未來震撼
以色列暢銷歷史學(xué)家展望人類未來
尤瓦爾·諾亞·赫拉利（Yuval Noah Harari）的上一本書《人類簡史》（Sapiens）出版于2011年，書中回顧了人類一路走來的歷程。這本書穿越7萬年的人類歷史，向讀者說明我們這個物種毫無特別之處：沒有神授的權(quán)力，沒有獨一無二的人性火花。值得稱道的只有人類的攀升背后那只看不到的進化之手。該書在結(jié)尾給人留下的思考是，“智人”時代可能即將終結(jié)。在新書《人神合一》（Homo Deus）中，這位以色列歷史學(xué)家將目光投向未來。
赫拉利在新書中以振奮人心的筆調(diào)宣稱：人類的夙敵——瘟疫、饑荒和戰(zhàn)爭——如今已經(jīng)可以控制?！霸谌祟悮v史上第一次出現(xiàn)了這樣的情況，”作者寫道，“死于暴飲暴食的人多過死于饑餓的人；壽終正寢的人多過死于傳染疾病的人；自殺身亡的人多過死于戰(zhàn)爭、恐怖主義和犯罪的人之和?！钡碌膯栴}接踵而至，第三個千禧年的挑戰(zhàn)將是如何獲得永生、幸福和神性，后者的意思在于超越自然法則，增強人類的身體和認知能力。
這聽起來可能是好消息，但作者卻給出了一個反烏托邦的景象。人類將更多地把工作和決策權(quán)交給機器和算法。被機器和算法的發(fā)展拋在一邊的“無用的大眾”將通過藥物和虛擬現(xiàn)實追求幸福的幻象。只有超富人群才能真正收獲新技術(shù)發(fā)展帶來的回報：他們將通過智能設(shè)計來掌控進化的進程，例如編輯基因組以及最終實現(xiàn)人機合一。赫拉利設(shè)想出一個“智人”精英階級，它會演進得讓人無法辨認，成為“人神共體”。在這樣一個美麗新世界里，其他人將會感覺如同“行走于華爾街上的穴居獵人”。
赫拉利的預(yù)言很黯淡，但也并不新穎。更為有趣的是他論述觀點的方式，他將關(guān)于技術(shù)的思索置于自由民主演變的背景之下。赫拉利說在人類歷史的大部分時間里，人類都信仰諸神。這種信仰賦予人類世界一種宇宙秩序。然而后來，至少是在世界部分地區(qū)，科學(xué)發(fā)展開始給予人類力量，同時將宗教擠到邊緣位置，剝奪了人類曾經(jīng)篤信其中的意義。赫拉利寫道，這種存在性的空洞被一種新的信仰所填補，即“圣化人類生命、幸福和力量”的人文主義。人文主義與科學(xué)之間的契約定義了現(xiàn)代社會：后者幫助人類實現(xiàn)前者定下的目標。
然而生命科學(xué)正在削弱人文主義的基礎(chǔ)：自由意志和個人主義。赫拉利寫道，在他看來，科學(xué)研究證明了“自由個人只不過是由一組生化算法炮制出來的一種假象”。赫拉利認為，當人類逐漸明白自由意志是一種假象，而外部算法可以預(yù)測人類行為的時候，自由民主將會垮塌。取而代之的會是什么呢？也許是像“數(shù)據(jù)主義”這樣的科技宗教，從數(shù)據(jù)處理的角度看待萬物，認為宇宙的最高價值就是信息流。在這個背景之下，“智人”只是個很不起眼的算法，終究要被淘汰——或是升級。
盡管這部雄心大作有不少可圈可點之處，但終究只是嘩眾取寵，書中充滿投機取巧的花招和并不令人滿意的空洞概括。赫拉利喜歡堆砌科技術(shù)語來提升作品身價——例如生物科技、納米技術(shù)和人工智能等名詞的大量使用——但卻很少以任何嚴肅的方式深入探討這些話題。相反，他像做TED演講一樣洋洋灑灑，長篇大論。論點中的漏洞像高速旋轉(zhuǎn)的車輪輻條一樣變得模糊不清，制造出一種論據(jù)充分的假象，除此之外再無他物。當讀者放下書本思考的時候，“人神合一”的概念突然不那么令人信服了，那種超級自信的光環(huán)很誘人，卻也很誤導(dǎo)人。
Mankind tomorrow
Future Shock
A bestselling Israeli historian looks at where mankind is heading
“SAPIENS”, Yuval Noah Harari’s previous book which came out in 2011, looked to the past. Zipping through 70,000 years of human history, it showed that there is nothing special about our species: no divine right, no unique human spark. Only the blind hand of evolution lies behind the ascent of man. That work ended with the thought that the story of Homo sapiens may be coming to an end. In his new book, “Homo Deus”, the Israeli historian heads off into the future.
In one thrilling sweep, Mr Harari proclaims that the old enemies of mankind— plague, famine and war—are now manageable. “For the first time in history,” he writes, “more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined.” Instead, the challenges of the third millennium will be how to achieve immortality, happiness and divinity, the latter in the sense of enhancing people’s physical and cognitive abilities beyond the biological norm.
This might sound like good news, but the author has a dystopian vision. People, increasingly, will cede jobs and decisions to machines and algorithms. The “useless masses” cast aside by this development will pursue the mirage of happiness with drugs and virtual reality. Only the super-rich will reap the true rewards of the new technologies, commandeering evolution with intelligent design, editing their genomes and eventually merging with machines. Mr Harari envisages an elite caste ofHomo sapiens evolving into something unrecognisable: Homo deus. In this brave new world, the rest of mankind will be left feeling like “a Neanderthal hunter in Wall Street”. Mr Harari’s prophecy is bleak, but it is far from new. More interesting is the way he roots his speculation about technology in the context of how liberal democracy has evolved. For most of human history, Mr Harari says, humans believed in gods. This lent their world a cosmic order. But then, at least in some parts of the world, science began simultaneously to give mankind power and to strip it of meaning by relegating religion to the sidelines. This existential hole was filled by a new religion, humanism, that “sanctifies the life, happiness and power of Homo sapiens”, he writes. The covenant between humanism and science has defined modern society: the latter helps people achieve the goals set by the former. But the life sciences are now undermining free will and individualism, which are the foundations of humanism. Mr Harari describes scientific research that, in his eyes, proves that the “free individual is just a fictional tale concocted by an assembly of biochemical algorithms”. As it dawns on mankind that free will is an illusion and external algorithms can predict people’s behaviour, Mr Harari believes liberal democracy will collapse. What will replace it? Perhaps a techno-religion such as “Dataism” that treats everything in terms of data processing and whose supreme value is the flow of information. In this context, Homo sapiens is a rather unimpressive algorithm, destined for obsolescence—or an upgrade. Although there is plenty to admire in the ambitious scope of this book, ultimately it is a glib work, full of corner-cutting sleights of hand and unsatisfactory generalisations. Mr Harari has a tendency towards scientific name-dropping—words like biotech, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence abound—but he rarely engages with these topics in any serious way. Instead, he races along in a slick flow of TED-talk prose. Holes in his arguments blur like the spokes of a spinning wheel, giving an illusion of solidity but no more. When the reader stops to think, “Homo Deus” is suddenly less convincing, its air of super-confidence seductive but misleading. |
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《人神合一》（Homo Deus）
尤瓦爾·諾亞·赫拉利（Yuval Noah Harari）著
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