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Yuval Noah Harari on Reality and Fiction

10/23/2017

4 Comments

 
In his 2016 book, Homo Deus, Harari speaks of where the differences lie between the imaginative capacities of humans and non-human animals. One aspect is that while animals and humans experience 'objective reality' (e.g., trees) and 'subjective reality' (e.g., feeling pain), only humans experience 'intersubjective realities' (e.g., human rights, corporations, money). The latter are also referred to as fictional realities. And he uses the term 'entities' in describing what is generated within the intersubjective sphere - a term usually reserved for that which exists. 

"Intersubjective entities depend on communication among many humans rather than on the beliefs and feelings of individual humans." (page 168)

"We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another." (page 170)

"Meaning is created when many people weave together a common network of stories." (page 170)

"People constantly reinforce each other's beliefs in a self perpetuating loop. Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe what everyone else believes." (page 170-171)

So how can one tell reality from fiction? "How do you know if an entity is real? Very simple - just ask yourself, 'Can it suffer?'" (page 206)

Fiction cannot experience suffering.

Harari posits that the limitations of imagination in animals are such that they may imagine only what exists in the world. "Animals are confined to the objective realm and use their communication systems merely to describe reality. Sapiens use language to create completely new realities." (page 175)

Harari also points out the central influence of language, and writing in particular, in the creation of the intersubjective.

"Writing ... facilitated the appearance of powerful fictional entities that organized millions of people and reshaped the reality ... Simultaneously, writing also made it easier for humans to believe in the existence of such fictional entities, because it habituated people to experiencing reality through the mediation of abstract symbols." (page 190)

"Written language may have been conceived as a modest way of describing reality, but it gradually became a powerful way to reshape reality." (page 194)

There is no question that this remarkable book is doing the very same to the minds of its readers. For it too reshapes our experience of reality.
4 Comments
Monty Bryant link
10/10/2018 04:55:33 am

Great book, thank you for sharing some of his thoughts with your own, very useful for my work..

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Judith Rackovitch
5/24/2020 09:58:17 am

Interesting and deep

Reply
Nathan S. Ketsdever
1/31/2021 06:58:38 pm


In the absence of ongoing criticism of works like Mr. Harai, I believe its upon us to help practice a degree of self-reflection and self-criticism about these kinds of philosophical argument. But I don't think Mr. Harari's argument stands up--based on the quotes provided.

Exercising reflective and wise critical judgement in such a case is important to deciding between which ideas, concepts, and memes we spread.

Mr. Harai is clearly intelligent, but the hype may overwhelm the substance of his argument. For instance, I'm confused a bit by Mr. Harari's position in four different ways:

1. It's also the case that facts don't suffer either. Suffering ultimately doesn't provide us with a clear cut line for separating facts and fiction. It's an interesting heuristic, but a rather flawed one.

2. Alterations of the definition of these terms would lead to suffering. So, I'm not sure why his distinction fully make sense. [In regards to this, I may be muddying the water more than is really fair. But at least its worth remembering when reflecting on these issues.]
3. Objects don't suffer, but are certainly real.

4. Animals couldn't prepare for the winter if they didn't think in terms of the future. I'm no biologist, and haven't done work on this. But this one certainly befuddle's me. Even making a choice (humans) vs. instinct (animals) distinction here doesn't seem to rehabilitate Yuval's argument.

In light of the above and other challenges, his own hyperbolic rhetoric and generalization seem to get in the way of separating fact from fiction--without much self-reflective criticism.

I realize my criticism has the limits of the background context I have on Yuval and these quotes.

This kind of civil, respectful, and reflective dialog is vital and part of the marketplace of ideas. And helps advance cultural evolution via ideas forward.

Thoughts?

Reply
Soroush Safinia
4/26/2022 08:39:36 pm

Now could humans come up with nuclear bombs without language? Does technology require language? Technology require the labor of more than one human does it not? And those more than one human must use language to further advance technology, may be using stones does not require as much language as nuclear bombs. So on a slightly unrelated turn: forget about "human rights corporations and money" this is NOT a valid statement it is false information, that is the case because the three stated examples are examples of jobs and animals labor to get food. So they work just as humans do. So back to language? I mean if we really are frank about language, language is not about language rather it is about population. I and yes the "I" is very central and important here, I realized how many people are on this planet ever since I started looking for jobs in 2016-17 the competition for jobs led me to visualize how many humans there: I recommend you do not do that with Chinese and Indian citizens or persons in mind because WARNING you head might explode because put together that makes a lot of people looking for jobs. BUT they do not have as much money as Americans do so do not worry. Having said that it is said that Indians speak English so they have the upper hand in the [global] labor market but I guess that is just a saying you may or may not take that a little or too seriously do that in your own time and at your own risk. I guess we came back to language in a way. Now visualize a dog chasing its own tale that might help, does it? If that did not work you might give the thought of whether egg came first or chicken? Since you can eat both of those things let us end with the Good Life. Go on. Chase it. And then if you caught it have it.

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