Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

by Yuval Noah Harari

Firstly, paying attention to my sensations, emotions and thoughts.

allowing these sensations, emotions and thoughts to influence me.

You cannot experience something if you don’t have the necessary sensitivity, and you cannot develop your sensitivity except by undergoing a long string of experiences.

Humanism thus sees life as a gradual process of inner change, leading from ignorance to enlightenment by means of experiences.

heresy.

Due to this emphasis on liberty, the orthodox branch of humanism is known as ‘liberal humanism’ or simply as ‘liberalism’.*2

Nazism was born from the pairing of evolutionary humanism with particular racial theories and ultra-nationalist emotions.

halcyon

veneer.

binding

heretical

the question is whether they can choose their desires in the first place.

Yet people erroneously jump to the conclusion that if I want to press it, I choose to want to. This is of course false. I don’t choose my desires. I only feel them, and act accordingly.

When Professor Talwar presses the remote control, the rat wants to move to the left, which is why she moves to the left.

quizzically.

However, over the last few decades the life sciences have reached the conclusion that this liberal story is pure mythology. The single authentic self is as real as the eternal Christian soul, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. If you look really deep within yourself, the seeming unity that we take for granted dissolves into a cacophony of conflicting voices, none of which is ‘my true self’. Humans aren’t individuals. They are ‘dividuals’.

For example, in most cases the left hemisphere plays a more important role in speech and in logical reasoning, whereas the right hemisphere is more dominant in processing spatial information.

alleviated

draughtsman.

eerie

Gazzaniga concluded that the left hemisphere of the brain is the seat not only of our verbal abilities, but also of an internal interpreter that constantly tries to make sense of our life, using partial clues in order to concoct plausible stories.

It exposes the existence of at least two different selves within us: the experiencing self and the narrating self. The experiencing self is our moment-to-moment consciousness.

Crucially, the narrating self is duration-blind, giving no importance to the differing lengths of the two parts. So when it has a choice between the two, it prefers to repeat the long part, the one in which ‘the water was somewhat warmer’.

bacchanalia

It is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.

If you want to make people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable.

otherwise how can he excuse his stupidity?

cradle.

Realising the vital role of women in total industrial wars, countries saw the need to give them political rights in peacetime.

Humans are in danger of losing their value, because intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

err

hypochondriacs).

arcane

nepotism.

It has recommended investing in companies that grant algorithms more authority.

Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and money, and they can sue and be sued in court. We might soon grant similar status to algorithms. An algorithm could then own a venture-capital fund without having to obey the wishes of any human master.

The algorithm developed by Frey and Osborne to do the calculations estimated that 47 per cent of US jobs are at high risk. For example, there is a 99 per cent probability that by 2033 human telemarketers and insurance underwriters will lose their jobs to algorithms. There is a 98 per cent probability that the same will happen to sports referees, 97 per cent that it will happen to cashiers and 96 per cent to chefs. Waiters – 94 per cent. Paralegal assistants – 94 per cent. Tour guides – 91 per cent. Bakers – 89 per cent. Bus drivers – 89 per cent. Construction labourers – 88 per cent. Veterinary assistants – 86 per cent. Security guards – 84 per cent. Sailors – 83 per cent. Bartenders – 77 per cent. Archivists – 76 per cent. Carpenters – 72 per cent. Lifeguards – 67 per cent.

bonanza

i.e.

It follows that an external algorithm could theoretically know me much better than I can ever know myself.

mastectomy.

mesh

salvation

human mind and the human experience has been conducted on people from Western, educated, industrialised,

intricate

fathom

diatribes.

imbue

fringe

creeds