I briefly referenced the book Sapiens in my previous blog, but this 464-page book deserves a blog of its own. Reading this book by Yuval Noah Harari was the perfect nourishment for the curiosity bug in me. The book takes you through three major revolutions that have defined human history: the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution. These revolutions have empowered humans to do something no other form of life has ever done—create and connect around ideas that do not physically exist. Think religion, language, currencies, and politics. These shared “myths,” "social constructs," or "imagined realities" have enabled humans to dominate the globe and put humankind on the verge of overcoming the forces of natural selection. The word Homo sapiens literally translates to "wise man," and we owe this to our obnoxiously large brains relative to our body size. The same brain that once helped us invent ways to escape deadly predators now helps us create TikToks debating which chili is the spiciest. We've come a long way indeed.
Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, humans have lived in a dual reality: the physical reality and the imagined reality. This is where we truly started to differentiate ourselves from other animal species. Before this, we could only think about what we could physically see. Our cooperation was limited to small groups of individuals we knew intimately, much like wolves or chimps. But thanks to these imagined realities—stories and myths—we began cooperating on a scale never seen before. What started as collective beliefs took the form of laws, rituals, and religions. These myths now surround us and dictate much of what we believe and how we live.
The next leap came with the Agricultural Revolution, which didn't necessarily make us smarter, but it did drastically change the way we lived. As humans settled in one place and began farming, population numbers exploded. It was during this time that the concept of the "future" came into focus—humans began to worry about crops, the weather, and the life of domesticated animals. We began to plan ahead, for better or worse. Harari even argues that life became more dreadful for individuals despite the progress made at a community level. Sure, we built civilizations, but we also locked ourselves into cycles of labor and routine that many would argue were less fulfilling than the lives of our ancestors. We moved from living in the present, like hunter-gatherers, to constantly planning ahead—worrying about crops, weather, and food shortages. This makes me wonder if we traded freedom for security, and whether that trade-off still haunts us today.
What really piqued my interest was Harari’s take on the Scientific Revolution. With the dawn of the Scientific Revolution around 500 years ago, humankind entered a new era of knowledge and power. I believe the most fascinating part of this revolution is that science views even the seemingly incomprehensible, like death, as a problem that can be solved. Given enough time and money, science has the audacity to challenge even the finality of death. It’s a mind-bending thought. How often do we treat death as an inevitable, rather than something we might one day understand and possibly overcome? Science, combined with capitalism, ushered in an era of exponential growth. For most of human history, economic progress was largely linear and linked to population growth. Without machines or technological innovations, one person could only produce so much with their time and resources. More recently, innovations in technology and energy allowed the “hockey stick” effect to come into play.
The rise of humans to the top of the food chain was unlike any other species in history. While species gradually rose to the top over millions of years, humans leaped to dominance in a blink of evolutionary time. The world was not prepared and neither were we. This sudden rise has left us with a persistent sense of unease, an anxiety deeply embedded in our nature. It feels like we’re constantly protecting ourselves from threats that might not even exist. We’re not genetically engineered for this position of power, and that might explain why we struggle with anxiety and the incessant need for control and security.
What’s even more unsettling is the thought that our rise might signal an inevitable fall. Just as we displaced other species to become the dominant force on Earth, there’s a chance that something—or someone—will one day take our place. The only question is when.
Reflecting on our journey, I can’t help but wonder: Are we simply here to create, consume, and repeat, or is there something more profound? Are sapiens masters of their destiny or victims of it? In the vastness of the universe, our individual problems—our anxieties, conflicts, and desires—seem so important, yet in the grand cosmic scale, they’re almost insignificant. The more I think about our past, the more I realize how fleeting and fragile our current position truly is. Perhaps the most profound lesson we can learn from Sapiens is that despite all our achievements, we are still searching for purpose, and our place in the universe remains as mysterious as ever.
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