Photo by Kiran Udayakumar

What do we want to become?

Peter Nouhan
Jul 20, 2017 · 5 min read

This is the pivotal question that Professor Yuval Noah Harari asks the reader at the end of his book, titled “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” It is also the most important question in my life right now as I attempt to discover my purpose — the mission that I want to dedicate my life to. Should I fight for human rights, become an entrepreneur, or pursue a humble career as a writer?

Reading Harari’s book, however, has thrust me into a tailspin — forcing me to question whether it’s even worthwhile to ask these questions. After all, what are human rights, how important is wealth to happiness, and who will find value in my words in the far reaching future?

The Myth of Human Rights

One of the first declarations of human rights in all of history was the Code of Hammurabi, named after King Hammurabi, the leader of the Babylonian Empire some four thousand years ago. The code asserted that there are universal and eternal principles of justice, dictated by the gods, and it divided people into two genders and three classes: superior people, commoners and slaves. However unequal, the code ensured that the members of Babylonian society would get along well enough to acquire wealth and live with security for many generations, even long after Hammurabi’s death.

Similarly, the United States Declaration of Independence proclaims universal and eternal principles of justice that are “endowed” to all people by their “Creator.” Two hundred and forty years later, the document is still accepted by the vast majority of Americans, and allows them to cooperate in a relatively peaceful and prosperous society.

Both the Code of Hammurabi and the United States Declaration of Independence outline universal principles of justice, but which is more correct? According to Harari, they are both wrong. “The only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another,” he argues.

Today, scientific evidence shows us that humans aren’t created equal, that we are a product of millions of years of evolution, and that the genetic code embedded in each of our cells provides the blueprint for everything that we are allowed to become. Where is the justice in that?

Wealth and Health Don’t Always Lead to Happiness

Imagine for a moment that you win a $100,o00 lottery. If you are a college student making less than $20,000 per year, you would probably experience a long-term surge in subjective happiness. That extra money could go a long way toward reducing your debt obligations, afford you more opportunities to eat out with friends and shore up your emergency savings.

Now image that you won that same lottery, but you are a college administrator making $200,000 a year. In the short-term, you are likely to experience a great deal of happiness. Maybe you’ll buy a new sports car, build a pool for your house and drink more expensive wine. However, the lottery winnings aren’t going to mean that much to you in the long-run. Happiness is relative — an artifact of our expectations.

Likewise, illness may decrease happiness in the short term, but doesn’t appear to effect long term happiness unless it is constantly debilitating. “People who are diagnosed with a chronic illness such as diabetes are usually depressed for a while, but if the illness does not get worse they adjust to their new condition and rate their happiness as highly as healthy people do,” Harari writes. “Happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health, or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.”

“Buddhism may assign the question of happiness more importance than any other human creed,” says Harari. According to Buddhism, the cause of suffering is the pursuit of short-lived feelings, which causes “tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction.” “If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.”

The End of Homo Sapiens

This generation of humans may very well be the last, but it won’t be due to to nuclear Armageddon, disease, or rising sea levels. No, it will be our technological developments that will inevitably lead to the end of Homo sapiens.

Harari claims that humans are on the verge of becoming gods. We are already biologically engineering new forms of life — hijacking the process of natural selection to select for traits that are desirable to humans. We are developing cyborg technology to enhance our natural senses. Bionic ears, retina implants, and robotic limbs are just the beginning. Scientists are promising us a future with nanobots that live in our bloodstreams and that kill off infection and cancer, brain-computer interfaces that will connect our thoughts to the internet, and drugs that can enhance cognitive ability. We are also creating artificial intelligence that can learn and evolve independently from us. The term technological singularity was invented to describe the runaway progress that might result from the creation of a self-improving artificial intelligence. Beyond the singularity, it is impossible to predict the future.

“Most science-fiction plots describe a world in which Sapiens — identical to us — enjoy superior technology such as light-speed spaceships and laser guns. The ethical and political dilemmas central to these plots are taken from our own world, and they merely recreate our emotional and social tensions against a futuristic backdrop. Yet the real potential for future technologies is to change Homo sapiens itself, including our emotions and desires, and not merely our vehicles and weapons. What is a spaceship compared to an eternally young cyborg who does not breed and has no sexuality, who can share thoughts directly with other beings, whose abilities to focus and remember are a thousand times greater than our own, and who is never angry or sad, but has emotions and desires that we cannot begin to imagine?”

What do we want to become?

As Homo sapiens nears its end, we should be worried about the world we leave behind. After all, the gods that supersede us will be shaped by our culture — a culture of unsustainable consumption, rampant inequality, and little regard for the non-human life that inhabits the Earth with us. We certainly wouldn’t want our successors to be shaped by the same capitalist ideals that plunder the Niger Delta for oil, destroying the environment that indigenous tribal communities call home.

“Humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction. Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?,” Harari laments.

However, Harari does offer some glimmer of hope. Maybe if we know the truth about ourselves — actually confront who and what we are — we can learn to avoid the misery of our own making. Becoming more like the humble Buddhist, we could learn to understand how the pursuit of external achievement and short-lived feelings often leads us to greater suffering.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below and follow me on Twitter to keep up with my latest activity: @pmnouhan.

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Peter Nouhan

Written by

Social entrepreneur and digital communications strategist. Follow me on twitter to keep up with my latest activity @pmnouhan

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