(Original title: "A Brief History of mankind" Interview Author: humans sometimes make stupid, how can we not be out?)
Original title: "A Brief History of mankind" Interview Author: humans sometimes make stupid, how can it not be out?
Reporter: Liu Siqi, Ji Wenyi, Editor: Qu Kai
A historical book does not talk about the power of tricks or talk about secrets. What does it claim to be in China's bestseller list?
The answer to Yuval Herari is, "Recognize yourself."
The Israeli historian published two books, “A Brief History of Mankind†and “A Brief History of the Future†in China in 2014 and 2017 respectively, which rekindled the Chinese’s curiosity about self-awareness.
The former focuses on the history of human evolution and studies the fundamentals of human beings based on the earth from the perspective of history, society, politics, and economy. The latter will look to the future and discuss the future of human society where computer and bioengineering are more developed. In order to adapt to the future society, we should also do something.
"Cognize yourself" was originally a slogan engraved on the Temple of Apollo. It has become the most important subject for humanity in the 21st century. This is not an appreciation of narcissism. It is only when one fully understands his or her own strengths that one can fully use it. Otherwise, he will be enslaved by the algorithm as part of the Paradigm, as mentioned by Hilary during his visit.
It is foreseeable that the future man-machine relationship will be a continuous “cat-and-mouse gameâ€. As a mouse, humans desperately escaped being captured, predicted, or even controlled by machine algorithms.
An invitation should be created. On July 8th, Yuval Herari will make a domestic sharing. In Chapter 42, an exclusive interview was conducted with Yuval Hellali. He asked him to expand on the past, present and future of humankind, and How should we "upgrade" ourselves in the AI ​​era to win this war with the machine.
Yesterday: Only humans would believe: "Give me a banana and you can go to heaven after you die."
Q: The most important concept you mentioned in the book "A Brief History of Humanity" is "fiction". The key to distinguishing a Homo sapiens from other races is the ability to fictionalize stories, and Homo sapiens Society is based on the fiction of common belief. Your definition of fiction is also not quite the same as most people understand. It is not limited to religious beliefs. It also covers many common concepts in the modern society from money to the government. Where does this theory come from? As you said, fiction has become an indispensable link in the history of the evolution of the Homo sapiens. If history can be repeated or there is another parallel universe, do you think that fiction is so important?
A: My understanding of fiction is based on scientific research. It is also influenced by meditation. Meditation allows me to distinguish between reality and the illusory story that the human brain constructs. However, I want to emphasize that fiction is of vital importance to all human societies.
Without those long-term beliefs — such as the human perspective on heaven — it is difficult to imagine how large-scale human societies can function. We should keep those useful fictions and learn to distinguish between illusion and reality. For most of the long history, people have become too accustomed to illusory stories such as countries, such as God, money, and so on, unable to tell the real reality.
The Egyptians, who lived in the third millennium BC, carved the sun god Laura on the tomb of Pharaoh.
How to tell what is fiction and what is real reality? The best test is suffering. If you want to know if something is true, ask yourself: “Is it painful?â€
Zeus did not suffer when the Temple of Zeus was destroyed. When the bank went bankrupt, the bank did not suffer. When the country was frustrated during the war, the country did not suffer, and it was the people who really suffered. When investors lost all their wealth in the disaster, he suffered. When cows were forced to separate from their newborn cubs, it suffered. This is the reality.
Pain can also come from our belief in fiction. For example, a belief in a country or religion may trigger a war, and the outcome of the war is the destruction of countless families. The cause of the war is fictional, but the pain is 100% real. This is why we need to work hard to distinguish between what is a fictional story and what is a real reality.
Fictitious stories are key. Without complex human stories and rules such as money, countries, companies, etc., complex human societies certainly cannot operate. However, these stories are just tools. Don't let these tools become our goal or measure. If we forget that this is a fictional story, we will not see the reality.
Q: In the history of the Earth, the role of Homo sapiens may not be as important as we think. Before us, other species once occupied the earth. After us, there may be other species that will replace us. What do you think are most unique to Homo sapiens compared to other species? Is it related to the fictional power you just mentioned?
A: Yes. Humans are of course unique in comparison to their predecessors, but this uniqueness is not what most people think. We often observe ourselves and other animals, such as chimpanzees.
If you throw a human with a chimpanzee, or ten people and ten chimpanzees in the arena, the last thing that can survive is definitely a chimpanzee. However, if it is a thousand people and a thousand chimpanzees PK, the ultimate winner must be human. The real advantage of mankind is that large-scale and flexible cooperation can be carried out.
Ants and bees can cooperate on a large scale, but their cooperation model is very fixed. Chimpanzees and wolves also have the flexibility to work together, but they are limited to small groups and know each other. Throw 100,000 chimpanzees to Wall Street, and chaos. But for 100,000 people, we have a trading network. This is why humans conquered the earth and chimps were kept in zoos and laboratories.
With large-scale and flexible cooperation, only humans can do it. What makes us do this? The answer is our imagination. In human nature, there is no tendency to favor large-scale cooperation. The reason why we cooperate with strangers is because only in this way can we spread the concept of imaginary bodies that exist in the brain, such as God, the country, money, and human rights, to millions of people. When so many people believe in the same story, they will follow the same rule.
Chimpanzees cannot do this. You can't tell them: "Give me a banana, you can go to heaven after death, and you can enjoy countless bananas." Only humans can create and believe such stories. So we can rule the world.
For the future, we do not know what kind of species will rule the earth after the Homo sapiens. Once biochemical technology and AI can transform the body and brain, our desires and preferences may change. We can predict how humans like themselves will use biotechnology but cannot predict how different species from ours will treat technology tools.
Q: As you mentioned, people may be happy to see that they have become data integrations (such as blood pressure, daily walking steps, etc.). Do you think data is also a fiction?
A: The big data algorithm gives people a powerful new power. The question is, how do people use these powers? Technology itself does not tell us how to act. The answer usually lies in the fiction that people believe. Even if everyone uses artificial intelligence or biotechnology, Jews and Muslims or Indians will use it differently.
In fact, fictional influence may continue to increase because it will control more sophisticated and progressive science and technology. In the past, people just imagined that they would go to heaven after death; in the future, humans could use biotechnology and artificial intelligence to really build heaven. The key question is, what kind of paradise do you want?
Today: People are using their most valuable asset - data, in exchange for free e-mail and cat videos
Q: You just mentioned that data may become the ultimate weapon to dominate human destiny. If there is enough data, Google and Facebook will know themselves better than people, so that they can manipulate human behavior and become kings of the new era. Do you think technology giants such as Google and Facebook will become the most influential entities in the history of Homo sapiens? If so, is there any way to crack it?
A: Currently, technology companies headed by Google and Facebook have achieved control of our results by monopolizing the information that people consume. This means that they have the power to define what is true and what is important: anything that appears on my Facebook home page or the top page of Google search results is important.
In the long run, however, the real power of these tech giants lies in the data they collect from us. In the near future, they may accumulate large enough data and algorithms that are good enough to directly invade human nature, reorganize human society, and even control life itself. The era of our lives is not an era when computers will be invaded, but an era when humans will be invaded. When people wear various sensors that allow technology companies to obtain all kinds of data from the human body 24 hours a day, the moment of subversion is not far off.
With enough data, these tech giants (including private companies and government agencies) can create algorithms that know more about ourselves than ourselves and can thus manipulate our decisions and behavior. Even more frightening is that if the amount of data is large enough, they may even decode the deep mechanisms of the human body and brain, and thus gain the ability to construct new forms of life. Now everyone knows that the organism is a biological algorithm, and those giants who can decode biological algorithms will eventually become the masters of life.
The ownership of these data is a key issue. Does the data containing my DNA secret belong to me, belongs to the government, belongs to a company, or is it a human group? Is a small group of elites who have a monopoly control the data? If you control these data, will commercial companies and governments create new organs, new brains, and even new forms of life?
In the past, the most important assets were land, tools, and labor. Politics is the struggle to control land, tools, and labor. In the 21st century, the most important asset is data, and the focus of political competition will become the control of the data. I am afraid that many people are not aware of this, people are using their most valuable asset - data, in exchange for free mail services and ridiculous pet video.
At this point it is time to rephrase the maxim: "If you did not pay for a product, you may be the product."
Q: You mentioned on many occasions that meditation has a great impact on you. Can you talk about your understanding of meditation? Do you think meditation is an experience that suits most people?
A: Compared to technology tools, meditation allowed me to extract from overloaded information and to observe and think about what really matters. This is the best way to understand the nature of the world. If I haven't practiced meditation, it is absolutely impossible to write the two books "A Brief History of Mankind" and "A Brief History of the Future."
When I was young, I was always plagued by it: Why is there so much suffering in this world and in my life? How can we be free from it? The mechanism by which the brain produces a painful experience is so complex that scientific research has not given us direct answers so far. The only thing we can do is to observe our own mind. Although anyone who has a relevant attempt will tell you, it's really hard.
Meditation made me realize that the hardship I suffered came from my own thoughts. When I want something and nothing, the brain produces a painful experience as a response. The source of this pain is not the real world. Vipassana meditation can teach people to observe the body's feelings objectively and the way they react to them, thus unlocking our deepest mental patterns.
Meditation is something that everyone can try. It does not require any experience, nor does it require superior intelligence. Only this is not an easy practice.
Tomorrow: Stop trusting adults and don’t rely on technology. The opportunity to win over AI lies in emotional intelligence and resilience.
Q: At the end of the "A Brief History of the Future," you mentioned three open questions, one of which relates to intelligence and Consciousness. Which do you think is more important for humans?
A: First of all, we must understand the difference between the two. Humans solve problems through intelligence and perceive the world through consciousness, such as pain, pleasure, love, and anger. For mammals, intelligence and consciousness merge into one — we rely on the perception of the world to solve problems. Until the beginning of this century, higher intelligence and consciousness are still difficult to separate. Playing chess, driving cars, fighting snoring, and diagnosing diseases can only be done by humans who have consciousness.
Today, however, intelligence is breaking away from consciousness. The above-mentioned playing, driving, snoring, and diagnosing diseases can be done by algorithms that do not have consciousness, and they do better than us. For those skills based on pattern recognition, the algorithm will even throw people away.
Science fiction movies believe that computers must develop their own consciousness in order to achieve or exceed human intelligence. Supported by this argument, the robot is not in love with human beings, it is trying to kill human beings. But science has pointed out another possibility: There are many ways to achieve super-intelligence, and only a few depend on the formation of consciousness. For millions of years, the evolution of organisms relied on the evolution of consciousness. Inorganic computers may completely avoid this narrow path and increase intelligence to a new level faster.
Therefore, I think that consciousness is far more important than intelligence. For me, the most important issue in the world is still the cause of happiness and pain. What is happiness? What is pain? What is the cause of the pain? How can we get rid of the pain? These are issues in the consciousness field and have nothing to do with intelligence.
Q: As you mentioned in the book, Homo sapiens is also an algorithm. The same algorithm, artificial intelligence in computing power, data storage, etc. will far exceed sapiens. Is humanity destined to lose to AI? Compared to AI, where is the human advantage?
A: Yes, humans have no advantage in algorithms. But if you just discuss this weakness, it will not help you solve the problem. We should understand what we are good at, not rush into the arena where computers set the rules.
Compared with AI, human beings do not have much competitiveness in providing economic value. However, AI is not comparable to us in experiencing and understanding emotions and in self-reliance.
AI is improving every day. Driving cars and diagnosing diseases make it harder and harder for humans to compete with AI in these areas. But this does not mean that we can ultimately rely on it to eliminate pain and find happiness. With AI's ability to understand the human brain and manipulate emotions, it may never understand our pain and happiness.
In the past dozens of centuries, mankind has formed stronger control over the external world and has reshaped itself by its own efforts. But this conquest did not make humans happy. Worse still, due to a lack of understanding, human transformation of the earth has destroyed its complex ecosystem and is facing a disaster. In the next century, humans may be able to control their inner world and reshape our bodies and brains. However, if human understanding of their own stays in the current state, this remodeling will not necessarily make us happy, and even bring disaster to the mental system.
Q: In your interview, you mentioned that in the age of AI, people must adhere to emotional intelligence and resilience to win the war with the machine. Can you expand to talk?
A: What is the job market in 2040? What we can determine is that a large number of existing occupations will disappear, but what kind of new jobs will emerge? Nobody knows. Therefore, we do not know what kind of knowledge children should be taught in order to keep them competitive after 20 years. It is very likely that the knowledge students learn today will become useless when they are forty years old.
What should we teach children? My advice is to focus on resilience and the cultivation of emotional intelligence. In the past, human life was divided into two parts: the main task of the first half was learning, and the latter half of life was work to make a living. In the learning phase, people gradually shape stable identity and learn personal and professional skills. At the work stage, we started with the identity and skills as a starting point to explore the world, obtain wealth, and make contributions to society.
By 2040, such a model will cease to exist. People must learn through life and reinvent themselves before they can be eliminated. Therefore, we must develop children’s skills so that they can continuously acquire new knowledge – even at the age of 60, they have the ability to upgrade.
However, the change is very difficult. Especially after reaching a certain age, most people began to refuse to change. When a person is 16 years old, his life theme is change - physical, mental, and interpersonal relationships are escalating. But by the age of 40, he does not want to change, but to stabilize.
But in the 21st century, stability can be described as a luxury. If you keep a fixed identity, career, and world view without change, you will be abandoned by the world. Therefore, mankind needs extremely high resilience and emotional intelligence to ride through this never ending storm without being beaten by pressure.
The problem is that teachers are very good at teaching mathematics, but they are almost helpless in cultivating emotional intelligence and resilience. The education system born in the industrial revolution of the 19th century, including reading and lectures, was of limited use in this respect. It is foreseeable that in the age of AI, this system will surely go bankrupt.
For 16-year-old children, I have some suggestions for them: Do not rely on adults. In the past, listening to them was a safe choice because they knew more about this slow-moving world. But by the 21st century, everything will be different. The economic, political, and interpersonal knowledge that adults have learned may be out of date.
Do not rely on science and technology. Let technology serve you rather than you serve it. If you are not careful, technology will begin to dominate your will and put you into its paradigm to enslave. Therefore, you must understand yourself more than others and understand what you really want in this life. Just like the rumors engraved on the temple of Apollo, "Know thyself (know thyself, thyself-yourself's ancient body or poetry)".
This sentence has been circulating for more than two thousand years, but it is of greater significance to human beings in the 21st century than ever before. Because humans will enter a huge competition: one side is an independent individual, and the other is Google, Facebook, Amazon, and even use big data technology to monitor your government. Once Google knows you better than you, it may begin to control or even manipulate you. If you don't want to go out, you must run faster than Google. Come on!
Q: You mentioned in the book that the future Homo sapiens may be split into two species: some people can transform themselves or their children's embryos through cutting-edge biotechnology, enhance organ function, reduce immune deficiencies, and become genetically advanced. Homo sapiens species; those who cannot afford this transformation will be reduced to lower-level Homo sapiens. This division sounded familiar: After the outbreak of the industrial revolution, society was rapidly divided into the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The former relied on capital and the latter as a labor force to obtain wealth. However, the division in the 21st century will be very different from the past. The lower-level Homo sapiens have little economic value for senior Homo sapiens—the machine can almost replace the human labor and do all the work. If human beings really face such divisions, what do you think is the significance of the existence of lower-level Homo sapiens? What can they contribute to this society?
A: As a historian, I tend to focus on those more dangerous possibilities for two reasons. First, because businesses and industries tend to focus on the positive potential of emerging technologies, their thinking about their negative potential is naturally left to historians and philosophers. Second, we can only prevent them from happening if we are concerned about those dangerous possibilities.
You are right to say that the 21st century will be very different from the 19th century. In the past, the proletariat was the pillar of the economy. Whether it is a democracy or a dictatorial government, it will invest heavily in health, education, and welfare, because the general public have a strong role in the military and the economy. Even Hitler would set up hospitals, schools, and sewer systems for the poor—not because he was good, but because he knew that if Germany wanted to strengthen the country and strengthen its military, it must allow millions of poor people to join the army and work.
However, as AI and robots gradually replace human occupations, many people will lose their economic value. Even more frightening is that once the low-level Homo sapiens loses military and economic value, the elite and the government may lose the incentive to invest in education, health, and welfare, and eventually cause them to be abandoned by the entire system.
This will be an unparalleled bad news.
Q: Can we recommend some of your favorite writers and books to help us better understand the future?
Huxley’s “Beautiful New World†is one of the most forward-looking books I think of the 20th century and is one of the most profound discussions of “happiness†in modern Western philosophy.
"Beautiful New World" was completed in 1931. At that time, Russia, Italy, Germany, and Japan all had dictatorial regimes. The Second World War was about to start. However, Huxley envisioned a society without war, poverty, and disease through the fog of history. People enjoy endless peace, material, and health. It is a consumerist world: sex, drugs, rock and roll are all there is to be. The highest value of society is happiness.
Through the use of advanced biotechnology and social engineering, everyone feels very satisfied and there is no resistance. Secret police and concentration camps have lost their value. In this book, Huxley revealed geniusly that the control of people can be realized through the feelings of love and happiness, rather than through violence and fear.
This book is disturbing because you can be sure that there is a loophole in the logic. But where is it? Few people can find it. The world is calm and peaceful, and everyone feels rich. What's the problem behind all this?
On the other hand, when Huxley wrote the book in 1931, he and the first readers thought that the book depicted a dangerous dystopia. However, by 2017, many readers will think that the book depicts a Utopia, and our consumerism society is evolving towards the vision of Huxley. Today, happiness has become the highest value of society. We have also begun to use biotechnology and social engineering to ensure the affluence of citizens.
Do you want to know what problems lie behind this? Read about the dialogue between the two characters in the book. One is Mustaphamun, the controller of Western Europe; the other is the savage John. He lives in New Mexico's “barbarian reserve†for a lifetime. The last person in London to remember Shakespeare and God.
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