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Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling Sapiens: A History of Humanity, is back with Nexus: A History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Random House). Examines how intelligence has shaped and controlled civilizations throughout history, and the role of artificial intelligence in social, economic, and political change.
Read the excerpt below.
Yuval Noah Harari’s “Nexus”
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What is information?
Defining basic concepts is always difficult. They seem to lack a basis of their own, since they are the basis of everything that follows. Physicists have a hard time defining matter and energy, biologists have a hard time defining life, and philosophers have a hard time defining reality. Information is increasingly considered by many philosophers and biologists, and even some physicists, to be the most fundamental building block of reality, more fundamental than matter or energy. Much debate about how to define information and how it relates to fundamental ideas in physics such as the evolution of life, entropy, the laws of thermodynamics, and the quantum uncertainty principle. No wonder there is. This document does not attempt to resolve or explain these disputes. Nor does it provide a universal definition of information that can be applied to physics, biology, or all other fields of knowledge. As it is a historical work that studies the past and future development of human society, it focuses on the definition and role of information in history.
In everyday use, “information” is associated with human-created symbols such as spoken and written words. For example, consider the story of Sher Ami and the Lost Battalion. In October 1918, as the American Expeditionary Force fought to liberate northern France from German forces, a battalion of more than 500 American soldiers became trapped behind enemy lines. American artillery, attempting to provide covering fire, misjudged the location and fired directly. The battalion’s commander, Major Charles Whittlesey, urgently needed to inform headquarters of his true location, but none of the runners were able to break through the German lines. According to some reports, Whittlesea turned to military carrier pigeon Cher Ami as a last resort. Whittlesey wrote on a small piece of paper: “We are on the road parallel to Route 276.4. Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. Please stop.” The paper was inserted into a container in Sher Ami’s right foot, and the bird was released into the air. One of the battalion’s soldiers, Private John Nell, recalled years later: “We knew without a doubt that this was our last chance. If that lone, frightened pigeon had not found the loft, our fate was sealed.”
Witnesses later described how Cher Ami jumped into heavy German fire. A shell exploded directly beneath the bird, killing five men and seriously injuring the pigeon. Shrapnel pierced Cher Ami’s chest and her right leg was left hanging by a tendon. But he got through it. The injured pigeon flew 40 kilometers to the division headquarters in about 45 minutes, with a can containing an important message attached to the remains of his right leg. Although the exact details are disputed, it is clear that American artillery coordinated the barrage and American counterattacks rescued the lost battalion. Cher Ami was cared for by military medics, sent to the United States as a hero, and was the subject of numerous articles, short stories, children’s books, poems, and even a film. The pigeon had no idea what information he was passing on, but the symbols he had written on pieces of paper helped save hundreds of people from death and captivity.
However, information does not have to consist of human-made symbols. According to the Biblical flood myth, Noah knew the waters had finally receded because a dove he sent from the ark returned with an olive branch in its mouth. So God placed a rainbow in the clouds as a record of heaven’s promise to never flood the earth again. Since then, the dove, olive branch and rainbow have become iconic symbols of peace and tolerance. Objects that are further away than the rainbow can also be information. For astronomers, the shapes and movements of galaxies constitute important information about the history of the universe. For navigators, the North Star shows which way is north. For astrologers, the stars are cosmic characters that convey information about the future of individual humans and society as a whole.
Of course, defining something as “information” is a matter of perspective. Astronomers and astrologers may view Libra as “information,” but these distant stars are more than just bulletin boards for human observers. There may be alien civilizations out there that are completely unaware of the information we gather from their homes and the stories we tell about them. Similarly, a piece of paper speckled with ink can be important information to an army unit and dinner to a termite family. Any object may or may not be information. This makes it difficult to define what information is.
Information ambivalence has played an important role in the history of military espionage, when spies needed to covertly convey information. During World War I, northern France was not the only major battlefield. From 1915 to 1918, the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire fought for control of the Middle East. After repelling Ottoman attacks on the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal, British forces in turn invaded the Ottoman Empire, but were held back until October 1917 by a fortified Ottoman front stretching from Beersheba to Gaza. British attempts to break through were repulsed at the First Battle of Gaza (March 26, 1917) and the Second Battle of Gaza (April 17-19, 1917). Meanwhile, pro-British Jews living in Palestine set up a spy network codenamed NILI to inform Britain of Ottoman military movements. One of the methods they developed to communicate with British carriers was the use of window shutters. NILI Commander Sarah Aaronson had a house overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. She signaled British ships by opening and closing specific shutters according to predetermined codes. It is clear that many people, including Ottoman soldiers, were able to see the shutters, but no one other than NILI personnel and British operators understood that it was important military information. So, when is a shutter just a shutter, and when is it information?
Due to some strange accidents, the Ottoman Empire finally captured the NILI spy ring. NILI used carrier pigeons in addition to shutters to convey coded messages. On September 3, 1917, a pigeon veered off course and landed, among other things, at the home of an Ottoman officer. Officers found an encrypted message but were unable to decipher it. Nevertheless, the pigeon itself was an important piece of information. Its presence showed the Ottoman Empire that a spy ring was operating under their noses. As Marshall McLuhan said, the pigeon was the message. Because possession of carrier pigeons was incriminating information, NILI officials learned of the capture and immediately killed and buried all the remaining birds in their possession. However, the slaughter of pigeons did not save NILI. Within a month, the spy network was exposed, several of its members were executed, and Sarah Aaronsohn committed suicide to avoid giving away NILI’s secrets after being tortured. When does a pigeon become just a pigeon, and when does it become information?
Therefore, it is clear that information cannot be defined as a specific kind of material object. Any object can be information in the right context: stars, shutters, doves, etc. So in what context exactly is such an object defined as “information”? A naive view of information holds that objects are defined as information in the context of the search for truth . Something becomes information if people use it to try to discover the truth. This view links the concept of information with the concept of truth and assumes that the primary role of information is to represent reality. There is reality “outside” and information represents that reality, so we can use it to know reality. For example, the information provided by NILI to Britain was intended to represent the reality of Ottoman military movements. If the Ottoman Empire gathered 10,000 soldiers in Gaza, the center of its defense, a piece of paper with the symbol for “10,000” and “Gaza” on it could be used as important information to help Britain win the battle. It will be. On the other hand, if there were actually 20,000 Ottoman troops in Gaza, that piece of paper would not accurately represent reality and Britain could make a disastrous military mistake.
In other words, the naive view holds that information is an attempt to represent reality, and when this attempt is successful, we call it truth. This book raises many questions about naive views, but it agrees that truth is an accurate representation of reality. However, this book also argues that most information does not attempt to represent reality, and that what defines information is something entirely different. Most information in human society, and indeed in other biological and physical systems, does not represent anything.
Excerpt from “The Nexus” by Yuval Noah Harari. Copyright © 2024 by Yuval Noah Harari. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without written permission from the publisher.
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