Book: 20210221 to 20210322, "Homo Deus" by Yuval Noah Harari
20210223 - Chapter 1. The New Human Agenda
Old days wealth is based on material, nowadays wealth is based on knowledge. Knowledge or creativity? What's the relationship between knowledge and creativity?
When will China give up Jungle Law? When sustainable energy prevail, all fossil energy lose their temptation. What's the next target? Computer chips? Software? Biotech invention? None of these can be looted through war.
If longevity keep increasing at 10 year every 40 year rate, by 2050, the average life expectancy may reach 90. By that time, I am close to 80. So I have good chance to live up to 100, but that's all. 50 more years for me. :-)
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/whats-happening-life-expectancy-uk
Government tries to give everyone a fair chance to purse happiness, but it doesn't guarantee happiness. If we are not happy, normally we cannot blame the government. Medical Care, pension, etc, as long as we get what other people get, we should not complain too much.
Happiness is right dose of excitement and serenity. So we need to turn challenge/scare/pressure into excitement, and turn boredom into tranquility. Don't pursue excitement all the time.
But, "our sensations are ephemeral and meaningless vibrations". It's actually meaningless to pursuing them. It's dead end, no matter what we do.
Learning history gives us more options to handle the current situation/challenge.
Huge changes don't mean much for normal people. Computer, Internet, Smartphone improve our efficiency, and give us more options to kill time. But life is still same, and even worse. These innovations are double blade sword.
The incoming future is same. Some drugs may add 20 more years to our lifespan. The whole society structure would change because of that. But to normal people, they may just get 10 years to work, and 10 more years to walk around and drink some more coffee. They are confined to their limited, incorrect perception.
Part 1: Homo Sapiens Conquers the World
20210227 - Chapter 2 – The Anthropocene
What is the right way to treat domesticated animals? Should we ignore their emotions and treat them as biomechanical machines? Can we treat insects that way? Why is it wrong to ignore the emotions of mammals? Why do we need to justify our exploitation of animals? Why do we hate the exploitation of other people?
If we can figure out perfect synthetic fertilizer, can we produce perfect synthetic food for ourselves? Once it's done, should we get rid of all domestic animals(Synthetic food is critical to Mars Colonization)? Is "cruelty" a technical issue?
In the future, the society will be split into two groups: human and superhuman. Maybe, the wealth gap is so huge that no one can cross it.
20210301 - Chapter 3 – The Human Spark
Now we entered the philosophy area.
"The Cow in the Field", "Brain in a Vat"
https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-thought-experiments.php
I prefer to treat it in practical way: if something smells like a banana, looks like a banana, tastes like a banana, feels like a banana, then it is a banana. Unless we can find proof to prove that it is not a banana.
So, the cow in the field is real cow, and we are not in Matrix. Based on this assumption, we can start to do all the logical reasoning.
It's useless to overthrow the CCP government, because there is no competent organization can replace it. Then CCP 2.0 will rise and everything will be the same. So peaceful political reform is the only way out. p154.
Our future is decided by our common imagination, just like how our history evolved.
Part 2: Homo Sapiens Gives Meaning to the World
20210304 - Chapter 4 – The Storytellers
When we say "A is better than B", based on the first principle, what does that mean?
Normally we believe that agricultural society is better than hunting-gathering society, but to most of people, the latter is actually better. In agricultural society, Aristocracy Class takes most of the pie, so normal people have to work all day and live in poor. That's why the people in hunting-gathering society are actually happier in general.
We need to choose yardstick carefully before judging some people or some thing. Who has better life? It's not mainly about money. Which government is more successful? To domestic citizens, it depends on the median income level. To the world, it depends on how much this government push civil forward.
Fiction helps people to build pyramids and dams, but it also ruins countries. This is the major purpose to study history, to analyse the present, and to predict the future.
20210306 - Chapter 5 – The Odd Couple
Religion and Science.
Religion is based on self-claimed facts, and science can verify those facts. So, science helps to reduce the influence of religion, but how much that religion helps to develop science?
Religion leads to order, and order brings in productivity, and productivity provides resource to science development. This is my guess.
20210308 - Chapter 6 – The Modern Covenant
Every individual wants more. That's by gene. So, no one can lower the growth rate on purpose.
As the publishing date of this book (2016), not many people believe that sustainable energy can solve the global warming problem. Now, it's not a guess, but the only approach. What if the whole world transform into sustainable energy? Without the restriction of carbon emission, can we keep the economy growth for many more years? Then where is the ultimate end?
What are the major threats of human civilization? Nuclear war, global warming, AI, population collapse, pollution? Can virtual wealth grow forever?
20210314 - Chapter 7 – The Humanist Revolution
After God's death, Humanist replaced all major religions, with the help of technology revolution. But WWI, WWII and Cold War broke among Liberalism, Socialism and Evolutionary Humanism.
The strange thing is the failure of liberalism (against socialism) between 1949 to 1980, and the huge success after 1980. What happened? I think people needed time to understand liberalism. In other words, if people don't have chance to get familiar with liberalism, then they will never choose liberalism. This is what is happening in China.
The key is the progress of science. Liberalism is perfect to push science forward, and then science gives liberalism power.
Religion has the same problem. It make everyone waste their time to spend all their time in holy scriptures, instead of the real world.
Part 3: Homo Sapiens Loses Control
20210316 - Chapter 8 – The Time Bomb in the Laboratory
p335 is shocking!! So we can reach the deep meditation status with the help of some helmet?! It's a bit like the movie "limitless". What can we do if can stay in that FLOW status? No doubt that this makes superhuman. There is no way for average people to compete with those superhuman.
Perception is the story we made in our mind. It's not what we see or hear. The world is so complex, that we have to make a story to help understanding it. Then, the self-awareness must also be a story, which actually doesn't exist.
When we get some new information, we always try to relate them to our existing knowledge. Through this way we absorb the information into our perception/story. Although the relation is not always correct, it is the only way we can understand this world.
So our brain is big data analysis machine. No matter what data we get, our mind/brain will set up some story to take it. How about the First Principle theory? It's too hard and too time consuming. Our brain doesn't like working so hard and prefer to go along the shortcut, such as analogy. For someone always stick with the First Principle theory, he/she would looks more like a computer.
Then how about Buddha? Buddha might be the first one who could see the real "self". He supposed to always use the First Principle theory to observe the world.
"Man's search for meaning" says that we need anchor for meaning, and the author believes that love is the anchor. But love is just our perception, which means it's just a story. We need this story to persuade ourselves that our lives have meaning.
20210319 - Chapter 9 – The Great Decoupling
Even if AI fully understand us, it still cannot make us happy. We have too much desires, and we keep changing mind all the time.
Is it possible for AI to train us into superhuman (like Buddha)?
Rocks are useless (to human) in nature, but it at least doesn't have desire. What should AI do to the useless class? Will most of people happy with UBI and free medicare service and the hopeless future?
If AI never get conscious, and we use it wisely, then the next threat is superhuman. "The average is over", and the wealth gap is getting bigger and bigger. If something or some people is of no use, then what's going to happen to them?
Fully automated factories are the last nail on the coffin. Why does superhuman need the useless class after than? If they don't need it, then they don't care about it, then no extra resource will flow to the normal people. UBI will be there, but no much else. UBI can only let people survive, there is no hope at all.
20210320 - Chapter 10 – The Ocean of Consciousness
Yuval Noah Harari and I have quite different understanding about "superhuman". In my opinion, superhuman is not "money-making-machine". They read a lot of books, pay full attention to "the moment", understand their subconscious. They don't just do things effectively.
Antidepressants is a very good proof that we don't have control of our will. We are seriously affected by many factors. Free will doesn't exist, neither do real self.
Can people always in "the Moment" be the future superhuman? If everyone been turned into Buddha, will human got bright future? No one knows what's going to happen in that cases. Maybe that's the only possible positive ending of Homo Sapiens.
20210322 - Chapter 11 – The Data Religion
It's brilliant to use "data analysing" to explain the revolution of all lives on earth.
From natural selection point of view, this is correct. But, how sad it is! Life is absolutely meaningless?!
Life is short. If it's all data processing, what should I do? All blog posts are data uploading, which helps AI to revolve. Is it meaningful?
Is meditation really meaningful?
Now, it seems that the only mystery left is what Budda called Elysium or Pure Land. If this was what Budda saw, what is it?
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