Homo Deus: a brief History of Tomorrow

feels fear and trembling at the sight of the lion, and he feels his mouth watering
at  the  sight  of  the  bananas.  Within  a  split  second,  he  experiences  a  storm  of
sensations,  emotions  and  desires,  which  is  nothing  but  the  process  of
calculation. The result will appear as a feeling: the baboon will suddenly feel his
spirit rising, his hairs standing on end, his muscles tensing, his chest expanding,
and  he  will  inhale  a  big  breath,  and  ‘Forward!  I  can  do  it!  To  the  bananas!’

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Alternatively, he may be overcome by fear, his shoulders will droop, his stomach
will  turn,  his  legs  will  give  way,  and  ‘Mama!  A  lion!  Help!’  Sometimes  the
probabilities match so evenly that it is hard to decide. This too will manifest itself
as a feeling. The baboon will feel confused and indecisive. ‘Yes . . . No . . . Yes .
. . No . . . Damn! I don’t know what to do!’
In  order  to  transmit  genes  to  the  next  generation,  it  is  not  enough  to  solve
survival  problems.  Animals  also  need  to  solve  reproduction  problems  too,  and
this depends on calculating probabilities. Natural selection evolved passion and
disgust  as  quick  algorithms  for  evaluating  reproduction  odds.  Beauty  means
‘good chances for having successful offspring’. When a woman sees a man and
thinks, ‘Wow! He is gorgeous!’ and when a peahen sees a peacock and thinks,
‘Jesus! What a tail!’ they are doing something similar to the automatic vending
machine.  As  light  reflected  from  the  male’s  body  hits  their  retinas,  extremely
powerful algorithms honed by millions of years of evolution kick in. Within a few
milliseconds the algorithms convert tiny cues in the male’s external appearance
into reproduction probabilities, and reach the conclusion: ‘In all likelihood, this is
a  very  healthy  and  fertile  male,  with  excellent  genes.  If  I  mate  with  him,  my
offspring  are  also  likely  to  enjoy  good  health  and  excellent  genes.’  Of  course,
this  conclusion  is  not  spelled  out  in  words  or  numbers,  but  in  the  fiery  itch  of
sexual attraction. Peahens, and most women, don’t make such calculations with
pen and paper. They just feel them.
Even Nobel laureates in economics make only a tiny fraction of their decisions
using  pen,  paper  and  calculator;  99  per  cent  of  our  decisions  –  including  the
most  important  life  choices  concerning  spouses,  careers  and  habitats  –  are
made  by  the  highly  refined  algorithms  we  call  sensations,  emotions  and
desires.
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Because  these  algorithms  control  the  lives  of  all  mammals  and  birds  (and
probably  some  reptiles  and  even  fish),  when  humans,  baboons  and  pigs  feel
fear,  similar  neurological  processes  take  place  in  similar  brain  areas.  It  is
therefore likely that frightened humans, frightened baboons and frightened pigs
have similar experiences.
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There  are  differences  too,  of  course.  Pigs  don’t  seem  to  experience  the
extremes  of  compassion  and  cruelty  that  characterise  Homo  sapiens,  nor  the
sense of wonder that overwhelms a human gazing up at the infinitude of a starry
sky.  It  is  likely  that  there  are  also  opposite  examples,  of  swinish  emotions
unfamiliar  to  humans,  but  I  cannot  name  any,  for  obvious  reasons.  However,
one core emotion is apparently shared by all mammals: the mother–infant bond.
Indeed, it gives mammals their name. The word ‘mammal’ comes from the Latin
mamma,  meaning  breast.  Mammal  mothers  love  their  offspring  so  much  that

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they  allow  them  to  suckle  from  their  body.  Mammal  youngsters,  on  their  side,
feel an overwhelming desire to bond with their mothers and stay near them. In
the  wild,  piglets,  calves  and  puppies  that  fail  to  bond  with  their  mothers  rarely
survive for long. Until recently that was true of human children too. Conversely, a
sow, cow or bitch that due to some rare mutation does not care about her young
may  live  a  long  and  comfortable  life,  but  her  genes  will  not  pass  to  the  next
generation. The same logic is true among giraffes, bats, whales and porcupines.
We  can  argue  about  other  emotions,  but  since  mammal  youngsters  cannot
survive  without  motherly  care,  it  is  evident  that  motherly  love  and  a  strong
mother–infant bond characterise all mammals.
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A peacock and a man. When you look at these images, data on proportions, colours and sizes gets
processed by your biochemical algorithms, causing you to feel attraction, repulsion or indifference.
Left: © Bergserg/Shutterstock.com. Right: © s_bukley/Shutterstock.com.
It took scientists many years to acknowledge this. Not long ago psychologists
doubted  the  importance  of  the  emotional  bond  between  parents  and  children
even  among  humans.  In  the  first  half  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  despite  the
influence  of  Freudian  theories,  the  dominant  behaviourist  school  argued  that
relations between parents and children were shaped by material feedback; that
children needed mainly food, shelter and medical care; and that children bonded
with  their  parents  simply  because  the  latter  provide  these  material  needs.
Children who demanded warmth, hugs and kisses were thought to be ‘spoiled’.
Childcare  experts  warned  that  children  who  were  hugged  and  kissed  by  their
parents would grow up to be needy, egotistical and insecure adults.
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John  Watson,  a  leading  childcare  authority  in  the  1920s,  sternly  advised

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parents, ‘Never hug and kiss [your children], never let them sit in your lap. If you
must,  kiss  them  once  on  the  forehead  when  they  say  goodnight.  Shake  hands
with  them  in  the  morning.’
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 The  popular  magazine  Infant Care  explained  that
the  secret  of  raising  children  is  to  maintain  discipline  and  to  provide  the
children’s  material  needs  according  to  a  strict  daily  schedule.  A  1929  article
instructed  parents  that  if  an  infant  cries  out  for  food  before  the  normal  feeding
time, ‘Do not hold him, nor rock him to stop his crying, and do not nurse him until
the exact hour for the feeding comes. It will not hurt the baby, even the tiny baby,
to cry.’
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Only  in  the  1950s  and  1960s  did  a  growing  consensus  of  experts  abandon
these  strict  behaviourist  theories  and  acknowledge  the  central  importance  of
emotional needs. In a series of famous (and shockingly cruel) experiments, the
psychologist Harry Harlow separated infant monkeys from their mothers shortly
after  birth,  and  isolated  them  in  small  cages.  When  given  a  choice  between  a
metal  dummy-mother  fitted  with  a  milk  bottle,  and  a  soft  cloth-covered  dummy
with no milk, the baby monkeys clung to the barren cloth mother for all they were
worth.
Those  baby  monkeys  knew  something  that  John  Watson  and  the  experts  of