science

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow rather than just read about it. In short: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Hebrew: ההיסטוריה של המחר (Romanised: hahistoria shel hamachar), English: The History of the Tomorrow) is a book written by Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book was first published in Hebrew in 2015 by Dvir publishing; the English-language version was published in September 2016 in the United Kingdom and in February 2017 i…

Key takeaways

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Hebrew: ההיסטוריה של המחר (Romanised: hahistoria shel hamachar), English: The History of the Tomorrow) is a book written by Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book was first published in Hebrew in 2015 by Dvir publishing; the English-language version was published in September 2016 in the United Kingdom and in February 2017 in the United States. As with its predecessor, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harari recounts the course of human history while describing events and the individual human experience, along with ethical issues in relation to his historical survey. However, Homo Deus (from Latin "Homo" meaning man or human and "Deus" meaning God) deals more with the abilities acquired by humans (Homo sapiens) throughout their existence, and their evolution as the dominant species in the world. The book describes mankind's current abilities and achievements and attempts to paint an image of the future. Many philosophical issues are discussed, such as humanism, individualism, transhumanism, and mortality.

Summary The book sets out to examine possibilities of the future of Homo sapiens. The premise outlines that during the 21st century, humanity is likely to make a significant attempt to gain happiness, immortality, and God-like powers. Throughout the book, Harari openly speculates various ways that this ambition might be realised in the future based on the past and present. The book focuses as well on humanism, religion and capitalism and compares the two throughout the book.

Homo sapiens conquers the world The first part of the book explores the relationship between humans and other animals, exploring what led to the former's dominance over the latter. Harari speculates as well why homo sapiens and not neanderthals rule the world.

Homo sapiens gives meaning to the world Since the language revolution some 70,000 years ago, humans have lived within an "intersubjective reality", such as countries, borders, religion, money and companies, all created to enable large-scale, flexible cooperation between different individual human beings. Humanity is separated from other animals by humans' ability to believe in these intersubjective constructs that exist only in the human mind and are given force through collective belief. Humankind's immense ability to give meaning to its actions and thoughts is what has enabled its many achievements. Harari argues that humanism is a form of religion that worships humankind instead of a god. It puts humankind and its desires as a top priority in the world, in which humans themselves are framed as the dominant beings. Humanists believe that ethics and values are derived internally within each individual, rather than from an external source. During the 21st century, Harari believes that humanism may push humans to search for immortality, happiness, and power. The book explores three different kinds of humanism including socialist humanism, evolutionary humanism and liberal humanism. Harari discusses their advantages as well as their impact on society throughout history and explores their core doctrines and ideology. Harari speculates about various theories why different kinds of humanism have conquered the world throughout the last centuries and compares them in various aspects to religion. Hararis concludes that humanism is "the leading world religion" because humanism is flexible and adapts itself to new inventions and changes in society. The book states that religion has lost influence throughout previous centuries because religion tries to solve problems and answer questions by looking for the answer in holy scripts, whereas humanism in comparison would solve problems through science, research and innovation.

Homo sapiens loses control Technological developments have threatened the continued ability of humans to give meaning to their lives; Harari suggests the possibility of the replacement of humankind with the super-man, or "homo deus" (human god) endowed with abilities such as eternal life. The last chapter suggests the possibility that humans are algorithms, and as such Homo sapiens may not be dominant in a universe where big data becomes a paradigm. As humans absorb more data, they become more algorithmic and more efficient at processing data, which gives humans deeper emotions and superior intellectual abilities. However, the rapidly growing data may ultimately consume humans in the sense that nothing that originally made us human is left, and make humans obsolete. The book closes with the following question addressed to the reader:"What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?"

Awards and honors Time magazine listed Homo Deus as one of its top ten non-fiction books of 2017. Wellcome longlisted Homo Deus for their 2017 Book Prize.

Reception Homo Deus was reviewed or discussed in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, The New Yorker, NPR, Financial Times, and Times Higher Education. Steve Aoki's song "Homo Deus" on the album Neon Future IV is named after the book and features Harari's narration of the audiobook. Writing in The Guardian, David Runciman praised the book's originality and style, although he suggested that it lacked empathy for Homo sapiens. The review points out that "Harari cares about the fate of animals in a human world but he writes about the prospects for Homo sapiens in a data-driven world with a lofty insouciance." He also added: "Harari would probably be the first to admit, it's [the book] only intelligent by human standards, which are nothing special. By the standards of the smartest machines it’s woolly and speculative." Runciman nonetheless gave the book a generally positive review. In a mixed review, The Economist called Homo Deus "a glib work, full of corner-cutting sleights of hand and unsatisfactory generalisations" and stated that "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." Writing in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Allan McCay has challenged Harari's claims about human algorithmic agency.

Translations Translations include:

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

In research: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2015 non-fiction books, Books about historiography, Books about human intelligence, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow in simple terms?

Why does Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.