在年底忙碌的工作和生活之余,终于在春节前把这本烧脑的未来简史给读完了。不想等中文版,怕一旦看了中文版自己就没有紧迫感去看原汁原味的作者的新观点。还好作者用的英文没有那种难懂的专业术语,都是比较简单朴实的句子,但是写出来的观点往往能触动我们内心的感受。
在看完人类简史的震感之余,翻看未来简史,感觉就像是被作者带着从我们的远古过去,到现在,然后在穿越到未来,一一的翻看我们现在所处的社会,我们每天的生活,我们将要面临的生活。在书中作者并没有告诉我们未来是怎么样的,只是告诉我们有可能会变成什么样子的,数据在我们生活中的更大的影响力,算法的步步为赢,现在我们所信奉的东西可能在未来是会被抛弃的。我们所追寻的生命意义往往是无意义的。
遇到事情,光靠观看日出日落,情绪化推断是起不到任何意义的。我们只能顺应这个时代的变化,拥抱这个数据主义所产生的游戏规则。
以下是在书中摘录出来比较喜欢的句子:
1 what's true of ethics and politics is also true of aesthetics.在道德和政治中正确的也同样适用于美学。
2 free will exists only in the imaginary stories we humans have invented.自由意志仅仅存在于我们人类发明的故事中。
3 it is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.活在幻想中比较容易,因为它给我们所遭受的苦难予意义。
4 humans want to merge into the data flow because when you are part of the data flow, you are part of something much bigger than yourself.人们想要融入数据流中,因为你能在其中感到你比你实际存在的感觉伟大。(这也就是我们为什么时时刻刻都要拿个手机,手机流量比通话功能更加重要,我们在寻求一种存在感,也许也是一种不安全感,因为这个系统其实如此之大,没有人能懂全貌,我们只是其中之一)
5 ideas change the world only when they change our behavior. 思想只有在改变我们行为的时候改变世界。
6 today have power means knowing what to ignore. 今天拥有能力以为着知道屏蔽写什么。(我们现在处于一个信息过度的时代,能够去知道自己该关注什么,集中精力干什么的确需要很强的自制力和自控力)
在书的最后,作者用几个推断和问题留给我们去思考,去自己衡量到底什么才是重要的?
“if we think in term of months, we had probably focus on immediate problems such as the turmoil in the Middle East, the refugee crisis in Europe and the slowing of the Chinese economy. If we think in terms of decades, then global warming, growing inequality and the disruption of the job market loom large. Yet if we take the really grand view of life, all other problems and developments are overshadowed by three interlinked processes:
1. Science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms, and life is data processing.
2. Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.
3. Non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves.
These three processes raise three key questions, which I hope will stick in your mind long after you have finished this book:
1. Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?
2. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness?
3. What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?”
摘录来自: Yuval Noah Harari. “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow”。 iBooks.