Sapiens - Brief history... new perspectives

Sapiens book - A Complete view of human journey by Yuval Noah Harari 

          "Sapiens - A brief history of humankind " is really THE BOOK to read these days. Authored by a Jewish Historian and University Professor Yuval Noah Harari, it certainly is one of the important books of our times about humanity's journey right from the days of stone age to the days of Internet and Artificial intelligence. 

 Agricultural revolution 

          Though the book contains all aspects of humanity's progress thus far, I am going to discuss here only some of the aspects which I consider new and novel in the book. The first interesting observation he makes is that of Agricultural revolution which happened about 10000 years ago. He says that agricultural revolution brought more misery and poverty and unhappiness and discontent among the lives of majority of humanity. He says that it is true that humans multiplied largely and started to dominate the earth among the living species post changes in the Agrarian habits but the plight of s lot many of them became worse than the previous barbaric period. Many of the humans had to work harder for lesser food and a far lesser time for leisure activities.

"I don't know" led to scientific revolution

          The author firmly believes scientific revolution happened only due to the fact that many of Europeans realized that their knowledge of the universe was very limited and this led to massive exploration in Science by them. Until that period religious leaders were giving all kinds of explanations which hitherto barred scientific quest among the people.For the first time many people started scientific experiments disregarding priests of the time. So the " Don't know" realization led to scientific revolution. This "I don't know had immense possibilities" theory has been appropriated by Spritual guru Jaggi Vasudev in his speeches. In my view, he has applied this theory for spiritual search. Like Yuval is saying"I don't know" led to progress, Sadguru wants people who follow him to understand that they know nothing on matters of spirit and this will make them explore further in their quest. He would always exhort his followers to be like ignorant seekers to know the ultimate truth.

Mikail Gorbachev's contribution

           People who had faith in communism and principles of Marxism were shocked and reacted in disbelief when Soviet union was dismantled in the early nineties. I never had that feeling eitber because I was too young to realize the enormity of what was happening before our eyes or may be due to the reason I never had thought of communism as a panacea for human miseries.

          But I have read subsequently that dismemberment of the communist state made many think of the event as if a disaster happened in their own lives. This had been the case for many in our country and abroad.Yuval had a very different take on this important event of the late twentieth century.

         During the course of reading this book on sapiens, yuval never had anything to say positive or neither he attaches any significance to communism. I strongly disagree with him on this.  Further he dismisses the contribution and influences of communism in the concept of welfare state or democracies.

        So it comes as no surprise to us that he celebrates the main protoganist of Soviet empire dismantling Mikail Gorbachev. He says that he was the first man in the history of Homo sapiens to have given up so much power. And that  happened without shedding any human blood was no small achievement. Yuval says the process of dismantling could have become big catrostrophic for the humans. Mikail successfully avoided that. He deserves every adulation he received for that. This was a new perspective in my opinion and I got surprised by the intensity of the author's views.

Not discussed spirituality in the book

      Yuval Noah Harari is a known practitioner of vipassana meditation. He says he spends two hours almost everyday for meditation. So he is into spiritual practice big time. He must be having some experience in the practice. Otherwise he won't be spending this much of his precious time on such matters. Surprisingly he never deals about this aspect in his book. It is indeed true that he terms that all religions are based on pure fictional stories. But I expected him to dwell on spiritual practices which are the essence of religions, we might say. It is also his familiar domain. 

Conclusion

         Yuval's prediction of the future of Homo sapiens is a little too scary.  His prophesies on cyborgs and artificial limps and robots may come true sooner. But development of consciousness outside humans is never going to be realized even in the distant future. Homo sapiens defying death and immortalization of humans seems to be a figment of extreme imagination which might never see reality in any foreseeable future, in my view.