Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

by Yuval Noah Harari

This cold-water experiment is so simple, yet its implications shake the core of the liberal world view. 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. For the experiencing self, it’s obvious that the ‘long’ part of the cold-water experiment was worse. First you experience water at 14°C for sixty seconds, which is every bit as disagreeable as what you experience in the ‘short’ part, and then you must endure another thirty seconds of water at 15°C, which is marginally less bad, but still far from pleasant. For the experiencing self, it is impossible that adding a slightly unpleasant experience to a very unpleasant experience will make the entire episode more appealing. However, the experiencing self remembers nothing. It tells no stories and is seldom consulted when it comes to big decisions. Retrieving memories, telling stories and making major decisions are all the monopoly of a very different entity inside us: the narrating self. The narrating self is akin to Gazzaniga’s left-brain interpreter. It is forever busy spinning yarns about the past and making plans for the future. Like every journalist, poet and politician, the narrating self takes many short cuts. It doesn’t narrate everything, and usually weaves the story using only peak moments and end results. The value of the whole experience is determined by averaging peaks with ends. For exampl...

Evia narrator water cold experiment