Homo Deus: a brief History of Tomorrow

deus  –  a  much  superior  human  model.  Homo  deus  will  retain  some  essential
human features, but will also enjoy upgraded physical and mental abilities that
will enable it to hold its own even against the most sophisticated non-conscious
algorithms. Since intelligence is decoupling from consciousness, and since non-
conscious intelligence is developing at breakneck speed, humans must actively
upgrade their minds if they want to stay in the game.
Seventy  thousand  years  ago  the  Cognitive  Revolution  transformed  the
Sapiens  mind,  thereby  turning  an  insignificant  African  ape  into  the  ruler  of  the

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world.  The  improved  Sapiens  minds  suddenly  had  access  to  the  vast
intersubjective  realm,  which  enabled  us  to  create  gods  and  corporations,  to
build cities and empires, to invent writing and money, and eventually to split the
atom  and  reach  the  moon.  As  far  as  we  know,  this  earth-shattering  revolution
resulted from a few small changes in the Sapiens DNA, and a slight rewiring of
the  Sapiens  brain.  If  so,  says  techno-humanism,  maybe  a  few  additional
changes  to  our  genome  and  another  rewiring  of  our  brain  will  suffice  for
launching  a  second  cognitive  revolution.  The  mental  renovations  of  the  first
Cognitive  Revolution  gave  Homo  sapiens  access  to  the  intersubjective  realm
and turned us into the rulers of the planet; a second cognitive revolution might
give Homo deus access to unimaginable new realms and turn us into the lords
of the galaxy.
This idea is an updated variant on the old dreams of evolutionary humanism,
which already a century ago called for the creation of superhumans. However,
whereas Hitler and his ilk planned to create superhumans by means of selective
breeding  and  ethnic  cleansing,  twenty-first-century  techno-humanism  hopes  to
reach  the  goal  far  more  peacefully,  with  the  help  of  genetic  engineering,
nanotechnology and brain–computer interfaces.
Gap the Mind
Techno-humanism  seeks  to  upgrade  the  human  mind  and  give  us  access  to
unknown  experiences  and  unfamiliar  states  of  consciousness.  However,
revamping  the  human  mind  is  an  extremely  complex  and  dangerous
undertaking. As we saw in Chapter 3, we don’t really understand the mind. We
don’t know how minds emerge, or what their function is. Through trial and error
we  learn  how  to  engineer  mental  states,  but  we  seldom  comprehend  the  full
implications of such manipulations. Worse yet, since we are unfamiliar with the
full spectrum of mental states, we don’t know what mental aims to set ourselves.
We  are  akin  to  the  inhabitants  of  a  small  isolated  island  who  have  just
invented  the  first  boat,  and  are  about  to  set  sail  without  a  map  or  even  a
destination. Indeed, we are in a somewhat worse condition. The inhabitants of
our imaginary island at least know that they occupy just a small space within a
large and mysterious sea. We fail to appreciate that we are living on a tiny island
of consciousness within a giant ocean of alien mental states.
Just as the spectrums of light and sound are far larger than what we humans
can see and hear, so the spectrum of mental states is far larger than what the
average  human  is  aware  of.  We  can  see  light  in  wavelengths  of  between  400

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and 700 nanometres only. Above this small principality of human vision extend
the unseen but vast realms of infrared, microwaves and radio waves, and below
it  lie  the  dark  kingdoms  of  ultraviolet,  X-rays  and  gamma  rays.  Similarly,  the
spectrum of possible mental states may be infinite, but science has studied only
two tiny sections of it: the sub-normative and the WEIRD.
For  more  than  a  century  psychologists  and  biologists  have  conducted
extensive  research  on  people  suffering  from  various  psychiatric  disorders  and
mental diseases. Consequently, today we have a very detailed (though far from
perfect) map of the sub-normative mental spectrum. Simultaneously, scientists
have  studied  the  mental  states  of  people  considered  to  be  healthy  and
normative.  However,  most  scientific  research  about  the  human  mind  and  the
human  experience  has  been  conducted  on  people  from  Western,  educated,