Dataism, New Religion in Town
In his brilliant book, Homo Deus , Yuval Noah Harari talks about the new religion in town, Dataism. What follows may seem tongue in cheek, but it also reflects present day reality and may well be where we are headed. What are life forms, including us humans? “The life sciences have come to see organisms as biochemical algorithms.” Dataism is just Algorithm 2.0, says Harari: “(Dataism) expects electronic algorithms to eventually decipher and outperform biochemical algorithms.” Like all religions, Dataism can “explain” all of human history in a nutshell by giving parallels with its core concepts data and data processing: 1) More processors -> More population 2) More variety of processors ->Rise of specialized occupations 3) More connections between processors -> Writing, money, trade 4) More freedom to move along existing connections ->Transportatio...