Yuval Noah Harari

Historian, author of "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" and "NEXUS: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI"

How can we build trust with others? – our essential question to become Good Ancestors

Ruriko Watanabe, Camphor Tree Village

Have you heard of Yuval Noah Harari?

He is a globally renowned historian, whose books, including "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," have sold over 50 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 65 languages. His latest book, "NEXUS: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI," has become a bestseller and prominently displayed in bookstores. His latest articles and interviews are featured in various Japanese media, including NHK and Nikkei. Prof. Harari and his team also regularly shares inspiring questions and his deep insights through the social media channels of the social impact company co-founded together with his spouse Itzik Yahav in 2019, Sapienship Lab, an educational media hub, “teach the near future.”

As part of Musashino University's 100th-anniversary project, Camphor Tree Village, is deeply rooted in its founding spirit of the Buddha Dharma. We have engaged in the dialogues and studies to examine the significance and potential contribution of the Dharma for the current global issues. From its inception, we have aspired to invite Prof. Harari, who has offered innovative insights from human history for our goal to foster global peace and tranquility.

In March of this year, this aspiration finally came true. A dialogue between Prof. Harari and Rev. Shokei Matsumoto, a Buddhist priest who serves as Visiting Professor and Executive Producer for Camphor Tree Village was held. Let us share the transcript of the dialogue.

Prof. Harari has practiced Buddhist meditation daily for three hours since his graduate school and has knowledge of Pali, the language of early Buddhist scriptures. During his visit to Nishi Hongwanji Temple in Kyoto with his family and friends, he engaged in a meaningful dialogue.

(From the right: third is Prof. Harari, fourth is Ryosei Sugawara, Deputy Abott of Hongwanji, at the far right is Rev. Matsumoto, and the far left is the author.)

Rev. Matsumoto posed these questions to Prof. Harari:

1. How can we become good ancestors for future generations?

2. In an age where AI is becoming dominant, how can we transcend what it means to be human?

3. How can we cultivate humility, acknowledging our imperfections?

How would you start addressing these questions? What responses do you think Prof. Harari gave? First, reflect on these questions yourself. Then choose the question that intrigues you most and delve into the transcript of their dialogue below.

He also authored a wonderful children’s book series titled, "Unstoppable US." When asked to sign a copy for a child experiencing progressing disabilities, he wrote the message, "Everything Changes." This is a Buddhist principle of impermanence, offering hope and resilience as a pleasant surprise.

Later, he invited us to a lecture on the future of education. One of his memorable remarks was, "We care about what we eat, yet rarely consider the information we consume, which similarly enters our bodies." With concepts like digital detox becoming popular, yet his words permeated more in my body so that I would be able to consciously focus on what truly matters.

Prof. Harari encouraged continuing the dialogue, saying, "Let’s find another opportunity." This year Camphor Tree Village is concluding the past dialogues to create a final proposal to the world. We are truly looking forward to another dialogue.

About Prof. Yuval Noah Harari:
Born in 1976, Harari is a historian and philosopher. He earned his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 2002, specializing in medieval and military history. His books, including "Sapiens," "Homo Deus," and "21 Lessons," have become international bestsellers. Prof. Harari also delivers lectures and keynote speeches globally, such as at the Davos 2020, World Economic Forum.

(From: NEXUS Yuval Noah Harari Special Site | Kawade Shobo Shinsha)

(Transcript - this time, podcast is not released.)

Dialogue between Prof. Yuval Noah Harari and Rev. Matsumoto Matsumoto

Shoukei Matsumoto

Musashino University’s project, Camphor Tree Village, is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its foundation. The founding spirit is Buddhism, Buddha Dharma. The theme we have is what is meaning of Buddha Dharma given the situation of this world today with full of problems and many issues like War, Climate crisis and the Emergence of AI. So, we are trying to find how relevant the Buddha Dharma could be as we are facing them today.

We started this project with a question: how can we become good ancestors for the future generation? Because for the people outside Japan, the Japanese Buddhism might look like something related to mindfulness meditation, but actually for the Japanese, the traditional Buddhism is almost all about ancestor worship. We chant “Namu Amida Butsu” in front of the altar at home with some pictures of our ancestors. It's kind of a practice, a daily practice in our everyday life to remember the connection with our ancestors. But at the same time, we ourselves will become ancestors at the end of our life, right?

With this question, we started this project. The first question to you is, “how can we become good ancestors for the future generation? (Question 1)” What comes up in your mind when you hear this question, how can we become good ancestors for the future generation? The “ancestor,” I use the word in a broader meaning, not only about your direct ancestors in blood relationship, but also could be your teacher, a historic figure or unsung, unnamed, invisible ancestors.

Yuval Noah Harari

Well, maybe two things about ancestors. In a lot of areas of the world, people worship their ancestors in different ways without saying so. And they often use ancestor worship to separate themselves from other people. Ancestors create barriers between us. “My ancestors are not your ancestors.” So, this is why we are separate and usually they will say, “my ancestors were better,“ not just different. “They are better than your ancestors, so I'm better than you.” And we see it all over the world that people fight wars today in the name of ancestors from hundreds of years ago or even thousands of years ago. And this is a big problem.

One of the solutions to the problem is to recognize that this is always a mistake. Because the whole thing of ancestor worship is, you think that if you go back, the further you go back, the more respect you should show, like first generation ancestor and then you have second generation ancestor, hundredth generation ancestor, and “oh, this is the most respected.” But really if you go back enough, everybody has the same ancestors. So yes, maybe if you go back one or two generations, “I'm different from you,” but if we go back a hundred generations or a thousand generations, we have the same ancestors. So, instead of ancestor worship serving to separate people and create tensions and wars, hopefully people will use ancestor worship to actually see we are the same. If you go long enough back, we are the same. And again, the logic is the further back you go, the more respected it is. So, if we really go back, we have all the same ancestors. This is about the past.

And with regard to the future, “how can we be good ancestors for the future?” If you look at the problems of the world today, so I think, of course you have climate change, you have international tensions, you have AI. You have all these things but at the basis of all the problems there is one problem which is the problem of mistrust between human beings. Because if you think about climate change, humanity can solve it but there is not enough trust between people. Every country says, “You should do something,” “We don't have the money,” “We don't have this or that,” “You should do something,” and the other country says the same thing, “No, we don't need to do, you have to do.” And of course, war is all about distrust and AI is also.

I talk to the people who lead the AI Revolution. I go to the United States and Europe. Next week we'll be in China. And you talk with the heads of the big companies, of the governments and they all say the same thing, “We understand the dangers, the risk of AI. And we actually would like to slow down and do it more safely. But if we slow down and our competitors in the other company, they don't slow down. They will win the AI race, and the world will be dominated by the most ruthless people. And we can't stand an agreement with them that everybody slows down at the same time, because we can't trust them. Yes, we'll sign the agreement, and then we slow down, and they don't.” So even the AI problem, the biggest problem with AI is not AI. It's the distrust between people.

So, the biggest question is if we want to be good ancestors, the biggest problem of question for us is “How do you build trust with other people?” I don't have the answer. It's very difficult. Because there are serious causes for distrust. So, how do you build trust with people that are untrustworthy. This is the big question.

Matsumoto

Yeah, all right. So, in other words, we need to know how we can coexist with others, strangers, right? So let me explain the journey we had in this project. We started with the question, “How can we become good ancestors?” and then we explored some of the issues we have today. We invited some speakers and thinkers to Japan and talked about mainly three topics. The first dialogue was about ethics. The second was about peace and security and the third one was about human rights. And throughout the conversation, I analysed the course of the discussion and found that “Okay, through those conversations, let's set up the second inspiring question, which follows the first one, how can we become good ancestor?” The second one could be “How can we overcome being human? (Question 2)” So, let me explain in what way I use the word “human.” I use the word Human as a kind of adjective. Actually, the founder of this denomination, Shinran, was a person who really wanted to overcome his humanness as a Buddhist priest, but eventually he found that “Oh I never be able to overcome my humanness.” And then he found his very unique way to pursue Buddhism as being human.

So, what's the meaning of human as an adjective? I interpret this in this way that human have a tendency to project my own perspective to others. That's why the person could be very kind, generous and altruistic but sometimes too oppressive or sometimes collectively make a big mistake. So, that's the human. I remember I had a conversation with a thinker in the Netherlands, Rutger Bregman, who wrote “Humankind: A Hopeful History”.

Harari

A very good book.

Matsumoto

You know about him. So, this exactly resonates with his discussion. Human has beautiful traits but at the same time have problematic traits. So, the founder, Shinran, found that humanness is very problematic. And in Buddhism, the goal is to become Buddha. It means to overcome humanness, right? Become from human to Buddha. Buddha is not human in this definition, right? Buddha doesn't project his or her perspective to others, you know. In this way, we need to overcome the tendency to be a human, not to project my own perspective to others and not to project human perspective to other species, not to project our human perspective to AI robots, and so on. But we tend to be human. Yeah, it's very difficult to overcome our humanness. So, in this theme, what comes up in your mind, with humanness and with this question, “How can we overcome our humanness?” and so on.

Harari

Well, first of all, I think we project not just on others, we project on ourselves. The mind constantly projects its own creations on our understanding of ourselves and therefore we never almost understand our own lives accurately. There is always this screen of projection, so we live in this world of fantasy. Sometimes the fantasies of other people that are projected, sometimes our own fantasies that are projected.

Matsumoto

And collective fantasy could be religion.

Harari

Yes, religion, ideology, economics, it's all collective fantasies. And I think, yeah, I mean one way to define what Buddha is or what enlightenment is that you stop living in a fantasy. You're able to witness the reality as it is, which is of course very, very difficult.

Now, I think in all spiritual traditions, there is this tension between the moral kind of individual path to salvation and the collective problems of the world. And this is my personal perspective or tendency, even though personally I practice a spiritual path, and I hear many people around, because I know a lot of other people who are practicing this, a lot of them have their own fantasy is that by our practice, “we can also solve the collective problems of the world,” like war and economic inequality and climate change and so forth. So far in history, I don't see evidence that this is working well. You know, the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, he came and taught. And he did not solve the problems of the world. Even in ancient India, there continue to be wars and epidemics and tensions and inequality. And part of the teaching, I think is that the impermanence of all phenomena in the world, even the impermanence of the spiritual traditions and the religious institutions, they are also impermanent. I practice a lot of meditation. I don't think that the solution to the world's problem is that all the people in the world will start to meditate. I don't see how it can happen. Even if it happens, then people will start twist the meditation, and will start having these political struggles within. This is just inherent in the phenomena of the world.

Matsumoto

As long as we are human being.

Harari

As long as being human. And the fantasy of overcoming the human, which you find in every religion and even every secular ideology, I think this is very dangerous fantasy. Whether you look at communism in the twentieth century, it also fantasizes “Oh, we can overcome the deep tendencies of humanity and create a new human,” and of course you find it in ancient religious traditions. And it's very dangerous.

Again, especially even when it doesn't work, the people of the tradition refuse to admit that it doesn't work. They project, again, the fantasy. Of course, in religion, but also when you look at communism in the twentieth century, it didn't work. But it was very dangerous to say it's not working. If you say “It's not working,” oh, you'll be in deep trouble. And now we see it with AI that people have again this fantasy, “Oh, we can create something which will be superhuman, which will solve the problems of humanity. We cannot trust the other humans, but we can trust the AI.” Again, very dangerous. I think we need to accept the imperfection and impermanence of humans and of the world, and everything we create, social systems, political systems, built into the system is the recognition that we make mistakes. It is imperfect and being able to admit that is the key to create a good system.

Matsumoto

Yeah, so that is exactly why I'm in the lineage of this tradition for the founder's philosophy. His conclusion is that we can never overcome being human, but still there is a way to be, to live a better life actively, by acknowledging, by being aware of our humanness and our tendency. And my further question could be, “how can we cultivate our sense of humility? (Question 3)” to be more aware of our imperfection and the tendency. So, one way could be being aware of our animality just before being a human, so we would never be able to be something other than animal. So, human tend to forget that we are animal in the first place. I brought a small gift for you. That's my book about cleaning, cleaning as a meditation, A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind.

Harari

Arigatou-gozaimasu. Thank you very much.

Matsumoto

Why I appreciate the cleaning practice is to take care of our habitat. I prefer the word habitat rather than the world or earth, because it reminds us of the fact that we are animals in the first place. So, this is our habitat. The word habitat has the less connotation of fantasy concepts like the world, the universe, the earth. The habitat is here, because right now we are here. So, everybody in this room in this moment, this is our habitat, right? So, in this way it's not a concept, right? At least as an animal with a body, we can start something from our habitat in a tangible way. And cleaning practice is a very symbolic practice to engage with our habitat.

Harari

I think parts of the dilemma that we have in the world from the level of the whole of humanity to individuals, habitat, there is always more than one person there and different people have different ideas about what clean is, what it means to clean. So, like my husband and me, we share the same habitat, and we have very different ideas about what it means that this is clean. Like for instance, I like things to be messy. Because if I see a very clean surface, I get nervous because I feel that if I do something it will disturb the cleanliness, so I feel tense. If I see a table which is all messy, I feel very relaxed because no matter what I do, it will stay so. If you come to my office, and look at my table, it's always kind of piles of things and this and that.

Matsumoto

(Looking at the table) Low entropy.

Harari

Very low entropy. Yeah, and so the question is how do people and beings, with different concepts of cleanliness, different fantasies of cleanliness, how do they share habitats? And you know, even if you think about different animals, like if there are ants in the house, I don't care, but he cares. He does not like ants in the house. And I tell him that “Ants are good, they come, and they even clean like if you leave something and the ants come and take it away. So, you don't even have to do anything.” But he said “No, but the ants themselves they are like dirty.”

Matsumoto

That’s their habitat.

Harari

Yes. And this goes all the way, you know, to the entire ecological system. So, what is considered clean for humans may be getting rid of all the other organisms there. And this is, I don't have the answer, but this is a very big question.

Matsumoto

At least, we agree that we need to overcome the perspective of human supremacy at this moment. So far, the system of economy was designed almost only for human. We have been living in the common sense only among human beings so far, but it should be the time to shift from the common sense among human beings to the common sense beyond human beings inviting more. Not inviting, that's a very human centric way of saying but multispecies.

Harari

Yeah, I think part of what is happening is that we used to look down on all the other species because we are much more intelligent than they are. And now with AI, there is something more intelligent than us. So, suddenly we say, “Well, intelligence is not so important. Why give so much importance to intelligence.” So, we also start to see “Oh, maybe we have to treat the other less intelligent animals also.” Because if intelligence is the only measurement, it's the only thing that matters, so we no longer matter so much.

Matsumoto

Right. That must be why I often get a request from Western thinkers, “Okay, let's have a conversation around the relationship between AI and animism.” I often get a request, so before AI, as you said, human beings always wanted to be unique and special compared to other species, animals and plants. And because the foundation of uniqueness was logos, intelligence, but unfortunately, ironically, because of the logos, we created a generative AI which seems dominating the logos world. And we are losing our foundation.

Harari

Exactly.

Matsumoto

So, looking for the new foundation, we finally found a new and old foundation that is being rediscovered. Okay, in the first place, we are animals, so we are different from AI. So, this is the new and old foundation to be unique, now compared to AI, rather than animal or plants. I think that must be why the world is more interested in animism which exists in Japan as well. Do you feel this kind of shift?

Harari

Yes, absolutely. Again, because especially in the west but not only in the west, for centuries, we had this tendency to define ourselves through logos, through intellect, and suddenly this definition is making us irrelevant. Because in more and more fields, if what the only thing that really matters is logos, then we don't matter anymore, that we have something that is superior intellect to our own. And very soon, you know, even now, AI can compose texts better than most people. In five or ten years, maybe it can write books like these (Nexus, Unstoppable Us) better than me, better than you, better than human authors.

I see it that, for instance, in religions, like Christianity, like Judaism, that sanctified logos and sanctified text. Maybe I talk about Judaism as an example. In Judaism ultimate authority is in text, in the word, not even in the human being. So, why is human being important? Because throughout history human being was the only one who could read and interpret the text. The text is silent. The word doesn't speak. So, you always need a rabbi to read the text and to interpret the text. But this is no longer the case. Now the text can speak. AI can read all the holy books of Judaism and every commentary written about the holy books for the last two thousand years, remember every word and find new interpretations. So, the word can now speak. And if the word speaks, what do you need human beings for? So, I think there will be a very big crisis also in religions like Judaism, like Christianity, that gives so much importance to the word and to logos. They will need to find a new basis for their understanding. And yeah, it will be a big change in the world. We'll see what happens.

Matsumoto

Thank you so much. Thank you for touching upon a very, very important part of the discussion. Thank you so much for participating in this journey.

Harari

Thank you. Can you dedicate this (A Monki’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind) for me?

Matsumoto

Of course.

(End of the dialogue)