Homo Deus is an interesting intersection of economics, politics, history, psychology , evolutionary biology and spirituality. The account starts with a summary of human life before showing a projection of what the future could hold but with a disclaimer relieving the author of any obligations, just in case a different future unfolds!! ;)
The disclaimer is quite interesting in revealing the paradox of historic knowledge (I love paradoxes!!):
"Knowledge that does not change behavior is useless, but knowledge that does change behavior loses relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course and faster our knowledge becomes outdated".
( I am compelled to contrast this with the Oogway quote: "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it")
Yuvah predicts that the human agenda for future would be centred around the below 3 points and concludes that the same technology that can upgrade human to Gods can also make humans irrelevant."
What I liked about the book is a whole lot of interesting insights and debates on the concepts of souls, consciousness, emotions, mind and God. (Refer to the quote from the book at the end of the post).
The disclaimer is quite interesting in revealing the paradox of historic knowledge (I love paradoxes!!):
"Knowledge that does not change behavior is useless, but knowledge that does change behavior loses relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course and faster our knowledge becomes outdated".
( I am compelled to contrast this with the Oogway quote: "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it")
Yuvah predicts that the human agenda for future would be centred around the below 3 points and concludes that the same technology that can upgrade human to Gods can also make humans irrelevant."
1) Immortality: By Solving the technical problems causing death
2) Happiness Engineering: By Biological and phsychological
ie, engineer happiness through body(chemically) and mind ( through interventions like transcranial impulses/intrinsically)
ie, engineer happiness through body(chemically) and mind ( through interventions like transcranial impulses/intrinsically)
3) Divinity: Superpowers through upgrades like in Cyborgs or extensions.
What I liked about the book is a whole lot of interesting insights and debates on the concepts of souls, consciousness, emotions, mind and God. (Refer to the quote from the book at the end of the post).
Through the explanation of the duality of the self, the reader is taken to a conclusion that self is a concept similar to nations/money/Gods/corporates.
The self with the narrating self and experiencing self and how this structure influences the way humans behave with reference to the peak-end rule in behavioral sciences which is the doing of the narrating self which trumps the experiencing self, in storing experiences in memory
Example: Paediatricans offering chocolate to the kids and Evolution winning over the pain of child birth experiences are mere examples of exploitation of this nature of narrative self triumph. At the same time, it is the experiencing self that triumphs to add that extra icecream scoop into your bowl irrespective of the resolutions and best laid plans by the narrating self.
The new religion of Data-ism is unveiled where the Internet of all things within this galaxy and the next is positioned as the God and interesting analogies are drawn to "atman" of traditional Hindu spirituality system which is equivalent to the universal soul of cosmos that humans are believed to have to merge into ultimately. (In short, watch the series "West World" to see what is in store.)
The narrative carefully concludes that humans will lose the relevance due to the decoupling of intelligence and consciousness owing to the fact that the intelligence(the powerful Internet of All things) can know what is best for us more than we do ourselves.
" Each of us has a sophisticated system that throws away most of our experiences, keeps only a few choice samples, mixes them up with bits from movies we saw, novels we read, speeches we heard, and from our own daydreams, and weaves out of all that jumble a seemingly coherent story about who I am, where I came from and where I am going. This story tells me what to love, whom to hate and what to do with myself. This story may even cause to sacrifice my life, if that’s what the plot requires. We all gave our genre. Some people live a tragedy, others inhabit a never-ending religious drama, some approach life as if it were an action film, and not a few act as in a comedy. But in the end, they are all just stories.
What, then, is the meaning of life? Liberalism maintains that we shouldn’t expect an external entity to provide us with some ready-made meaning. Rather, each individual voter, customer and viewer ought to use his or her free will in order to create meaning not just for his or her life, but for the entire universe."
The self with the narrating self and experiencing self and how this structure influences the way humans behave with reference to the peak-end rule in behavioral sciences which is the doing of the narrating self which trumps the experiencing self, in storing experiences in memory
Example: Paediatricans offering chocolate to the kids and Evolution winning over the pain of child birth experiences are mere examples of exploitation of this nature of narrative self triumph. At the same time, it is the experiencing self that triumphs to add that extra icecream scoop into your bowl irrespective of the resolutions and best laid plans by the narrating self.
The new religion of Data-ism is unveiled where the Internet of all things within this galaxy and the next is positioned as the God and interesting analogies are drawn to "atman" of traditional Hindu spirituality system which is equivalent to the universal soul of cosmos that humans are believed to have to merge into ultimately. (In short, watch the series "West World" to see what is in store.)
The narrative carefully concludes that humans will lose the relevance due to the decoupling of intelligence and consciousness owing to the fact that the intelligence(the powerful Internet of All things) can know what is best for us more than we do ourselves.
" Each of us has a sophisticated system that throws away most of our experiences, keeps only a few choice samples, mixes them up with bits from movies we saw, novels we read, speeches we heard, and from our own daydreams, and weaves out of all that jumble a seemingly coherent story about who I am, where I came from and where I am going. This story tells me what to love, whom to hate and what to do with myself. This story may even cause to sacrifice my life, if that’s what the plot requires. We all gave our genre. Some people live a tragedy, others inhabit a never-ending religious drama, some approach life as if it were an action film, and not a few act as in a comedy. But in the end, they are all just stories.
What, then, is the meaning of life? Liberalism maintains that we shouldn’t expect an external entity to provide us with some ready-made meaning. Rather, each individual voter, customer and viewer ought to use his or her free will in order to create meaning not just for his or her life, but for the entire universe."
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