Book review - Homo deus / Yuval noah harari

Newer Points to ponder on human progress and future of homo sapiens - Homo deus 

book review

       Second most popular book from Israeli author and Historian Yuval noah Harari is Homo Deus and here we will see some of his newer and interesting perspectives. Like his first book this book also deals about the homo sapien's (humans) progresses up to now, as to how it started to dominate the whole world and also what would be the future coursef or them.  It is a kind of sequel to Homo sapiens, his first comprehensive work on human history.

Humanity based religions

          God based religions came about after agricultural revolution and yuval says after scientific revolution human centered religions started to appear. Like some of the people who are experts in study of human behavior opines yuval also says movements associated withsome sort of philosophical moorings are all humanity based religions. In the new age religions, author says that "GOD" is replaced by a future egalitarian golden society. Classical Marxists or for that matter any kind of leftist will reject such a thought. 

        The author says that religions had a very big role in uniting humans and they are together in large numbers primarily due to his ability to tell stories. Human's ability to imagine is the key to the forming of religions, nations and economies throughout the world. This is the newest idea mooted originally by the author of this book in his previous version. He continues that argument in this book wherein after scientific revolution, new age religions based on humanity were founded by mankind. 

         Continuing this argument on religions further in his second book Homo Deus i e God humans, Yuval discusses about the new age religions or humanity based religions like Communism, etc. Normally religions talk about life after death . But these new religions don'ttalk about that or about God. We all know that stories about life after death are all fiction but just because communists  are not saying anything about god or life after death does not mean it is not a religion,  author argues. Because it is the philosophy of communism is their religion and in their view it is the only Truth and all other narratives are false. Exactly in the same way every religious minded person is trained. Religion is a kind of agreement among its followers and spirituality is a journey the author says. In the same vein he is also of the view that without the guidance of religions, bringing people socially in large numbers and maintaining the social harmony is impossible.  The author quotes William Humboldt on the purpose of human existence.   

                The author quotes Philosopher and linguist Wilhelm Van hamboldt who says that purpose of human existence is getting the wisdom through living. He draws parallel between experiences of Einstein or a genius like Beethovan with that of an ordinary drunken man. In terms of value the living experience of a person like Beethovan and Einstein is more worthy and valuable for others than say, a drunken wastrel. We cannot apply the concept of equality here,

Human Consciousness

        Consciousness is "awareness of the self" and this is what differentiates human beings

from other living beings. As per Science the consciousness is only a mental pollution, says Yuval in the book. As consciousness studies are considered to be more complicated by neuro scientists all over the world this opinion of the author was really baffling to me.  In the book 'Hard problem of consciousness' , author David Chalmers tries to explain the relationship between brain processes and physical experiences and he also concludes that these studies do not lead to any facts. When the best of neuro scientists are apparently in the dark about the matters of human consciousness studies ,it is a surprise that a modern day historian like yuval dismisses it as a mere mental pollution.

In the ancient Indian subcontinental philosophies like Yoga and Sankya this consciousness was considered to be very important in human spiritual journey. I think Science has to go some way before coming to any conclusion on human consciousness.

How capitalism succeeded

     In this 21st century world is dominated by capitalists unlike the last century where communism was thought to be the solution for all the problems in human societies. At least half of the world subscribed to that view and was being tried out in many countries also. But now except two or three countries majority of countries follow capitalist model. What is the reason for  setback of communist model of governance? Experts and political pandits may have differing views but here in the book Yuval says that capitalism is successful due to decentralization of power structure. Centralization of power in communist models were the primary cause for the decline of communist regimes according to the author. Proponents of communism may have a different take on it since they would argue that real decentralization is possible only through a socialist/communist model. 

Algorithms 

        From now on algorithms will decide the future of world according to Yuval. World view got changed to human centered to god centered in the 18th century, now it shall change into Algorithm based world in the future. It will take us some 30-40 more years to reach that stage but human based revolution too did not happen overnight, he says. What is the mystery behind this algorthms? As Christians used to say that it is not possible to understand the designs of god by ordinary humans, we may not be able to understand fully the designs of system based on algorithms. 

 The Future 

           Some of Yuval's predictions for the future is a little bit scary. He says that we are one of last few remaining generations of Homo sapiens and we are most certainly going to take a new physical and mental shape in the near future. This is happening after about one lakh years of existence of Homo sapiens. With the use of Artificial intelligence and  combination of techno biological influences humanity will undergo a major change in its physical structure and shape. For the first time it will become possible to read into people's minds. Most importantly, due to use of AI and DNA based techno medical tools, humanity may end the end game itself i e death.Super human who has no death or diseases may well be a reality, the author proudly proclaims in the book. Whether humans will demystify the mystery of death? Only time alone will tell. 

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