1. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, is a book authored by Yuval Noah Harari. It is a must read book for all those desiring to reach mental clarity in life, on subjects such as society, religion, God, Nation and many other ideas and concepts engaging the human mind. The book is very relevant to today's times. Harari has put human history within a framework provided by science, particularly evolution and biology. He sees biology as setting the limits of possibility for human activity, and culture giving shape to what happens within the naturally set bounds. History is nothing more than the account of social change in Homo Sapiens.
2. Harari surveys the history of humankind, beginning from evolution of archaic human species of Stone Age to the twenty-first century humans. He has divided history of Sapiens into four major parts.
i. The Cognitive Revolution, 70,000 BCE, when Sapiens evolved imagination.
ii. The Agricultural Revolution, 10,000 BCE, the development of agriculture.
iii. The Scientific Revolution, started around 1500 CE, and resulted in the emergence of objective sciences.
iv. The Unification of humankind, which means gradual consolidation of human political organisations towards one Global Empire.
3. The main theme of this work is that Sapiens came to dominate the world, because they could cooperate flexibly in large numbers, which made it possible for them to successfully annihilate other human species, such as Neanderthals. Sapien ability to cooperate in large numbers arises from their unique ability called imagination. Whereas on one hand imagination is responsible for architecture, aeroplanes, submarines, rockets, and thousands of inventions and discoveries, on the other this human ability is responsible for concepts such as God/gods, nations, money, and human rights. These beliefs have given rise to a race for control and discrimination of all kinds, ranging from racial, sexual and political discrimination. In this setup, it's impossible to have a completely unbiased society.
4. Harari repeatedly claims that all large human cooperations and systems, including religions, political structures, trade networks, and legal institutions, owe their emergence to distinctive capacity of Sapiens, called imagination and their ability for flexible cooperation in extremely large numbers. Human Money as an outcome is but a system of mutual trust. All religions, political setups and economic systems are identical entities too, having the same motive as driver, that is control of a few over many others, which again begins from imagination.
5. I too believe that any religion and a modern political state, are direct competitors, they can not coexist, and will continue to clash with each other, as they both compete for same attention and mental space, so either a modern state has to regress and be subservient to a religion and it's obsolete beliefs and practices, or else the religious beliefs have to evolve, as quickly as possible to accommodate the scientific and other social developments.
6. Any religion that refuses to evolve, will perish if the modern state based on development of scientific temperament, is challenged by it. India is one such state, where the fundamental duties of all citizens are well defined in it's Constitution. Regarding development of scientific temperament, as per Indian constitution, it is every Indian's fundamental duty 'Article 51A(h), to develop in him/her and other citizens, a scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. When ever the Indian state has been challenged by any religion, that religion has been successfully destroyed by the mighty hand of Indian state machinery, and rightly so.
7. It is today a well-known fact, that when a thousand people believe some made-up story for a week or a month, and then realise the truth, it can be classified as fake news or propaganda, but when a few million or billion people believe in it for a few hundred or a thousand years, it becomes a religion. It is then that we are admonished not to call it fake news or pure propaganda, in order not to hurt the feelings of the followers of this or that religion. This observation, if understood well, is enough to break all illusions, about all religions.
8. On 'Agricultural Revolution', Harari maintains that while it promoted population growth of Sapiens and co-evolving species like dogs, kites, rats etc, it still made the lives of most individuals and animals worse, than when they were hunters and gatherers. Violent treatment of other animals by humans is a theme that runs throughout the book.
9. The Scientific Revolution, says Harari, was based upon desire for innovation in european thought, which made the elite European classes, become willing to admit to their ignorance, and willing to find remedy to their ignorance. He sees this as the main driver of early modern european imperialism, aswellas the current convergence of different cultures.
10. Humans or homosapiens increasingly tend to trend towards political and economic inter-dependence, which culminates in their unification, always and every time. For centuries, the majority of humans have lived in coglomerates of inter-dependent societies called empires. Today capitalist globalization is once again effectively producing, one global empire, one global money, one global set of modern beliefs. A desire for flexible cooperation and collective interdependence is the principal driver of this process. This collective sapien evolution is threatening old and well established businesses called organised religions, which feel threatened by Global Unification through evolving Global Concepts.
11. The book emphasises upon lack of attention and research on jointly clubbed study of human history and human happiness. People today are not significantly happier than in past eras. It is any thinking man's guess, as to how modern technology may soon end us as species, as it ushers in genetic engineering, chimeras, artificial intelligence, robots, and non-organic life, bringing us very close to immortality as well as sudden end. When I see the Tsunami of Covid-19 hitting the world, I can only very respectfully salute Harari. Humans have, in Harari's chosen metaphor, become gods, as they can create species. In my opinion, any mischievous or innocent accident in this adventure can turn the adventure into a massive misadventure, ending in the end of Sapiens.
🚩 Truth Alone is God🚩
@✒Guru Balwant Gurunay.⚔
2. Harari surveys the history of humankind, beginning from evolution of archaic human species of Stone Age to the twenty-first century humans. He has divided history of Sapiens into four major parts.
i. The Cognitive Revolution, 70,000 BCE, when Sapiens evolved imagination.
ii. The Agricultural Revolution, 10,000 BCE, the development of agriculture.
iii. The Scientific Revolution, started around 1500 CE, and resulted in the emergence of objective sciences.
iv. The Unification of humankind, which means gradual consolidation of human political organisations towards one Global Empire.
3. The main theme of this work is that Sapiens came to dominate the world, because they could cooperate flexibly in large numbers, which made it possible for them to successfully annihilate other human species, such as Neanderthals. Sapien ability to cooperate in large numbers arises from their unique ability called imagination. Whereas on one hand imagination is responsible for architecture, aeroplanes, submarines, rockets, and thousands of inventions and discoveries, on the other this human ability is responsible for concepts such as God/gods, nations, money, and human rights. These beliefs have given rise to a race for control and discrimination of all kinds, ranging from racial, sexual and political discrimination. In this setup, it's impossible to have a completely unbiased society.
4. Harari repeatedly claims that all large human cooperations and systems, including religions, political structures, trade networks, and legal institutions, owe their emergence to distinctive capacity of Sapiens, called imagination and their ability for flexible cooperation in extremely large numbers. Human Money as an outcome is but a system of mutual trust. All religions, political setups and economic systems are identical entities too, having the same motive as driver, that is control of a few over many others, which again begins from imagination.
5. I too believe that any religion and a modern political state, are direct competitors, they can not coexist, and will continue to clash with each other, as they both compete for same attention and mental space, so either a modern state has to regress and be subservient to a religion and it's obsolete beliefs and practices, or else the religious beliefs have to evolve, as quickly as possible to accommodate the scientific and other social developments.
6. Any religion that refuses to evolve, will perish if the modern state based on development of scientific temperament, is challenged by it. India is one such state, where the fundamental duties of all citizens are well defined in it's Constitution. Regarding development of scientific temperament, as per Indian constitution, it is every Indian's fundamental duty 'Article 51A(h), to develop in him/her and other citizens, a scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. When ever the Indian state has been challenged by any religion, that religion has been successfully destroyed by the mighty hand of Indian state machinery, and rightly so.
7. It is today a well-known fact, that when a thousand people believe some made-up story for a week or a month, and then realise the truth, it can be classified as fake news or propaganda, but when a few million or billion people believe in it for a few hundred or a thousand years, it becomes a religion. It is then that we are admonished not to call it fake news or pure propaganda, in order not to hurt the feelings of the followers of this or that religion. This observation, if understood well, is enough to break all illusions, about all religions.
8. On 'Agricultural Revolution', Harari maintains that while it promoted population growth of Sapiens and co-evolving species like dogs, kites, rats etc, it still made the lives of most individuals and animals worse, than when they were hunters and gatherers. Violent treatment of other animals by humans is a theme that runs throughout the book.
9. The Scientific Revolution, says Harari, was based upon desire for innovation in european thought, which made the elite European classes, become willing to admit to their ignorance, and willing to find remedy to their ignorance. He sees this as the main driver of early modern european imperialism, aswellas the current convergence of different cultures.
10. Humans or homosapiens increasingly tend to trend towards political and economic inter-dependence, which culminates in their unification, always and every time. For centuries, the majority of humans have lived in coglomerates of inter-dependent societies called empires. Today capitalist globalization is once again effectively producing, one global empire, one global money, one global set of modern beliefs. A desire for flexible cooperation and collective interdependence is the principal driver of this process. This collective sapien evolution is threatening old and well established businesses called organised religions, which feel threatened by Global Unification through evolving Global Concepts.
11. The book emphasises upon lack of attention and research on jointly clubbed study of human history and human happiness. People today are not significantly happier than in past eras. It is any thinking man's guess, as to how modern technology may soon end us as species, as it ushers in genetic engineering, chimeras, artificial intelligence, robots, and non-organic life, bringing us very close to immortality as well as sudden end. When I see the Tsunami of Covid-19 hitting the world, I can only very respectfully salute Harari. Humans have, in Harari's chosen metaphor, become gods, as they can create species. In my opinion, any mischievous or innocent accident in this adventure can turn the adventure into a massive misadventure, ending in the end of Sapiens.
🚩 Truth Alone is God🚩
@✒Guru Balwant Gurunay.⚔
No comments:
Post a Comment