CYBORG RELIGION
On the final page of his book Harari offers a convenient summary of his message. This captures the controversial futurological aspect of the book that has caught the public imagination, taking us into a ‘science fiction’ world where humanity finds itself threatened by the technologies that it has itself created. Actually, the interests of author (a mediaeval historian, who practises meditation) are far wider than this summary suggests. Readers of Harari’s earlier book, Homo Sapiens, will not be surprised to discover that it is the endpoint of a discussion that ranges over the past and the present as well as the future, and addresses the whole issue of the relationship of humanity and technology throughout history.
Still, I shall begin with Harari’s summary. Partly, because it neatly encapsulates the book’s overt message. More importantly, because what Harari says here about the technology of the future illustrates an interesting ambivalence in the writer’s thinking – one that, as I hope to show, goes to the heart of what he has to say about the whole trajectory of human history. So here is that summary:
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.
A conundrum
What strikes me as strange about point 1 – the stranger the more you think about it – is the idea of ‘science’ converging on a ‘dogma’. Does this not raise questions about the truth status of the proposition that ‘organisms are algorithms and life is data processing’? Can the idea that ‘organisms are algorithms’ be both science and a ‘dogma’? Doesn’t ‘dogma’ imply belief on authority rather than evidence? Or am I being too pedantic here? Is this a mere careless use of the term ‘dogma’ where another term – ‘axiom’ or ‘principle’, for example – would have been more apt?
The following reflections on the argument that leads Harari to this endpoint will, I hope, convince you that this strange association of terms (‘science’ and ‘dogma’) is not just a lapse, but takes us to the heart of what Harari has to say about the relationship of science and religion. Hence the interest that it has for this blog.
Three layers of experience – and the meaning of ‘religion’
For Harari, human experience is ‘triple-layered’; depending on what it is experience of, it may be objective, subjective, or inter-subjective. Objective experience relates to entities that are demonstrably ‘real’, and is closely associated with science, which gives us power over our material environment. Subjective experience concerns merely personal beliefs and feelings. Between these layers of experience, Harari inserts a third layer, the intersubjective, which accounts for the greater part of our everyday experience. This relates to entities like religions, ‘Jesus Christ (?), the French Republic, or Google Inc..’ These are ‘human fictions’, in that, if we collectively ceased to believe in them, they would no longer exist. But they are neverthess ‘real’ in the sense that we do all believe in them, and probably take them as much for granted as physical phenomena. They have their origin in the human imagination, but a human imagination that is shared through language. This power of imagination by which humans are enabled to act collectively is what, for Harari, distinguishes us from the beasts. The intersubjective layer of human experience is closely associated with religion, which Harari defines very broadly, as what gives our life meaning.
Religion concerns, not just personal and subjective (i.e. ‘spiritual’) experience, but social and political entities of our collective experience. On this view, nationalism or liberalism or Marxism (perhaps even attachment to a local identity symbolized by a football club) have as much claim be ‘religious’ as Christianity; in short, ‘religion’ turns out to be much of what gives our lives meaning through creating solidarity in communities. The negative side of this, is an associated tendency for ‘religion’ to become strongly assimilated to the human need to maintain ‘social order’. The consequences for religion are mixed. On the one hand, it can’t be dismissed as a ‘disease of reason’ as it is by the New Atheists; after all, we can’t live without these entities of intersubjective experience. On the other, religious people might understandably feel unhappy about the way Harari’s characterization of religion so quickly becomes dissociated from the search for ‘meaning’ and finds itself reduced to a matter of establishing and maintaining order. On balance, though, this broader and more sociological definition of religion (which I find, incidently, in Durkheim and the socio-anthropological tradition) does not seem to me necessarily unfavourable to Christianity. At least it helps to disqualify the kind of naive scepticism of those who pronounce themselves ‘non-religious’. And anything that helps with that has to be welcomed!
At this point, let us briefly return to our original conundrum – the convergence of ‘science’ and ‘dogma’ – and note, in the light of what we have just said, how very odd it is, given the sharpness of the distinction Harari earlier makes between objective (i.e. scientific) experience relating to the demonstrably real and intersubjective experience to which we might in some cases attribute the term ‘dogma’. We shall return to this below.
Three ages of history – and the fragility of ‘humanism’
The commendable broadness of Harari’s definition of religion should not give you the impression that the author harbours any tenderness for traditional religions – though (surprise, surprise!) it is for monotheistic faiths that he reserves an especial venom. The significance of ‘religion’ as that word is popularly understood, and the place of the particular kind of meaning-generating activity which traditional religion promotes, reflects, for Harari, the evolving relationship of religion and science. This story he tells in three episodes, of which the third is still to come. The two episodes that belong to the past – pre-modern and a modern – are separated by the decisive rupture that occurs in human history when humanity begins to privilege science and power over religion and meaning. Up until this decisive moment, an earlier age, epitomized by the rule of ‘Holy Scripture’, had always given precedence to divine laws, even when they got in the way of scientific efforts to acquire power over objective (i.e. physical) reality. For example, the socially useful understanding of disease as the result of an offence to the social fabric placed a curb on any attempt to see disease in more scientific terms. Modernity began with the faustian ‘pact’ that resulted in the sacrifice of religious meaning in the interests of scientific power.
It is far from clear how total this ‘sacrifice’ of meaning for power has actually been. After all, Harari argues that religion remains indispensable to humanity, if for no other reason, in order to maintain social order – which is not a necessity likely to vanish any time soon. In practice, the ‘pact’ seems to involve the cutting of our religious coat to fit the cloth of whatever happens to be the scientific understanding of the time. The reach of that understanding has obviously expanded throughout the second, ‘modern’, phase of our historical development. Consequently, religious meanings that were viable at an early stage of this phase have since become unsustainable, or are about to do so as we advance into the third and future phase of human evolution. The advance of science into even the social domain will presumably require us to ‘cut our religious coat’ within an ever tighter scientific limits. So it seems that the commitment to scientific power entailed by the original pact has implications yet to be fully realized. For example, the theory of Darwinian evolution, sounds the death knell of traditional religion, Harari claims, because it renders any notion of free will completely obsolete. Science has apparently proved that human life – no less than life’s other forms – is an assemblage of algorithms that work their determinist course without reference to any supposed human freedom. Yet one has only to read what Harari goes on to say about the dominant modern form of religion (which he takes to be humanism) to appreciate that, if this is indeed the case, the consequences of the faustian pact have yet to run their course. For this new religion of humanism, at least in its dominant liberal forms, makes individual liberty into its ultimate value. Actually, Harari recognizes this, and argues on this basis that humanism will turn out to be as transient as its traditional fore-runners. In fact, one of the the aims of the book is evidently an all-out attack on the intellectual underpinnings of humanism: the authentic self which modernity takes as its moral reference has no more claim to objective reality, Harari repeatedly insists, than the soul of traditional religion, and is ultimately destined to meet the same fate.
From a faith perspective, there is much to interest us in Harari’s notion of a humanist religion – which relies, of course, on the larger, sociological conception of religion to which we alluded earlier (also very welcome). What Harari means by humanism – with its moral reference to a putative ‘inner’ self that makes its choices on the basis of the capacity of what is chosen to enrich its experience, and bring it realization and fulfilment – corresponds to what some famous thinkiers have called expressivist individualism (e.g. Robert Bellah or Charles Taylor). In this connection it may be relevant to note the author’s acknowledged allegiance to a practice of Buddhist meditation, and the dedication of the book to his teacher Satya Goenka. It is tempting to suspect potentially fruitful anti-humanist alliances here between Western ‘scientific’ materialism and Buddhism (presumably of a westernized, FWBO variety), with its traditional doctrine of ‘no-self’. This leaves my feelings, as a Christian, somewhat divided. On the one hand, there is a certain satisfaction to be taken in the idea of the ‘anti-religious’ position of the New Atheists being definitively ‘turned’ by a future Buddhist scientism quite content to sling the humanist baby out with the religious bathwater. At least, A.C. Grayling et al. will be forced to acknowledge that they have a religion and be ready to defend it as such. On the other hand, the virulence of Harari’s attack gives one a sneaking sympathy for poor old humanism (so abhorrent is the ‘dataist’ religion that is waiting in the wings!). Also an appreciation for what it has inherited from Christianity – especially in regard to its valorization of the individual ‘human’ (yes, I mean really human) life.
Finally, I observe in this connection that our opening conundrum has been resolved! It should by now be evident the imperative for religion to cut its coat within the limits of the diminishing scientific cloth places it on a course of convergence with science: that the new paradigm that awaits us in the third and future phase of human development – that of ‘dataism’ – marks the consummation of this process. That ‘organisms are algorithms’ will be not only acknowledged scientific fact, but also religious ‘dogma’ to the extent that it will impose what Harari claims to be the great ethical injunction of dataism: that information must be allowed to flow without let or hindrance.
Roll on the new age! Or perhaps not – since Harari (for all the ferocious assault on humanism) now seems to want to remain within the modest bounds of prediction. This question of where Harari personally stands – his ethical position, if you like – leads, finally, to the issue of the very possibility of ethics in the situation (both Harari’s and ours, if we take him literally) where human free will is recognized to be an illusion.
Does Harari have an ‘ethical position’?
It is not obvious what Harari means by this claim. There are passages referring to experiments that appear to demonstrate that our moment by moment choices are pre-determined; on the other hand, there are others suggesting that historical awareness can free us from the blinkers of atavistic worldviews. A sympathetic interpretation obliges us to conclude, I think, that, in denying freewill, the author intends primarily to assert that certain motivational and behavioural tendencies have been ‘hard-wired’ by our evolutionary past, and that these will ultimately determine our destiny. If this interpretation is correct, then there remains a place for ethics. In Marxism, for example, the ultimate goal of humanity is fixed; yet, as Harari himself points out, this does not preclude the the possibility that human individuals can place themselves on the side of history – perhaps at great cost to themselves. Or alternatively – since it is not at all clear that Harari sees the ultimate goal of history as something intrinsically desirable – some ethical courage may be required to slow the inevitable, in the interests of reducing the sum total of human suffering. In that case the parallel would be with traditional Buddhist readings of history, in which the prevailing socio-political tide may set strongly towards power and order, yet the ethical choice may be to retire from the mainstream.
Strongly supportive of the latter parallel is the fact that, where Harari does consider ethics, it is invariably in the form of an imperative to avoid suffering – both human and animal. This obviously fits in very well with his evolutionary perspective; for if any ethical principle could be said to be hard-wired by our genes, it would be the avoidance of suffering. It does not require us to cut our religious coat broader than our scientific cloth, or to hitch our ethical values to illusory, intersubjective entities of a political or religious nature. Characteristic, in this regard, is Harari’s advocacy of ‘spirituality’ (as against ‘religion’) which he associates with a pursuit of truth (such as the Buddha’s), as opposed to religious order or scientific power. So my own impression of Harari’s ethical position (and I may be wrong) is one of the typical intellectual (or the Buddhist, for that matter) who distrusts both the social order and the strategies of power, seeks detachment from the religious and scientific mainstream, and resists – where our dataist future is concerned – the temptation to ‘cry on the pack’. This is because he is interested in reducing the sum of human suffering. Does Harari believe that it is possible to separate oneself entirely from the interests of power and the social order? Such a goal would, of course, be delusional. Buddhism has traditionally made its accommodations with science and religion – which is the wiser course. One seeks, but only in the measure of the possible, to stay out of the mainstream – at the quieter margins.
So why is this book interesting from a faith perspective?
Is this a book to give your non-Christian friends? Evidently not. It purveys a version of Christianity few of us would recognize. To make the point that religious dogmas include ‘factual statements’ as well as ethical judgments Harari lists the ‘most important segments’ of our Christian dogma as follows: ‘God exists’; ‘the soul is punished for its sins in the afterlife’; ‘the Bible was written by a deity rather than humans’; ‘the Pope is never wrong’. Hopefully, even non-Christians would find this a less than convincing summation of Christian fundamentals – though, sadly, I’m not too confident about that nowadays. Is Harari thinking of the Middle Ages? Perhaps – since he is apparently a mediaeval historian, though not, it would seem, a particularly empathetic one. Actually, this picture of Christianity is typical of his rather course-grained, unsympathetic descriptions of pretty much every human phenomenon broached in the course of his wide-ranging argument. In the end one gives up jotting in the margin and just allows one’s eye to skim over whole pages. After all, you end up thinking, if the argument itself is really all that matters, why get all worked up about his assertions in regard to things he evidently can’t even be bothered to inform himself about?
But interesting from a Christian perspective? Yes, actually, for a number of reasons. In contra-distinction to the naive secularist position that views itself as a neutral view-from-nowhere onto the religious phenomenon (as though any worldview could be located outside religion), Harari effectively identifies three alternative positions. First, ‘traditional’ religious faith. Second, a ‘humanist’ (i.e. expressivist individualist) position – which happens, in practice, to be the option generally adopted by the naive secularist, as well as the option consciously espoused by proponents of ‘alternative’ or ‘life religion’ such as Mark C. Taylor or Paul Heelas. Third, a nihilist/Buddhist position that discards the religion of the ‘authentic self’, in the supposed interests of the free flow of data and the emergence of a future Silicon Valley elite. Broadly, then, Harari helps us escape the old alternative of ‘to believe’ or ‘not to believe’ by constraining us to a choice between three possible forms of belief. Of course, if we believe Harari, it will only be the illusion of a choice (given the rule of determinism), and will become less and less real to the extent that the expansion of science makes the choice of traditional religion – and ultimately the choice of humanism – increasingly inauthentic.
But we can take or leave Harari when it comes to these assumptions of determinism and the obsolence of ethics. And most – Christians and humanists – will choose to leave him, I suspect. It takes a lot of determination to accept these things, unless you have an interest in doing so – like the Silicon Valley elite, or historians seeking to make money out of shocking the public. Certainly Harari doesn’t offer any very persuasive arguments. If we sling out the determinism, then the idea of a teleological progress of religion from traditional Christianity through to dataism will have to go as well. Which leaves all those of us unwilling to embrace our dataist destiny with a choice between traditional religion and humanism – a choice which can no longer be made on the basis of the ‘objectivity’ of their respective factual underpinnings, since both humanism and Christianity are as patently ‘intersubjective’ and ideological as each other. (Actually, this is hardly surprising, since humanism remains, in some considerable degree, the active ‘secular’ legacy of Christianity). On whole, I don’t find this outcome particularly unfavourable to Christianity, and Harari’s argument – if we ignore its anti-Christian grandstanding – can help to clear the reader’s path to it: first, by disposing of the naïve secularist pseudo-option of ‘not being religious’, second, by frankly characterizing expressivist individualism as a ‘religious position’, and third, by undermining the assumption there is any ‘scientific’ basis for the latter’s notion of the ‘authentic self’. No, I would not give this book to my non-Christian relatives and friends – but if they have – unfortunately – read it, then there are plenty of valuable talking points that would serve the aims of Christian outreach.
Finally, a few words should be said about what appears to be the standpoint of the author personally. The suppression of the humanist values in favour of a scientific/Buddhist doctrine of ‘no self’ seems to me a perfectly rational position. And I think Harari’s discussion throws a very distinct light on what is at stake between the humanist position and his own. It is, broadly, our fundamental sense of the ultimate value of individual human experience, hence of the experiencing self. This may well be a legacy of the Christian ‘incarnational’ theology of the Word. But in its contemporary, Romantic transform, it becomes the sacralisation of individual human experience – as Charles Taylor sees it, of all that is capable of transvaluation through ‘epiphanic’ art. What Harari proposes is effectively an abandonment of this whole legacy of value on the grounds that its claims can no longer be held compatible with the the ‘fact’/‘dogma’ that the human organism is a bundle of algorithms. I think Harari is right to suspect that this ‘fact’/’dogma’ is unlikely to gain popular assent any time very soon though it might appeal to the ‘Silicon Valley elite’. In traditional Buddhist religion, the principle of ‘no self’ corresponds well enough to the idea that desire is at the root of human suffering. But this doctrine seems to me about as congenial to our contemporary post-Christian world as the equally rational ancient Greek injunction ‘to call no man happy until he is dead’.
JORDAN PETERSON: 12 RULES OF LIFE
DAVID GRAEBER: THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING
STEVEN PINKER: ENLIGHTENMENT NOW!
TERRY EAGLETON: RADICAL SACRIFICE
JOHN GRAY: SEVEN TYPES OF ATHEISM
REZA ASLAN: GOD, A HUMAN HISTORY
JONATHAN HAIDT: THE REVENGE OF THE RIGHTEOUS MIND
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