with all that power?" pg. 2
"However, we should not confuse ability with motivation. Though cyber warfare introduces new means of destruction, it doesn't necessarily add new incentives to use them. Over the last seventy years humankind has broken not only the Law of the Jungle, but also the Chekhov Law. Anton Chekhov famously said that a gun appearing in the first act of a play will inevitably be fired in the third. Throughout history, if kings and emperors acquired some new weapon, sooner or later they were tempted to use it. Since 1945, however, humankind has learned to resist this temptation. The gun that appeared in the first act of the Cold War was never fired. By now we are accustomed to living in a world full of undropped bombs and unlaunched missiles, and have become experts in breaking both the Law of the Jungle and the Chekhov Law. If these laws ever do catch up with us, it will be our own fault--not our inescapable destiny." pg. 17-18
"Yet appreciating the magnitude of our achievements carries another message: history does not tolerate a vacuum. If incidences of famine, plague and war are decreasing, something is bound to take their place on the human agenda. We had better think very carefully about what it is going to be. Otherwise, we might gain complete victory in the old battlefields only to be caught completely unaware on entirely new fronts. What are the projects that will replace famine, plague and war at the top of the human agenda in the twenty-first century?" pg. 20
"What else will humanity strive for? Would we be content merely to count our blessings, keep famine, plague and war at bay, and protect the ecological equilibrium? That might indeed be the wisest course of action, but humankind is unlikely to follow it. Humans are rarely satisfied with what they already have. The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more. Humans are always on the lookout for something better, bigger, tastier. 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?
Success breeds ambition, and our recent achievements are now pushing humankind to set itself even more daring goals. Having secured unprecedented levels of prosperity, health and harmony, and given our past record and our current values, humanity's next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity. Having reduced mortality from starvation, disease and violence, we will now aim to overcome old age and even death itself. Having saved people from abject misery, we will now aim to make them positively happy. And having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus." pg. 20-21
"This may sound like science fiction, but it's already a reality. Monkeys have recently learned to control bionic hands and feet disconnected from their bodies, through electrodes implanted in their brains. Paralysed patients are able to move bionic limbs or operate computers by the power of thought alone. If you wish, you can already remote-control electric devices in your house using an electric 'mind-reading' helmet. The helmet requires no brain implants. It functions by reading the electric signals passing through your scalp. If you want to turn on the light in the kitchen, you just wear the helmet, imagine some preprogrammed mental sign (e.g., imagine your right hand moving), and the switch turns on. You can buy such helmets online for a mere $400." pg. 45
"Studying history airms to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and begin to notice possibilities that our ancestors could not imagine, or didn't want us to imagine. By observing the accidental chain of events that led us here, we realise how our very thoughts and dreams took shape--and we can begin to think and dream differently. Studying history will not tell us what to choose, but at least it gives us more options." pg. 60
"We can already see this process [humanism's downfall] at work in geriatric hospital wards. Due to an uncompromising humanist belief in the sanctity of human life, we keep people alive till they reach such a pitiful state that we are forced to ask, 'What exactly is so sacred here?' Due to similar humanist beliefs, in the twenty-first century we are likely to push humankind as a whole beyond its limits. The same technologies that can upgrade humans into gods might also make humans irrelevant. For example, computers powerful enough to understand and overcome the mechanisms of ageing and death will probably also be powerful enough to replace humans in any and all tasks." pg. 66
"In recent decades life scientists have demonstrated that emotions are not some mysterious spiritual phenomenon that is useful just for writing poetry and composing symphonies. Rather, emotions are biochemical algorithms that are vital for the survival and reproduction of all mammals. What does this mean? Well, let's begin by explaining what an algorithm is. This is of great importance not only because this key concept will reappear in many of the following chapters, but also because the twenty-first century will be dominated by algorithms. 'Algorithm' is arguably the single most important concept in our world. If we want to understand our life and our future, we should make every effort to understand what an algorithm is, and how algorithms are connected with emotions." pg. 83
"Only animals that calculate probabilities correctly leave offspring behind.
Yet this is all very abstract. How exactly does a baboon calculate probabilities? He certainly doesn't draw a pencil from behind his ear, a notebook from a back pocket, and start computing running speeds and energy levels with a calculator. Rather, the baboon's entire body is the calculator. What we call sensations and emotions are in fact algorithms. The baboon feels hunger, he feels fear and trembling at the sight of the lion, and he feels his mouth watering at the sight of the bananas. Within a split second, he experiences a storm of sensations, emotions and desires, which is nothing but the process of calculation. The result will appear as a feeling: the baboon will suddenly feel his spirit rising, his hairs standing on end, his muscles tensing, his chest expanding, and he will inhale a big breath, and 'Forward! I can do it! To the bananas!' Alternatively, he may be overcome by fear, his shoulders will droop, his stomach will turn, his legs will give way, and 'Mama! A lion! Help!' Sometimes the probabilities match so evenly that it is hard to decide. This too will manifest itself as a feeling. The baboon will feel confused and indecisive. 'Yes...No...Yes...No...Damn! I don't know what to do!'" pg. 86
"Even Nobel laureates in economics make only a tiny fraction of their decisions using pen, paper and calculator; 99 per cent of our decisions--including the most important life choices concerning spouses, careers and habitats--are made by the highly refined algorithms we call sensations, emotions and desires." pg. 87
"Whereas theism justified traditional agriculture in the name of God, humanism has justified modern industrial farming in the name of Man. Industrial farming sanctifies human needs, whims and wishes, while disregarding everything else. Industrial farming has no real interest in animals, which don't share the sanctity of human nature. And it has no use for gods, because modern sciences and technology give humans powers that far exceed those of the ancient gods. Science enables modern firms to subjugate cows, pigs and chickens to more extreme conditions than those prevailing in traditional agricultural societies." pg. 99
"In recent years, as people began to rethink human-animal relations, such practices have come under increasing criticism. We are suddenly showing unprecedented interest in the fate of so-called lower life forms, perhaps because we are about to become one. If and when computer programs attain superhuman intelligence and unprecedented power, should we begin valuing these programs more than we value humans? Would it be okay, for example, for an artificial intelligence to exploit humans and even kill them to further its own needs and desires? If it should never be allowed to do that, despite is superior intelligence and power, why is it ethical for humans to exploit and kill pgs? Do humans have some magical spark, in addition to higher intelligence and greater power, which distinguishes them from pigs, chickens, chimpanzees and computer programs alike? If yes, where did that spark come from, and why are we certain that an AI could never acquire it? If there is no such spark, would there be any reason to continue assigning special value to human life even after computers surpass humans in intelligence and power? Indeed, what exactly is it about humans that make us so intelligent and powerful in the first place, and how likely is it that non-human entities will ever rival and surpass us?" pg. 99-100
"That's why the theory of evolution cannot accept the idea of souls, at least if by 'soul' we mean something indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal. Such an entity cannot possibly result from a step-by-step evolution. Natural selection could produce a human eye, because the eye has parts. But the soul has no parts. If the Sapiens soul evolved step by step from the Erectus soul, what exactly were these steps? Is there some part of the soul that is more developed in Sapiens than in Erectus? But the soul has no parts." pg. 105
"The soul is a story that some people accept while others reject. The stream of consciousness, in contrast, is the concrete reality we directly witness every moment. It is the surest thing in the world. You cannot doubt its existence. Even when we are consumed by doubt and ask ourselves: 'Do subjective experiences really exist?' we can be certain that we are experiencing doubt." pg. 107
"In the twenty-first century it sounds childish to compare the human psyche to a steam engine. Today we know of a far more sophisticated technology--the computer--so we explain the human psyche as if it were a computer processing data rather than a steam engine regulating pressure. But this new analogy may turn out to be just as naive. After all, computers have no minds. They don't crave anything even when they have a bug, and the Internet doesn't feel pain even when authoritarian regimes sever entire countries from the Web. So why use computers as a model for understanding the mind?" pg. 118-119
"According to current scientific dogma, everything I experience is the result of electrical activity in my brain, and it should therefore be theoretically feasible to simulate an entire virtual world that I could not possibly distinguish from the 'real' world. Some brain scientists believe that in the not too distant future, we shall actually do such things. Well, maybe it has already been done--to you? For all you know, the year might be 2216 and you are a bored teenager immersed inside a 'virtual world' game that simulates the primitive and exciting world of the early twenty-first century. Once you acknowledge the mere feasibility of this scenario, mathematics leads you to a very scary conclusion: since there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual words is infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is almost zero." pg. 120
"All large-scale human cooperation is ultimately based on our belief in imagined orders. These are sets of rules that, despite existing only in our imagination, we believe to be as real and inviolable as gravity." pg. 143
"No matter how mistaken the biblical world view was, it provided a better bsis for large-scale human cooperation.Indeed, even today when US presidents take their oath of office, they put their hand on a Bible. Similarly in many countries around the world, including the USA and the UK, witnesses in courts put their hand on a Bible when swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's ironic that they swear to tell the truth on a book brimming with so many fictions, myths and errors." pg. 174
"Hence when we come to evaluate human cooperation networks, it all depends on the yardsticks and viewpoint we adopt. Are we judging pharaonic Egypt in terms of production, nutrition or perhaps social harmony? Do we focus on the aristocracy, the simple peasants, or the pigs and crocodiles? History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others." pg. 176
Book: borrowed from Richmond Branch Library.
"If we are indeed bringing famine, plague and war under control, what will replace them at the top of the human agenda? Like firefighters in a world without fire, so humankind in the twenty-first century needs to ask itself an unprecedented question: what are we going to do with ourselves? In a healthy, prosperous and harmonious world, what will demand our attention and ingenuity? This question becomes doubly urgent given the immense new powers that biotechnology and information technology are providing us with. What will we do with all that power?" pg. 2
"However, we should not confuse ability with motivation. Though cyber warfare introduces new means of destruction, it doesn't necessarily add new incentives to use them. Over the last seventy years humankind has broken not only the Law of the Jungle, but also the Chekhov Law. Anton Chekhov famously said that a gun appearing in the first act of a play will inevitably be fired in the third. Throughout history, if kings and emperors acquired some new weapon, sooner or later they were tempted to use it. Since 1945, however, humankind has learned to resist this temptation. The gun that appeared in the first act of the Cold War was never fired. By now we are accustomed to living in a world full of undropped bombs and unlaunched missiles, and have become experts in breaking both the Law of the Jungle and the Chekhov Law. If these laws ever do catch up with us, it will be our own fault--not our inescapable destiny." pg. 17-18
"Yet appreciating the magnitude of our achievements carries another message: history does not tolerate a vacuum. If incidences of famine, plague and war are decreasing, something is bound to take their place on the human agenda. We had better think very carefully about what it is going to be. Otherwise, we might gain complete victory in the old battlefields only to be caught completely unaware on entirely new fronts. What are the projects that will replace famine, plague and war at the top of the human agenda in the twenty-first century?" pg. 20
"What else will humanity strive for? Would we be content merely to count our blessings, keep famine, plague and war at bay, and protect the ecological equilibrium? That might indeed be the wisest course of action, but humankind is unlikely to follow it. Humans are rarely satisfied with what they already have. The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more. Humans are always on the lookout for something better, bigger, tastier. 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?
Success breeds ambition, and our recent achievements are now pushing humankind to set itself even more daring goals. Having secured unprecedented levels of prosperity, health and harmony, and given our past record and our current values, humanity's next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity. Having reduced mortality from starvation, disease and violence, we will now aim to overcome old age and even death itself. Having saved people from abject misery, we will now aim to make them positively happy. And having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus." pg. 20-21
"This may sound like science fiction, but it's already a reality. Monkeys have recently learned to control bionic hands and feet disconnected from their bodies, through electrodes implanted in their brains. Paralysed patients are able to move bionic limbs or operate computers by the power of thought alone. If you wish, you can already remote-control electric devices in your house using an electric 'mind-reading' helmet. The helmet requires no brain implants. It functions by reading the electric signals passing through your scalp. If you want to turn on the light in the kitchen, you just wear the helmet, imagine some preprogrammed mental sign (e.g., imagine your right hand moving), and the switch turns on. You can buy such helmets online for a mere $400." pg. 45
"Studying history airms to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and begin to notice possibilities that our ancestors could not imagine, or didn't want us to imagine. By observing the accidental chain of events that led us here, we realise how our very thoughts and dreams took shape--and we can begin to think and dream differently. Studying history will not tell us what to choose, but at least it gives us more options." pg. 60
"We can already see this process [humanism's downfall] at work in geriatric hospital wards. Due to an uncompromising humanist belief in the sanctity of human life, we keep people alive till they reach such a pitiful state that we are forced to ask, 'What exactly is so sacred here?' Due to similar humanist beliefs, in the twenty-first century we are likely to push humankind as a whole beyond its limits. The same technologies that can upgrade humans into gods might also make humans irrelevant. For example, computers powerful enough to understand and overcome the mechanisms of ageing and death will probably also be powerful enough to replace humans in any and all tasks." pg. 66
"In recent decades life scientists have demonstrated that emotions are not some mysterious spiritual phenomenon that is useful just for writing poetry and composing symphonies. Rather, emotions are biochemical algorithms that are vital for the survival and reproduction of all mammals. What does this mean? Well, let's begin by explaining what an algorithm is. This is of great importance not only because this key concept will reappear in many of the following chapters, but also because the twenty-first century will be dominated by algorithms. 'Algorithm' is arguably the single most important concept in our world. If we want to understand our life and our future, we should make every effort to understand what an algorithm is, and how algorithms are connected with emotions." pg. 83
"Only animals that calculate probabilities correctly leave offspring behind.
Yet this is all very abstract. How exactly does a baboon calculate probabilities? He certainly doesn't draw a pencil from behind his ear, a notebook from a back pocket, and start computing running speeds and energy levels with a calculator. Rather, the baboon's entire body is the calculator. What we call sensations and emotions are in fact algorithms. The baboon feels hunger, he feels fear and trembling at the sight of the lion, and he feels his mouth watering at the sight of the bananas. Within a split second, he experiences a storm of sensations, emotions and desires, which is nothing but the process of calculation. The result will appear as a feeling: the baboon will suddenly feel his spirit rising, his hairs standing on end, his muscles tensing, his chest expanding, and he will inhale a big breath, and 'Forward! I can do it! To the bananas!' Alternatively, he may be overcome by fear, his shoulders will droop, his stomach will turn, his legs will give way, and 'Mama! A lion! Help!' Sometimes the probabilities match so evenly that it is hard to decide. This too will manifest itself as a feeling. The baboon will feel confused and indecisive. 'Yes...No...Yes...No...Damn! I don't know what to do!'" pg. 86
"Even Nobel laureates in economics make only a tiny fraction of their decisions using pen, paper and calculator; 99 per cent of our decisions--including the most important life choices concerning spouses, careers and habitats--are made by the highly refined algorithms we call sensations, emotions and desires." pg. 87
"Whereas theism justified traditional agriculture in the name of God, humanism has justified modern industrial farming in the name of Man. Industrial farming sanctifies human needs, whims and wishes, while disregarding everything else. Industrial farming has no real interest in animals, which don't share the sanctity of human nature. And it has no use for gods, because modern sciences and technology give humans powers that far exceed those of the ancient gods. Science enables modern firms to subjugate cows, pigs and chickens to more extreme conditions than those prevailing in traditional agricultural societies." pg. 99
"In recent years, as people began to rethink human-animal relations, such practices have come under increasing criticism. We are suddenly showing unprecedented interest in the fate of so-called lower life forms, perhaps because we are about to become one. If and when computer programs attain superhuman intelligence and unprecedented power, should we begin valuing these programs more than we value humans? Would it be okay, for example, for an artificial intelligence to exploit humans and even kill them to further its own needs and desires? If it should never be allowed to do that, despite is superior intelligence and power, why is it ethical for humans to exploit and kill pgs? Do humans have some magical spark, in addition to higher intelligence and greater power, which distinguishes them from pigs, chickens, chimpanzees and computer programs alike? If yes, where did that spark come from, and why are we certain that an AI could never acquire it? If there is no such spark, would there be any reason to continue assigning special value to human life even after computers surpass humans in intelligence and power? Indeed, what exactly is it about humans that make us so intelligent and powerful in the first place, and how likely is it that non-human entities will ever rival and surpass us?" pg. 99-100
"That's why the theory of evolution cannot accept the idea of souls, at least if by 'soul' we mean something indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal. Such an entity cannot possibly result from a step-by-step evolution. Natural selection could produce a human eye, because the eye has parts. But the soul has no parts. If the Sapiens soul evolved step by step from the Erectus soul, what exactly were these steps? Is there some part of the soul that is more developed in Sapiens than in Erectus? But the soul has no parts." pg. 105
"The soul is a story that some people accept while others reject. The stream of consciousness, in contrast, is the concrete reality we directly witness every moment. It is the surest thing in the world. You cannot doubt its existence. Even when we are consumed by doubt and ask ourselves: 'Do subjective experiences really exist?' we can be certain that we are experiencing doubt." pg. 107
"In the twenty-first century it sounds childish to compare the human psyche to a steam engine. Today we know of a far more sophisticated technology--the computer--so we explain the human psyche as if it were a computer processing data rather than a steam engine regulating pressure. But this new analogy may turn out to be just as naive. After all, computers have no minds. They don't crave anything even when they have a bug, and the Internet doesn't feel pain even when authoritarian regimes sever entire countries from the Web. So why use computers as a model for understanding the mind?" pg. 118-119
"According to current scientific dogma, everything I experience is the result of electrical activity in my brain, and it should therefore be theoretically feasible to simulate an entire virtual world that I could not possibly distinguish from the 'real' world. Some brain scientists believe that in the not too distant future, we shall actually do such things. Well, maybe it has already been done--to you? For all you know, the year might be 2216 and you are a bored teenager immersed inside a 'virtual world' game that simulates the primitive and exciting world of the early twenty-first century. Once you acknowledge the mere feasibility of this scenario, mathematics leads you to a very scary conclusion: since there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual words is infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is almost zero." pg. 120
"All large-scale human cooperation is ultimately based on our belief in imagined orders. These are sets of rules that, despite existing only in our imagination, we believe to be as real and inviolable as gravity." pg. 143
"No matter how mistaken the biblical world view was, it provided a better bsis for large-scale human cooperation.Indeed, even today when US presidents take their oath of office, they put their hand on a Bible. Similarly in many countries around the world, including the USA and the UK, witnesses in courts put their hand on a Bible when swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's ironic that they swear to tell the truth on a book brimming with so many fictions, myths and errors." pg. 174
"Hence when we come to evaluate human cooperation networks, it all depends on the yardsticks and viewpoint we adopt. Are we judging pharaonic Egypt in terms of production, nutrition or perhaps social harmony? Do we focus on the aristocracy, the simple peasants, or the pigs and crocodiles? History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others." pg. 176
Book: borrowed from Richmond Branch Library.
Feels unfair to rate it. I was toootally underwhelmed though. It feels half-baked and more of a rushed notes from a taught course than a weighty tome it should be.
Just another amazing read by Harari. Worth re-reading major passages several times.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
A good book but, as you might expect from the premise, not as hard-hitting or immediately salient as Sapiens. Still packs an existentialist punch, though! 7.75/10.
While I enjoyed this, it was a bit fanciful. Overall, I did enjoy this, though I'd contend some of the ideas and predictions within its pages.
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
50% DNF. Boring and just not interesting to me, unfortunately. I liked Sapiens well enough, but this was everything I didn’t like about Sapiens.