Homo Deus: a brief History of Tomorrow

Virgin and Child, Sassoferrato, Il (Giovanni Battista Salvi) (1609–85), Musee Bonnat, Bayonne, France ©
Bridgeman Images.

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One study conducted at the Rabin Medical Center in Tel Aviv showed that the
memory  of  labour  reflected  mainly  the  peak  and  end  points,  while  the  overall
duration  had  almost  no  impact  at  all.
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 In  another  research  project,  2,428
Swedish  women  were  asked  to  recount  their  memories  of  labour  two  months
after  giving  birth.  Ninety  per  cent  reported  that  the  experience  was  either
positive or very positive. They didn’t necessarily forget the pain – 28.5 per cent
described  it  as  the  worst  pain  imaginable  –  yet  it  did  not  prevent  them  from
evaluating  the  experience  as  positive.  The  narrating  self  goes  over  our
experiences with a sharp pair of scissors and a thick black marker. It censors at
least  some  moments  of  horror,  and  files  in  the  archive  a  story  with  a  happy
ending.
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Most of our critical life choices – of partners, careers, residences and holidays
–  are  taken  by  our  narrating  self.  Suppose  you  can  choose  between  two
potential  holidays.  You  can  go  to  Jamestown,  Virginia,  and  visit  the  historic
colonial town where the first English settlement on mainland North America was
founded  in  1607.  Alternatively,  you  can  realise  your  number  one  dream
vacation,  whether  it  is  trekking  in  Alaska,  sunbathing  in  Florida  or  having  an
unbridled bacchanalia of sex, drugs and gambling in Las Vegas. But there is a
caveat: if you choose your dream vacation, then just before you board the plane
home, you must take a pill which will wipe out all your memories of that vacation.
What happened in Vegas will forever remain in Vegas. Which holiday would you
choose? Most people would opt for colonial Jamestown, because most people
give  their  credit  card  to  the  narrating  self,  which  cares  only  about  stories  and
has  zero  interest  in  even  the  most  mind-blowing  experiences  if  it  cannot
remember them.
Truth be told, the experiencing self and the narrating self are not completely
separate  entities  but  are  closely  intertwined.  The  narrating  self  uses  our
experiences as important (but not exclusive) raw materials for its stories. These
stories, in turn, shape what the experiencing self actually feels. We experience
hunger differently when we fast on Ramadan, when we fast in preparation for a
medical examination, and when we don’t eat because we have no money. The
different  meanings  ascribed  to  our  hunger  by  the  narrating  self  create  very
different actual experiences.
Furthermore,  the  experiencing  self  is  often  strong  enough  to  sabotage  the
best-laid  plans  of  the  narrating  self.  For  example,  I  can  make  a  New  Year
resolution to start a diet and go to the gym every day. Such grand decisions are
the  monopoly  of  the  narrating  self.  But  the  following  week  when  it’s  gym  time,
the experiencing self takes over. I don’t feel like going to the gym, and instead I
order pizza, sit on the sofa and turn on the TV.

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Nevertheless, most people identify with their narrating self. When they say ‘I’,
they mean the story in their head, not the stream of experiences they undergo.
We identify with the inner system that takes the crazy chaos of life and spins out
of it seemingly logical and consistent yarns. It doesn’t matter that the plot is full
of lies and lacunas, and that it is rewritten again and again, so that today’s story
flatly  contradicts  yesterday’s;  the  important  thing  is  that  we  always  retain  the
feeling  that  we  have  a  single  unchanging  identity  from  birth  to  death  (and
perhaps  even  beyond  the  grave).  This  gives  rise  to  the  questionable  liberal
belief  that  I  am  an  individual,  and  that  I  possess  a  consistent  and  clear  inner
voice, which provides meaning for the entire universe.
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The Meaning of Life
The  narrating  self  is  the  star  of  Jorge  Luis  Borges’s  story  ‘A  Problem’.
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 The
story  deals  with  Don  Quixote,  the  eponymous  hero  of  Miguel  Cervantes’s
famous novel. Don Quixote creates for himself an imaginary world in which he is
a  legendary  champion  going  forth  to  fight  giants  and  save  Lady  Dulcinea  del
Toboso.  In  reality,  Don  Quixote  is  Alonso  Quixano,  an  elderly  country
gentleman; the noble Dulcinea is an uncouth farm girl from a nearby village; and
the  giants  are  windmills.  What  would  happen,  wonders  Borges,  if  out  of  his
belief  in  these  fantasies,  Don  Quixote  attacks  and  kills  a  real  person?  Borges
asks  a  fundamental  question  about  the  human  condition:  what  happens  when
the  yarns  spun  by  our  narrating  self  cause  great  harm  to  ourselves  or  those
around us? There are three main possibilities, says Borges.
One option is that nothing much happens. Don Quixote will not be bothered at
all by killing a real man. His delusions are so overpowering that he could not tell
the  difference  between  this  incident  and  his  imaginary  duel  with  the  windmill
giants.  Another  option  is  that  once  he  takes  a  real  life,  Don  Quixote  will  be  so
horrified  that  he  will  be  shaken  out  of  his  delusions.  This  is  akin  to  a  young
recruit who goes to war believing that it is good to die for one’s country, only to
be completely disillusioned by the realities of warfare.
And there is a third option, much more complex and profound. As long as he
fought imaginary giants, Don Quixote was just play-acting, but once he actually
kills somebody, he will cling to his fantasies for all he is worth, because they are
the  only  thing  giving  meaning  to  his  terrible  crime.  Paradoxically,  the  more
sacrifices  we  make  for  an  imaginary  story,  the  stronger  the  story  becomes,
because  we  desperately  want  to  give  meaning  to  these  sacrifices  and  to  the
suffering we have caused.

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In  politics  this  is  known  as  the  ‘Our  Boys  Didn’t  Die  in  Vain’  syndrome.  In
1915 Italy entered the First World War on the side of the Entente powers. Italy’s
declared  aim  was  to  ‘liberate’  Trento  and  Trieste  –  two  ‘Italian’  territories  that
the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  held  ‘unjustly’.  Italian  politicians  gave  fiery
speeches in parliament, vowing historical redress and promising a return to the
glories  of  ancient  Rome.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  Italian  recruits  went  to  the
front shouting, ‘For Trento and Trieste!’ They thought it would be a walkover.
It was anything but. The Austro-Hungarian army held a strong defensive line
along the Isonzo River. The Italians hurled themselves against the line in eleven
gory  battles,  gaining  a  few  kilometres  at  most,  and  never  securing  a
breakthrough. In the first battle they lost 15,000 men. In the second battle they
lost  40,000  men.  In  the  third  battle  they  lost  60,000.  So  it  continued  for  more
than  two  dreadful  years  until  the  eleventh  engagement,  when  the  Austrians
finally  counter-attacked,  and  in  the  Battle  of  Caporreto  soundly  defeated  the
Italians  and  pushed  them  back  almost  to  the  gates  of  Venice.  The  glorious
adventure  became  a  bloodbath.  By  the  end  of  the  war,  almost  700,000  Italian
soldiers were killed, and more than a million were wounded.
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After  losing  the  first  Isonzo  battle,  Italian  politicians  had  two  choices.  They
could  admit  their  mistake  and  sign  a  peace  treaty.  Austria–Hungary  had  no
claims  against  Italy,  and  would  have  been  delighted  to  sign  a  peace  treaty
because  it  was  busy  fighting  for  survival  against  the  much  stronger  Russians.
Yet  how  could  the  politicians  go  to  the  parents,  wives  and  children  of  15,000
dead Italian soldiers, and tell them: ‘Sorry, there has been a mistake. We hope
you  don’t  take  it  too  hard,  but  your  Giovanni  died  in  vain,  and  so  did  your
Marco.’  Alternatively  they  could  say:  ‘Giovanni  and  Marco  were  heroes!  They
died  so  that  Trieste  would  be  Italian,  and  we  will  make  sure  they  didn’t  die  in
vain. We will go on fighting until victory is ours!’ Not surprisingly, the politicians
preferred  the  second  option.  So  they  fought  a  second  battle,  and  lost  another
40,000 men. The politicians again decided it would be best to keep on fighting,
because ‘our boys didn’t die in vain’.

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A few of the victims of the Isonzo battles. Was their sacrifice in vain?
© Bettmann/Corbis.
Yet  you  cannot  blame  only  the  politicians.  The  masses  also  kept  supporting
the war. And when after the war Italy did not get all the territories it demanded,
Italian  democracy  placed  at  its  head  Benito  Mussolini  and  his  fascists,  who
promised they would gain for Italy a proper compensation for all the sacrifices it
had made. While it’s hard for a politician to tell parents that their son died for no
good reason, it is far more difficult for parents to say this to themselves – and it
is even harder for the victims. A crippled soldier who lost his legs would rather
tell himself, ‘I sacrificed myself for the glory of the eternal Italian nation!’ than ‘I
lost my legs because I was stupid enough to believe self-serving politicians.’ It is
much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the
suffering.
Priests  discovered  this  principle  thousands  of  years  ago.  It  underlies
numerous  religious  ceremonies  and  commandments.  If  you  want  to  make
people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make
them  sacrifice  something  valuable.  The  more  painful  the  sacrifice,  the  more
convinced people are of the existence of the imaginary recipient. A poor peasant
sacrificing  a  priceless  bull  to  Jupiter  will  become  convinced  that  Jupiter  really
exists,  otherwise  how  can  he  excuse  his  stupidity?  The  peasant  will  sacrifice
another bull, and another, and another, just so he won’t have to admit that all the
previous bulls were wasted. For exactly the same reason, if I have sacrificed a
child to the glory of the Italian nation, or my legs to the communist revolution, it’s

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enough  to  turn  me  into  a  zealous  Italian  nationalist  or  an  enthusiastic
communist. For if Italian national myths or communist propaganda are a lie, then
I  will  be  forced  to  admit  that  my  child’s  death  or  my  own  paralysis  have  been
completely pointless. Few people have the stomach to admit such a thing.
The  same  logic  is  at  work  in  the  economic  sphere  too.  In  1999  the
government of Scotland decided to erect a new parliament building. According
to the original plan, the construction was supposed to take two years and cost
£40  million.  In  fact,  it  took  five  years  and  cost  £400  million.  Every  time  the
contractors encountered unexpected difficulties and expenses, they went to the
Scottish  government  and  asked  for  more  time  and  money.  Every  time  this
happened, the government told itself: ‘Well, we’ve already sunk £40 million into
this and we’ll be completely discredited if we stop now and end up with a half-
built  skeleton.  Let’s  authorise  another  £40  million.’  Six  months  later  the  same
thing  happened,  by  which  time  the  pressure  to  avoid  ending  up  with  an
unfinished  building  was  even  greater;  and  six  months  after  that  the  story
repeated  itself,  and  so  on  until  the  actual  cost  was  ten  times  the  original
estimate.
Not  only  governments  fall  into  this  trap.  Business  corporations  often  sink
millions  into  failed  enterprises,  while  private  individuals  cling  to  dysfunctional
marriages and dead-end jobs. For the narrating self would much prefer to go on
suffering in the future, just so it won’t have to admit that our past suffering was
devoid of all meaning. Eventually, if we want to come clean about past mistakes,
our  narrating  self  must  invent  some  twist  in  the  plot  that  will  infuse  these
mistakes  with  meaning.  For  example,  a  pacifist  war  veteran  may  tell  himself,
‘Yes,  I’ve  lost  my  legs  because  of  a  mistake.  But  thanks  to  this  mistake,  I
understand that war is hell, and from now onwards I will dedicate my life to fight
for peace. So my injury did have some positive meaning: it taught me to value
peace.’

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The Scottish Parliament building. Our sterling did not die in vain.
© Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Getty Images.
We  see,  then,  that  the  self  too  is  an  imaginary  story,  just  like  nations,  gods
and money. 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 me to
sacrifice  my  life,  if  that’s  what  the  plot  requires.  We  all  have  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 if 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  readymade  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 life sciences undermine liberalism, arguing that the free individual is just
a  fictional  tale  concocted  by  an  assembly  of  biochemical  algorithms.  Every
moment, the biochemical mechanisms of the brain create a flash of experience,
which immediately disappears. Then more flashes appear and fade, appear and
fade, in quick succession. These momentary experiences do not add up to any
enduring  essence.  The  narrating  self  tries  to  impose  order  on  this  chaos  by
spinning  a  never-ending  story,  in  which  every  such  experience  has  its  place,
and hence every experience has some lasting meaning. But, as convincing and
tempting  as  it  may  be,  this  story  is  a  fiction.  Medieval  crusaders  believed  that

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God and heaven provided their lives with meaning. Modern liberals believe that
individual free choices provide life with meaning. They are all equally delusional.
Doubts  about  the  existence  of  free  will  and  individuals  are  nothing  new,  of
course. Thinkers in India, China and Greece argued that ‘the individual self is an
illusion’ more than 2,000 years ago. Yet such doubts don’t really change history
unless they have a practical impact on economics, politics and day-to-day life.
Humans are masters of cognitive dissonance, and we allow ourselves to believe
one thing in the laboratory and an altogether different thing in the courthouse or
in parliament. Just as Christianity didn’t disappear the day Darwin published On