Nonfiction (mostly): Homo Deus

 
Homo Deus
by Yuval Noah Harari


Insightful look into mankind in the past, the present, and possibly the future. There's all kinds of cool facts and syntheses of facts here, too much to relate. Clearly Ms. Harari is a deep thinker of the sort we need in the world--a person who goes where the facts lead and doesn't pretend to sugar-coat the future. What purpose will humans serve in a world where human endeavor is unneeded? What is the real meaning of "free will" and is there even any such a thing? Stuff like that.

Too deep for me to criticize...but I have a couple of points. My background is this: I was a biology student in college; I've read a lot about evolution and natural selection; I have been working as a computer programmer for many years.  So when he dismisses the notion of "free will" as an evolutionary unnecessary fiction, I have to wonder if he really understands evolution. Genetic mutation and recombination provide the raw material for natural selection; selection acts to weed out the unfit and promote the genes that work in the particular environment that the organisms find themselves. But--and this is a big but--the genes that are selected to reproduce themselves are not always those that seem obvious to us big-brained apes. Evolution is full of accidents, errors, and mis-fitted pieces that hang around even if they're of no use at all or of less use than a better designed piece might have been. Humans, for example, have all kind of parts that work poorly or have no purpose at all.

So his argument is that there is no such thing as "free choice" or "free will" or even a degree of random curiosity in the mind, because it would be of no evolutionary purpose. Ridiculous! Why wouldn't a gene that promoted a tendency to wander randomly through a habitat be of tremendous use? Take a coyote--a coyote who is curious about new things might find himself caught in a steel trap--but he also might find himself enjoying an hot apple pie he found on a windowsill. Mr. Harari has made the assumption that he (or other deep thinkers) know more than they do. He's made no space in argument for the "known unknown."

And the other issue I have is that he thinks that if "an algorithm" can play chess or diagnose illness better than the best human mind, eventually the human mind itself will be obsolete. But where does he think the algorithms come from?

Possibly, maybe, if an algorithm can be developed to create algorithms, I'll hang up my computer keyboard and go sit on a beach and sip smoothies for a living.

So, ignore what I just wrote and go read (or listen to) Mr. Harari's book. It's fascinating. Just keep an open mind and prepare to have it blown away!