As the name implies, A Brief History of the Future is a book about the future. According to the great changes of human society in the past 300 years, many reasonable and convincing speculations and imaginations have been made about the future human beings and human society, although these speculations and imaginations are only a possibility. But this book does not talk about the economic system, political system or other institutional arrangements of human beings and human society in the future, but uses a lot of space to describe the historical evolution of human society, thus deducing the possible future society. Moreover, Hulali has repeatedly stressed that this result is only a possibility, which inspires us to think about how to realize this possibility or avoid it, and what we should do under this possibility.
This is Herari's handwriting on the title page of the Chinese version of A Brief History of the Future: When we face the ultimate problem of this chaotic world, we need China readers to contribute their wisdom.
Living in the present, we are happy. Humans walked out of Africa about 60 thousand years ago and went to all parts of the world. How many hardships our ancestors experienced! 60,000 years is nothing to the 4.2 billion years on earth. However, in these 60,000 years, human beings conquered the earth and became the supreme ruler of the earth, and everything was monopolized by me! From the agricultural revolution to the industrial revolution to the information revolution, and today's internet of everything, human beings have created great wealth. This kind of wealth, with material, satisfies our material desires; Have spirit and satisfy our divinity; Institutions, whether authoritarian or democratic, make us human beings strong. All these have laid the foundation for our supremacy as human beings.
This is a famous photo. 1990, when Voyager 1 was about to fly out of the solar system, 6 billion kilometers away from the Earth, NASA ordered it to look back and took 60 photos, one of which happened to include the Earth, which is the bright spot in the picture. Carl sagan, an astrophysicist and a famous popular science writer, said this famous saying about the photo above-at this little point, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have heard of and everyone who once existed spent the rest of their lives there. Here are all joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religious, ideological and economic theories, every hunter and explorer, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and farmer, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every parent, inventor and explorer, every moral teacher, every corrupt politician, every superstar.
It should be said that today we live the most comfortable life since mankind. Eating delicious food, safe and convenient transportation, spacious and beautiful houses, comfortable and happy jobs, open and safe society, democratic and free politics, peace under nuclear deterrence, and so on. These are all accumulated bit by bit in 60 thousand years. We should cherish the present.
It is painful for us to live in the present. Perhaps, as Herari said, just as the nouveau riche was psychologically and culturally unprepared, the disaster we brought to the earth was unprecedented. Species extinction, climate warming, population explosion, mountain torrents, earthquakes, plagues, wars, etc. , has been plaguing mankind. While pursuing material comforts endlessly, human beings also put themselves in danger.
Herari has such a passage in the book:
Stone Age experience: on the first day, I walked in the virgin deep forest 10 hour, and camped in the open space by the river for the night; The next day, the canoe went down the river 10 hour and camped by the river; On the third day, I learned from the local people how to fish in the lake and pick mushrooms in the nearby Woods.
Modern proletarian experience: on the first day, I worked in a polluted textile factory 10 hour and spent the night in a crowded apartment building; The next day, the cashier in the local department store spent 10 hours going back to the same apartment building to sleep; On the third day, learn from the local people how to open a bank account and fill out the loan form.
Which one would you choose? The answer is obvious.
What is the reason for this dilemma? What's wrong with humans? Humanity, materiality or divinity?
The future must be beautiful. This is my opinion and my firm belief. Although Herari said that we can't really predict the future, although he attributed the future religion to dataism rather than humanism. Dataism may be the religion of the future. People can attribute everything to data, but people, human beings, will definitely play a decisive role in this new religion. Without human religion, this religion will be meaningless and worthless whether it believes in God, people themselves or ubiquitous data. No matter how powerful the data is, just like Almighty God, people give it to them. Everything that human beings pursue is self-centered, not burying themselves. Because people are people and keep making mistakes. But human beings have been correcting their mistakes and moving towards a better future.
Editor's postscript: Israel's Herali is simply a "strange man". Born in 1976, he wrote a book on world history that attracted the attention of global academic circles at a young age. This "rare gifted historian" combined so many "hard sciences" at once and wrote a complete "future history of mankind". His extraordinary imagination is somewhat incredible. Just as we know that "there are a thousand readers, there are a thousand Hamlets", how can we understand the author's thoughts without personal experience? The author of the book The Future Must Be Beautiful is a liberal arts student in the Department of Philosophy. It is not easy to take a little time out of your busy schedule to finish reading Herari's masterpiece, and perseverance is also valuable. In today's era of network electronics flooding, there are too few people who are willing to spend time reading books, so they can also be called "strange people". How many * * collide with "strange people" Although there have been many "doomsday theories" before, only by grasping the technology that human beings have, using it correctly and following the laws of nature can people become or approach smarter gods. Before the "Big Bang", let us human beings who are "dust suspended in the sun" cherish the time together and live a good life together before the curtain call.
Thoughts on Reading the Preface of A Brief History of the Future 2
On a WeChat chat, I asked Daxiong what he thought of the world development trend in the next century, because our generation lived in this period. He strongly recommended me to read the book A Brief History of the Future.
After reading it, it is really enlightening. Many questions that the author thinks are also questions that I have been thinking about for more than ten years, but the author's thinking is more systematic and clear. In addition to reading, I also have an idea that people like Herari are actually "professional thinkers" in an era of increasingly detailed social division of labor. Most of us always have chores in life, either lazy or directionless, and professional thinkers like Herari are just a supplement to us ordinary people.
The author mentioned a sentence, the caveman hunter on Wall Street, which is very appropriate to describe our modern life. Nowadays, it is increasingly difficult for us to fully understand the world around us. Technology has become extremely complex, and it is gradually impossible to understand the principles behind it, and the organizational structure and process are also complicated to grasp. It is more difficult to sort out the relationship between various events. In the end, there is a good chance that you will simply give up. If you don't understand, you don't understand and live the same life.
But the author did not give up. Although the micro-social phenomenon is too complicated to grasp, he found a macro-framework to interpret the real world. A Brief History of the Future is his observation of the present and prediction of the future, which provides a very grand perspective to help readers understand the operation of the world.
This book is very rich in content, and four points are very inspiring and impressive to me. Here is a brief introduction.
(A) the significance of the network
The author puts forward the concept of "web of meaning", which is a constantly changing web of meaning in thousands of years of recorded human history.
The organization and operation of society is to spread a set story through the communication and interaction between people. This story will determine the meaning of everyone's life. Good or bad, beautiful or ugly, right or wrong will be judged in the network of this meaning.
From the earliest religion to socialism to humanism, different times tell different stories, and people who believe in the same story interact in the same network.
With this understanding, we will have a slightly different view of many common social concepts.
(2) Narrative self
The author divides ego into experiential ego and narrative ego.
The feeling now is to experience yourself, and you can feel pleasure and pain.
The long-term decision of life depends on the narrative self. Everyone weaves a story for himself and lives his life accordingly. When we write our own stories, we will refer to the stories of people around us, as well as the stories of experts and successful people, so we join the network of meaning.
When we talk about "I", we actually mean me in this story.
(3) knowledge formula
The author summarizes the knowledge formulas of three eras:
1. Middle Ages: knowledge = Jing Yi x logic.
2. Now: knowledge = empirical data x mathematics
3. New Humanism (Future): Knowledge = Experience x Sensitivity
This is a very subversive statement, which shows us that the form of knowledge itself is also changing. At present, knowledge based on empirical observation and mathematical statistics is still dominant in our society. But we can also find that the importance of personal experience is gradually increasing.
In design, artistic creation and other activities, experience and sensitivity have more and more special value, and can actually be regarded as a kind of knowledge.
Data and algorithms
Markets, governments, and even people themselves are all ways to process data.
The author said that the scientific community is gradually forming a knowledge that biology is just an algorithm, which processes all kinds of data. It is possible to create an algorithm that transcends human beings. People's ability to store and process data is far less than that of large computers.
We are actually in the world of algorithms, and social algorithms are constantly evolving. This year, China began to offer the major of "Data Analysis and Big Data Technology" in many universities.
The threat that all people may face in the future: a few people will become superman after upgrading. They go beyond algorithms and have unprecedented ability and creativity, so they can make the most important decisions in the world. The algorithm system cannot understand and control these people. But most people don't upgrade, they become inferior animals, dominated by algorithms and superman's control.
summary
In the future, biotechnology and intelligent technology may gradually combine to develop a "new human" beyond the current human beings, and may achieve eternal life. In fact, some people are already doing relevant research. A Brief History of the Future is a summary of our times. Our most essential desires, such as staying young and living forever, have not changed for thousands of years. In the past, we could only fantasize in religious ceremonies, but the development of science and technology has solved many problems and brought new hope to mankind.
Reading a Brief History of the Future 3 I read an emotional article in Longxingfa Group this morning, saying that Lin, Liang Sicheng and Jin were emotional. At this time, the three of them sat down to talk about who loves Lin more. So Liang Sicheng, Lin and Liang chose to get married. Ironically, after Lin died, Liang Sicheng remarried immediately, but Jin never married for Lin. Who loves it more? I actually felt a little ridiculous after reading it. Everyone thinks that their views are correct, so the published text is beyond doubt. Maybe everyone thinks that Kim didn't marry for Lin's life, and a fish is not a fish. Maybe Jin, like most of our leftover men and women, missed a relationship at that time, and then left-clicked on the back, so it was difficult to find the person who liked each other. Not not to marry, but for Lin.
This confirms the words in the book that our group initiated reading together. This book is "A Brief History of the Future", which is what it said when it wrote "The Web of Meaning": People think that there are only two kinds of reality: objective reality and subjective reality. As we all know, there is another situation: mutual subjectivity. We give meaning to many things, but they are all fiction. Humans will constantly strengthen each other's beliefs in a self-circulating way. Every mutual confirmation will bring us closer to the network of meaning. So many things that don't exist are thought to be like this, so it is like this. Many things don't exist, but we all think it exists, so it exists, just like the relationship between it and gold. After reading all the articles, I think that Kim is not married to Lin for life, so most people believe it, but who knows if this is the case? This is just an example. Maybe you think their feelings have nothing to do with me. I just need to live my own life, but that's just an example that can be applied to many things. Therefore, when judging and imagining a thing, don't always think that you are so right, and don't be so convinced of your consistent thoughts.
Reading a brief history of the future needs to be shared. I find it a little difficult for me to express this opinion for the time being. I am good at writing it down. Before reading this book, I always thought I was a person without religious belief. Because I really don't believe in religion, I also think that there is no God, and maybe most people are like me. But after reading this book, I think I am an out-and-out religious believer. Why? Because I always believe in fate, in American movies, I always convince you that this is fate at the end. Usually I also believe that in the dark, many things always seem to happen in the dark. I believe that many things are fate, such as marriage. I've been thinking about why I can't always find the right person to get married, so I think it's a very dark thing, and there will always be someone waiting in the dark. But after reading A Brief History of the Future, I can't help feeling a little desperate, because there is no fate in this book, everything is an algorithm, and even the conscious feeling is an algorithm, which can be fundamentally nihilistic. Where will there be fate?
For example, I like to say fate. According to the meaning of a brief history of the future, there is no fate. Everything is illusory in consciousness, and fate can be followed, but it reminds me of one thing. My good friend Tamia Liu, whom we have known for many years, asked me to introduce his girlfriend before he got married. I told him, "What's the hurry? Let's leave it to fate. " He answered me at that time: "If I listen to your life, I don't think I can get a wife in my life." Now he has been married for a long time. Kind of funny. Sometimes I really don't believe in karma. Maybe there is no karma in this life.
Secondly, after reading this book, I still feel that life is very good now, because one day in the future, the whole world will be in the data age, everything is an algorithm, and your thinking and perception are just algorithms. I can't help but feel that this is a cold era, because even emotions and experiences can be bought with money, just like buying an ice cream. Everyone is not unique, you can buy the talent of artists, the wisdom of scientists, anything you can imagine. It can be stored in your body like a chip, and you can become omnipotent and upgrade to a god. Then I think I still don't want to be a god. I still want to live in this world as an ordinary person, and experience ordinary birth and death, love and hate.
I used to read many literary works such as A Dream of Red Mansions, Zhang Ailing, world famous works and Chinese famous works. Thanks to a large group of coffee, I have been exposed to many things that I have never touched before. I have read some books that I never thought I would read before, such as Three-body, General History of the World, A Brief History of the Future, Tao Te Ching and so on. These books may never enter my world before, but now I am fascinated by them. Reading may not be of any substantial help to my life. It can't help me find a job with higher salary or lead a different life. But it really broadened my horizons, from a little love that only cares about myself, my mind suddenly widened. I will understand that standing in the long river of history and at the height of the universe, I am really not even a grain of sand. So many times you don't have to worry so much about your unhappiness. Although I finally returned to my own small world, I wrote some words of my own little emotions. But at least I understand that there are so many people in this world who are struggling at the height of mankind.
Finally, I send you a poem:
muddledness
Am I really in love with you?
isn't it?
Fall in love with youth that never returns.
That?
Flowers that wither before they bloom.
Such a hasty summer.
That?
A painting that was abandoned before it was finished.
Break up at will like this
Am I really in love with you?
Otherwise, otherwise, how is it possible?
fall in love with
That unbearable youth
After reading A Brief History of the Future, I just received training some time ago and just experienced the pairing feeling of "aborigines", "immigrants" and "refugees" on the Internet. Herari's A Brief History of the Future once again triggered my shock and thinking. What will I do in the face of the future? what can I do?
The author is really a strange man, who broke my habitual thinking and grafted history and future. With nearly 400 pages, the book takes the future era after human farewell to disease and war as the timeline, and puts forward the goal society of human happiness, immortality and divinity. By reviewing the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens and comparing it with other animals, this paper reveals what kind of existence Homo sapiens is and how humanism has become the religion of this world. The book describes a more concrete and clear future society than Marx's capitalist society: victory over famine, plague and war, prosperity, health and peace for all, eternal life, happiness and incarnation as gods.
There is a saying in the book: "knowledge is useless if it can't change behavior, but once it changes behavior, it immediately loses its meaning." The more data we have, the deeper we know about history, the faster the trajectory of history changes, and the faster our knowledge becomes obsolete. "Our society is changing too fast, our knowledge is consumed too fast, and our normal accumulation and accumulation have made ends meet. As the Fu Bureau pointed out that day, we have waited too long.
A Brief History of the Future tells us that our generation may catch up with the dividends of the development of biological science and medical science, and we have the opportunity to eliminate the influence of diseases such as cancer and realize long-term vitality. However, when I closed the book, I found that I was really not ready for such vitality. On my 40th birthday, I wrote an essay, which was published in Pujiang today, giving a qualitative description of my 80-year-old life and finding that my life is half over. In a blink of an eye, if you enter the age of 50, you may still have half your life to live, so you are not ready to retire-this is really a bit of a loss about how to deal with it.
With the advent of the era of artificial intelligence, how should we deal with and transform our career and life? It may be more than just an expectation to really upgrade from man to "God". The lack of physical adaptation can not face psychological adaptation and become a "refugee" in the future era or society. Even if you are lucky enough to escape to that era, you will only become a useless class at the mercy of smart devices, and your life destiny cannot be controlled by yourself. This may also be a painful life experience.
In the face of such a beautiful and tragic future, Herali has given us a way out: to keep learning all our lives and constantly build a brand-new self. Only most people, including myself, probably can't do this.
As for how to become a lifelong learner, Herali did not express it in the book. In fact, this is not a brief history that should be interpreted. This is the task assigned to all of us by A Brief History of the Future, right?
We are eager for the future, but we must base ourselves on the present, improve ourselves, stay away from this society, and don't let society abandon us. Maybe we can't wait for the future we long for, and we can't evolve into gods, but at least we can enrich ourselves and be happy. 50 years old, maybe just the beginning of life!
Although reading A Brief History of the Future is hard to say, I have to tell the truth. It took me nearly a month to finish reading A Brief History of the Future, and it was a leap reading. It should be said that I didn't read it persistently, let alone understand it. During the training, among all the recommended books, I read this book first, and it was the word "history" that attracted me. It should be said that I am an imagist and an image thinker. I like biographies of historical figures and stories on historical themes, but I don't like books and books that are too academic. Those abstruse theories, models, formulas and arguments give me a headache and I can only stand still.
Since middle school, I like reading translated works, because I like the style of translated articles. Sentences are often inverted and long sentences are common. Humorous breath such as metaphor and personification attracts me and makes me feel like prose. But after reading A Brief History of the Future, I was wrong. Because A Brief History of the Future is not only a history, but also a history of deducing the future. History, philosophy and science, futurology. I think this translation is a bit difficult to read, mainly for several reasons: first, most of the examples quoted in foreign history books are world-wide and I am not familiar with them; Second, future technologies, information and concepts are hard to be heard because of ignorance. We often need to look up some materials to learn, such as information and biotechnology, humanistic characteristics, religious and historical events and so on. Some people can't pass, so they have to read it several times. Third, it is different from our familiar biographical style, chronological style and chronological history. This "history" is people-centered, including science, technology and consciousness, with predictions. Based on the thoughts and hopes of the past 300 years, it is classified, expounded and described through flashback and insertion. Fourth, in recent years, I have been reading short comments and gossip with my mobile phone. I have no mood, no perseverance and no habit of reading big books and academic works.
However, we have to say that A Brief History of the Future is both shocking and interesting. It not only tells us the familiar past, but also corrects or subverts our thinking, thinking and thinking about the present in various cruel or silent ways. More importantly, while presenting history to us, it makes us try to feel, see and know the future and where mankind will eventually go. So, by the end of writing this experience, I haven't got a glimpse of that profound brief history of the future, and I haven't been able to enter the room.
The basic judgment is that mankind has basically solved the three major problems of "famine, plague and war" that have plagued for thousands of years, and has been constantly reforming, innovating and fighting for it. Why is it basically solved? It is because these three problems still exist in a small local area, and the probability of occurrence sometimes. But we have the ability to control its spread, which means the risk is controllable. In the near future, even today, insatiable human beings are faced with three major propositions: eternal life, happiness and incarnation as God. This experience can only put forward a few doubts and thoughts about "eternal life" to see if the friends feel the same way, and it can be regarded as collecting some information from the perspective of dataism …
We are eager to extend the length of life, extend the breadth and depth of survival value, and pursue perfection. Matter does not die. As far as matter is concerned, human beings are made up of many parts (organs, tissues and nerves are the technical terms). At the microscopic level, they are also composed of atoms and molecules, and they will live forever. The key is to find a technology to prevent this substance from being corroded and avoid all physical and chemical changes. In recent years, the great development of biological gene technology has enabled us to master the powerful weapon against death, decipher the life code and master the way of Immortal Technique's longevity. We will no longer lament that we have suffered a lot in the past, and there is no need to buy an inch of time with money. We will have a lot of time and energy to focus on our hobbies, specialize in our work and career, and do everything to the extreme. How comfortable and happy it is.
But "immortality" gives us hope and fears; It gave us certainty and let us lose. The fun and meaning of life lies in a sense of accomplishment and something to do. If life grows to the point where there is nothing to do, is it the next important task for mankind to find a happy, fast and immoral way to end life?
A Brief History of the Future says: Knowledge is useless if it can't change behavior, but once knowledge changes behavior, it immediately loses its meaning. With the development of medicine and biology, we may realize super-long vitality. This is a blessing, but it is also cruel. We need 20 years to rest before we retire at the age of 60. In the near future, we find that after we retire at the age of 60, we still have 60 years to survive. So what are we going to do? How should we face it? What kind of knowledge reserves do you have to face? Where is our future competitiveness?
You can't innovate without innovation. If you haven't died on the beach before, you can't keep going from wave to wave. How do we deal with reproduction and heredity? The initial cognition is that death is a natural law, and there is no new life without death. Today, in order to avoid overcrowding and the unemployment rate of 50% or even higher, which will lead to a new round of "famine, plague and war", should we cut off our new life for eternal life? I can't think of this question, and the author doesn't seem to tell us the exact answer. Welcome friends to tell me.
A Brief History of the Future is the author's prediction, and optimism and pessimism are intertwined. But the general purpose is to stimulate thinking. In this regard, we are just afraid that we can't adapt to the future, it is difficult to control the future and be abandoned by the future. The euphemistic name of reading experience is actually to complete Zou's reading task of loving and caring for us ... I'm not afraid of not knowing, but I'm afraid you don't know. Whether optimistic or pessimistic, the future will come. While there is still time and opportunity, think more about various possibilities, understand some future trends, learn more new knowledge, master more skills, and become a versatile person. There is no harm in all kinds of abilities.
Finally, make a soup with a famous epigram: it's never too old to learn.