Co-creativity and Community [1 ed.] 9783666462306, 9783525462300

Citation preview

GERALD

HÜTHER

Co-creativity and Community

V

Gerald Hüther

Co-creativity and Community

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Translated from the German by Com-Unic Translation Hotline, Heidelberg

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. This is a translation of “Etwas mehr Hirn, bitte” ISBN 978-3-666-46230-6 You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com Cover image: dan jazzia / shutterstock.com © 2018, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting by SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen

Table of Contents

Before we get started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Part 1: Life as an Ongoing Learning Process . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Why do we have so many problems? 20 · On what are our thoughts oriented? 22 · What drives us to seek knowledge? 26 · Where has our quest for knowledge led us? 29 · Are we capable of recognising ourselves? 31 · How do we gain insights of our own? 36 · How can we assess the validity of our insights? 41 · Which insights prevail? 42 ·  On which insights can we orientate our actions? 44

1.1 Living organisms don’t function like machines. They want to live and pursue their own goals, making them intentional subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 1.2 Programmes and blueprints can help us realise our goals, but all living organisms are self-organising . . . . . . 53 1.3 Competition is not the driving force of evolution; it merely moves living systems to become increasingly specialised . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 1.4 No living system exists for its own sake. It is always connected to other living organisms and can only live and evolve amidst other organisms that want to survive, grow and reproduce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66



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Part 2: The Structuring of the Human Brain Through Social Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 What is coherence? 72 · How does self-organisation work in the brain? 74 · How do we become the way we are? 76

2.1 The prenatal structuring of neural networks in the developing brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2.2 The structuring of children’s brains through their own experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 2.3 The structuring of the human brain through the transgenerational sharing of experiences . . . . . . . . . 100 2.4 The lifelong re-organising capacity of established neural connection patterns in response to novel experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Part 3: Unlocking Potential in Human Communities . . . 121 3.1 How do we currently live together? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 3.2 Are there alternatives? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 3.3 What do we want to live on? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 3.4 What do we want to live for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 3.5 When will we take the first step? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

The road ahead … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

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Before we get started

… It took quite some time before I gradually realised that I had been searching for something all my life – something that everyone else all around the world has always been searching for, too. Like all small children, even as a baby I must have noticed that just a little smile from me was all it took to make my mother’s eyes light up. And when I managed to produce that effect, everything was fine, and I was happy, too. It didn’t take much effort and always seemed to work like a charm  – with my mother, my father, my grandparents and anyone else who carefully and tenderly leaned over my pram. I can only imagine the boundless energy with which I tried out everything new. And just about everything I did, everything I learned as I expanded my repertoire step by step, made my parents happy. In turn, their happiness sparked my own desire to discover and create. But then one day the inevitable happened: all of a sudden, not everything I did or said seemed to spark that wonderful feeling of happiness in those around me. Sometimes it was a bit too much for them, sometimes it just wasn’t the right time or place, and sometimes Mummy and Daddy were downright annoyed. It seemed more and more of the things I did weren’t what they had expected or hoped for. And so the bliss of my carefree childhood gradually came to an end, and my parents began the task of my upbringing. 

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Like all children I tried my best to make them happy, tried to be “a good boy” and live up to their expectations. Not because I had to; it was important to me, and I was happy when I succeeded. But the feeling of unadulterated joy that had once flowed through my entire body now took on something like a bitter aftertaste. The carefreeness and the unbridled enthusiasm I had enjoyed as a little explorer and inventor were no longer free of ulterior motives. I now had a goal to pursue and my efforts were focused on a result that needed to be achieved: namely, that my parents stayed happy with me. The joy I felt when I occasionally succeeded was now mixed with the fear that I might lose their affection and with it my sense of security and connectedness with them, if what I learned or achieved failed to measure up to their expectations. Back then, this fear could have easily continued to grow and I could have tried harder and harder to escape it. Then my desire to discover and create, to learn and acquire new skills and abilities, would have been increasingly reduced to simply learning all those things expected of me or hoped for by those I felt I belonged with, felt connected to or somehow dependent on. I would quite likely have become a smoothly functioning person. One who did his best to be recognised and liked by others, first by his parents, then by other kindergarten children and school teachers, fellow students and friends, and later by his co-workers and superiors. I might even have managed to gather so much knowledge and outstanding expertise in a specific field that I could make a real career out of it, gaining me the respect and admiration of all those who were busy doing exactly the same thing. Whether I would have had more success or a bit less, in any case I surely would have been happy about everything I had achieved. The fear of being left all alone, of not fitting in, and of losing my sense of security would have then been transformed into contentment, perhaps even pride. 8



Thankfully, that never happened. Perhaps because even in my childhood there were a handful of people who simply liked me the way I was, and whose affections didn’t depend on whether or not the things I chose to learn and try, the things I was interested in, matched their own tastes and expectations. And perhaps those who were responsible for my upbringing weren’t so worried that I might never amount to anything and instead had faith that I would eventually find my own way. Maybe they didn’t have any other choice because they simply didn’t have the time to worry about every little thing I did. In any case, I had opportunities enough to give the little discoverer and creator in me free rein, to try out all kinds of things and find out for myself what I was best at, and to focus on those things that interested me most. In the process I learned so much and enthusiastically picked up so many skills that I managed to survive my school years with no real harm done. I then chose to study biology because I was fascinated by all living things, and would eventually become a neurobiologist because I wanted to understand why people think, feel and act the way they do.‍ Back then, I still thought this was because of our brains and the genetic programmes that control their development. It took quite a bit of time before I realised that that isn’t true, that there is no genetic programme that controls the formation of highly complex interconnections between the billions of nerve cells in our brains. I was there for the exciting phase in which neurologists discovered that over the course of a lifetime the brain essentially “wires itself.” The phenomenon, which they dubbed experience-dependent neuroplasticity, simply means that the formation of networks and connections within the brain depends on how a person uses their brain, and what for. And that in turn depends on what seems most important in that person’s own lifeworld, what they open themselves up to, what moves them most, what they enjoy, what they are looking 

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for and what they hope to achieve. As such, the kind of brain a given person ends up with isn’t determined by any blueprints or programmes. It’s much simpler than that: our brains structure themselves on the basis of the solutions that we find over the course of our lives while searching for – yes, I suppose I can use the expression once, even if it’s not entirely accurate – what makes us happy. And since what makes a given person happy – which also includes anything that helps them cope with difficult situations – varies greatly from individual to individual and from the time they’re born to old age, we all end up with correspondingly different brains, with which we think, feel and act differently. It took a long time before I grasped that. I had spent so many years, read so many books, attended so many conferences, conducted so many experiments, written articles and led discussions, all to find out how these highly complex networks in the brain, which shape our thoughts, feelings and actions, are formed. And all the while I had assumed that the answer to my question could only be found in the brain itself. But then I was forced to realise that all our knowledge of how the brain is structured – which connections and networks, which transmitter systems and receptors it is home to and how they work – still couldn’t explain why a given person’s brain developed the way it did. To find that out, I would have needed to research what type of lifeworld the person had grown up in and into over the course of their life, what problems and obstacles they encountered and what experience they had gained while searching for solutions. I would have needed to determine whether (and if so, how) they had succeeded in satisfying their own needs, in pursuing their interests, discovering what there was to discover in their world, and in shaping their life the way they wanted to. And if in my research I had stumbled across people who had experiences in their childhood or later in life that were painful, 10



disheartening or damaging, I should have not only asked which consequences these experiences had on the person in question’s further developmental process, but also whether (and if so, how) they could have been avoided. Then I would have much sooner come to the conclusion that the most important experiences in our search for happiness are experiences with other people – and unfortunately not just the types of experience that encourage them, that reinforce their own desire to discover and create, and that satisfy both their longing for independence and freedom on the one hand, and for a sense of belonging and security on the other. And I would have quickly realised that the ways in which we interact, how we shape our relationships, isn’t all that it could be. And I wouldn’t have wondered for so long why we find so many disturbed relations and tangled connections between the nerve cells in various regions of the brain in so many people. Then, instead of trying to use cutting-edge scientific methods to determine what was going wrong up there from a neurochemical, neuroanatomical or neurophysiological standpoint, I would have started doing what I could with my humble means to help improve relationships between people. But then again, this seems to be a fundamental principle of the human quest for knowledge: that we don’t realise we’re on the wrong path until we’re utterly lost in the woods. And it’s equally true that we sometimes have to take a wrong turn before we can recognise the right way to go forward. And so I not only began to develop an interest in the relationships that shape the development of the neurons in our brains in the form of synaptic connections and neural networks, but to increasingly concentrate on the question of the nature of relationships between human beings, why they are the way they are, and how they can be changed. In the process I noticed how many parallels there are between the brain and a human community. Just as we use language to communicate, neurons produce specific substances 

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in order to pass on their excitement to others, or to brake their activities. Just like communities, our brains are home to individual members, i. e. neurons, with broad networks of contacts that each can use to influence several others. There are regional networks responsible for the completion of certain functions, and there are overarching networks that in turn coordinate their activities. Further, just as in human communities, the relational patterns between the neurons of the brain are constantly disrupted and have to be rearranged if the disruption can’t be done away with. Needless to say, just as in a society, some relations in the brain are formed that, while suitable for solving a given problem in the short term, prove to be a major hindrance to long-term development. Sometimes what is going on in the frontal lobe no longer meshes with what the networks of the brain stem need to fulfil their own duties. In a society and in the brain alike, it can come to such a massive state of confusion that simply nothing works. When this happens to someone’s brain, we send them to a psychiatrist. As for a society that has reached this point, its only hope is that it can muster enough energy to restructure its relationships on its own. If not, its own dysfunctional relationships will all too easily be passed on, not only to its children, but also to all other communities it comes into contact with. I found all of these parallels so remarkable because they indicated that there was something like an overarching principle that dictated both the nature of relationships between the members of a social system and that of our brains. This principle is currently being intensively researched by system theoreticians, i. e. by scientists whose work focuses on the structuring of complex systems. They refer to it as the “principle of self-organisation”, and in recent years biologists have found more and more indications that the formation and maintenance of living systems can also be understood as self-organising processes. 12



Accordingly, I sought to transfer these modern concepts to the formation of relationships between human beings within communities. If the relationships between the living organisms in an ecosystem, the residents of a city, or the neurons in our brains are self-organising, the result will inevitably be a relational network of such a nature that the individual members remain as autonomous as possible, but remain interconnected. In the context of human societies this not only means that something is gradually formed that links all of the members while simultaneously reinforcing their autonomy; it also means that whatever connects them must be something that the community itself, through the process of forming the relationships between its members, generates and continually refines. Any community that fails to do so will fall apart. This process usually begins when a community grows inflexible and loses its creativity and ability to evolve because it no longer gives its members any room to breathe. This “room to breathe”, which human beings need in order to grow and evolve, is the pleasure they take in thinking – something we all inevitably lose when forced to live in a society only held together by some form of external or internal pressure. When at some point this pressure subsides, there is suddenly nothing left to hold the members together and strengthen their sense of belonging and importance. Sooner or later, these members lose the desire to create and build things together, and each only looks out for him- or herself. That’s what I’ve discovered in my attempts to find what it is that determines which experiences we gain in our relationships with other human beings – and which relational patterns are consequently created in our brains in the form of synaptic connections and neural networks. Communities in which the members have lost their joy in thinking are just as poorly suited to releasing the potential every individual holds as are those that have robbed these individuals of their desire to work together. Both phenomena make people 

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sick and destabilise the community in question. But since we cannot live alone, without other people, we have no choice but to work together to find some form of relationship that links us together, while still allowing each of us to freely develop his or her own innate potential. No genetic programme will aid us in this task, nor will some all-powerful genius arise to lead us and show us how to shape our relationships so that neither our children nor their children will lose the joy they feel in creating things together; that’s something we have to discover on our own. We’ve been trying to do so from day one, but have never truly succeeded. That being said, we have learned a great deal in the process. Never before have we known so much, and never before have we possessed stores of knowledge that were so massive or accessible to so many people – not yet everywhere in the world, but at least in those parts of it where people’s thoughts and actions aren’t primarily shaped by hunger, suffering and misery, nor by violence and repression. Wherever human beings come together without fear, without being blinded by some ideology and of their own free will, they can seek to shape their interactions differently than in the past. They can form small islands in the form of communities where no one has to lose the innate pleasure in thinking for themselves, and where people can start working together to shape their future gladly and freely – and not because everything is already just as they like it, but because they have found in these communities exactly that which all of us, everywhere around the world, are looking for. That’s why I chose to write this book. I would like to invite you, encourage you and perhaps even inspire you to give some thought – together with other people and at home, at work or just the next time you go for a walk – to the question of how we can rediscover our own joy in thinking for ourselves and creating together with others. And not by simply trying harder, but by attempting to find new ways to look at 14



and approach one another. This approach is important, because I can already let you in on a little secret: the pleasure we feel in thinking for ourselves and in building and shaping together with others never “just disappears”; it can only be lost as the result of painful experiences from relationships. But every single one of us can also rediscover it, even if we’ve grown so old that these experiences lie years or even decades in the past. However, achieving this on our own is extremely difficult; to do so, the person in question would need to have a different, more positive experience in their relations with another person or even with several other people. In this way, they would need to see that their own ideas and suggestions do matter; that by sharing their ideas they don’t merely participate, but can actively contribute to jointly finding a solution to a problem – a solution that, by its very nature, is more complete, more comprehensive and as such more lasting than any that an individual could ever come up with on their own. Hence the book’s title, a call for achieving co-creativity through community. In order to gather these positive experiences with the other members of a community, we have to learn to interact differently. Instead of looking at each other as the objects of their personal assessments, expectations or even ulterior motives, the members of these societies would need to be ready and willing to engage with one another as subjects. Granted, that would mean a completely different relationship culture from what most of us are familiar with in our day-to-day lives. In this book I have sought to describe what such a culture could look like, which opportunities it would offer, and how we might succeed in creating it. From the outset it was clear to me that this approach represents an attempt to shake the foundations of our current societies. The way we live, learn and work together today is, after all, an expression of our current self-understanding. And these notions we have of ourselves, of that which characterises us, what we consider to be our human 

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nature, have taken firm root in our brains in the course of generations; they can’t simply be changed overnight. As such, I chose to divide the book into three main parts. The first part focuses on the question of where our insights and the beliefs we derive from them actually come from. In other words, the question is how certain and reliable all those notions of ourselves and how we shape our lives that we consider to be accurate, universal and therefore true, actually are. How can we ever reassess how we all live together if we’re still convinced that it’s part of our human nature to coexist in this way and not some other? But even if we succeed in recognising that we could also live together in a different way, this insight alone won’t make us treat each other differently in the future. In order for that to happen, what is more important than a new insight is a somewhat deeper understanding of our own development to date. Accordingly, the book’s middle part addresses exactly this question: just what it was that made us and every other person we meet turn out the way they did, what made us and them into who we are today. After all, how can we ever decide to treat someone else differently – more compassionately, perhaps even more lovingly – if we only look at them as they are today, without ever asking how they came to be that way? Ultimately the theory of relativity can be summarised in a single formula. In order to relativize the current state of knowledge concerning what defines us as human beings, and with it our own self-understanding, I had to address these two parts before turning to the insight they lead us to in the third and final part: namely, that it doesn’t have to be that way. And many of us are already acting quite differently. We don’t have to keep treating each other the same way we always have; we could also start trying to truly approach one another. Instead of making other people the objects of our assessments, plans and ulterior motives, we could invite, encourage and inspire 16



them to rediscover their own joy in thinking for themselves and creating together with others. Only then will we succeed in tapping the potential slumbering in every individual and in every community.



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Part 1: Life as an Ongoing Learning Process

Everything’s a mess; nothing works the way it should. Wherever you look, there are problems on top of problems: problems with our partners, with our children, within the family, at the kindergarten or at school, with our neighbours, at university or on the job. And this only gets worse when we look at the “big picture”, at what happens in cities and communities, at companies and other organisations, in politics and the economy. When we open the daily paper, follow the latest news, tune in for political roundtables on TV, or check out online forums; everywhere we see the same thing: countless problems – whether personal, interpersonal, regional, national or global. And just when one problem seems to be solved, two new ones pop up to take its place … and there’s no end in sight. No wonder that more and more people are losing their joie de vivre and, like sailors do when the storm-tossed seas threaten to capsize their ship, choose to batten down the hatches. This usually works for them; after all, no storm can last forever. But our problems won’t go away on their own. On the contrary, if we don’t find solutions, they’ll only grow worse.



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Why do we have so many problems?

Maybe the strategies we use aren’t exactly the best. We tend to think of each problem as a hotspot that we’ve somehow managed to land on, and which is now growing warmer and warmer. When things start getting uncomfortably hot, we back off a bit to take a look at things from a distance. Those of us who now recognise their situation will do their best to get off the stovetop as quickly as possible. After all, recognising you’re in trouble and getting yourself out of the situation is also a viable solution. The challenge here is to make sure you don’t unwittingly flee from one hotspot, only to land on another one (and perhaps one that’s not so easy to recognise). All those who don’t manage to get away, or whose attempts to solve the problem only take them to the next hotspot, will start getting hot feet. Some of them, those who are flexible enough, will try to cope by alternately standing on one foot, so that each has a chance to cool down a bit. The virtuosos among them may even develop complex dances, constantly switching between efforts to solve the problem and attempts to avoid it – until they eventually collapse from exhaustion, a phenomenon aptly dubbed “burnout” these days. Then there are those people, mostly of the male persuasion, who act like they don’t have any problems at all. To the shock of all around them, they simply remain standing on the hotspot, some with a smile on their faces. They keep up this pose as long as they can, and until their feet are badly burnt. These are the ones in denial. They don’t even recognise that they have a problem until the ambulance comes to pick them up. Given a bit of time to nurse their wounds, both groups, the exhausted dancers and those with the burnt feet, then have a second chance. But they all too easily wind up in exactly the same spot as before. After a few rounds, the truly incorrigible specimens among them are done for; the others finally succeed 20



in solving the problem that had given them so much trouble. They’ve managed to learn something, and in the future they’ll act a bit differently, pay a bit more attention, and think things through, having developed a new attitude. This progress is in turn embedded in their brains, as corresponding, dedicated neural connections, as new networks that simply didn’t exist before and were formed by this very experience. Accordingly, someone who has succeeded in solving a problem that weighed heavily on them is no longer the same person as before. He or she has grown – and not just anywhere, but right up top, in their brain. Unfortunately, the solutions found in this way aren’t always ideal. Someone who’s having problems with their life partner, with their boss at work, with him- or herself, or what have you can also solve them, at least temporarily, by getting massively drunk; then all their problems simply disappear. But when they sober back up, the problems return. Those who then reach for the bottle again sooner or later end up being constantly drunk. And, since their brain adapts more and more to being drunk, they ultimately have to keep drinking to avoid going into withdrawal. So now they have even more problems, at least until their liver finally gives up the fight. We don’t need to go into detail here about all the ways people can numb their minds so as to temporarily forget about the real problem they have to solve. Methods can range from gluttony to self-destructive fasting, from compulsively buying new shoes to the weekly football fever, and becoming addicted to everything from television to extreme sports, computer games or the Internet. There are any number of ways to temporarily calm a brain beset by problems. Unfortunately, we tend to give in to these temptations time and time again – even though by doing so, we wind up with even more problems in the end, not to mention making new problems for the people we live with. 

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If someone only realises after the fact that what they’re doing isn’t helping them to achieve what they wanted to, there are only two possible explanations. The first is that they acted without considering the consequences of their actions. This can only happen to people for whom thinking, and above all thinking ahead, has become too difficult and therefore uncomfortable; i. e. those who lost their joy in thinking for themselves at some point earlier in their lives. The other explanation: they certainly did (perhaps even intensively) consider other courses of action they could pursue to avoid having so many problems. When these people nevertheless constantly find themselves in sticky situations, it tells us that the concepts and convictions that guide their thoughts are apparently poorly suited to finding more favourable solutions. The next natural step would be the realisation that there must be something wrong with those concepts and convictions. When these people still don’t start to consider why they hold the views and beliefs they do, even though they don’t seem terribly helpful, it’s a clear sign that their joy in thinking for themselves was lost somewhere along the way. They prefer to simply keep trudging along than to question their own beliefs. On what are our thoughts oriented?

Small children don’t have these problems; there’s nothing they like better than to think about things. They’re constantly trying to find out what all the things they sense and experience mean, and how they fit together with everything they already know, to figure out what the things we say to them actually mean, and how to express the things that move them in a way that we can understand. When they succeed, the joy they feel fills them from head to toe. The same thing is true of any child on this planet; the pleasure they take in thinking is written all over their faces. When at some point later in their lives, they lose 22



that feeling, there must be a reason, and it doesn’t take a neurobiologist to recognise it. It’s not because at some point their parents, other children, their kindergarten or school teachers are no longer as thrilled to hear about everything they think up. That wouldn’t be so bad, and such factors alone are hardly enough to spoil our children’s pleasure in thinking. It’s something else, something that happens inside them that has a much more subtle but lasting effect: within their brains, all the things they’ve seen and experienced gradually crystallise into certain beliefs about how everything they experience is connected. Up there, in their heads, they form their own hypotheses about how everything should be classified and evaluated. And when these views more or less jibe with their later experiences, the neural connection patterns activated in the process grow more solid and more stable, until at some point they have been so massively reinforced that their thought processes can no longer let go of them. Once this has occurred, the child in question, even after having reached adulthood, can only think in ways that match these beliefs; they increasingly channel their thoughts. This isn’t so bad, either, and doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll lose the pleasure they take in thinking; in fact, some beliefs can have just the opposite effect: for instance, that each new discovery broadens their horizons, that they have so much to learn from other people, and that topics they choose to research intensively only grow more interesting and constantly lead to exciting new questions. However, there are unfortunately other views that become solidly anchored in the brains of children and adults alike and structure their thinking in such a manner that they can’t help but lose their joy. All of these views essentially poison the joy they feel in thinking, hindering people from going out and discovering for themselves all the world has to offer. If you try to determine where these strange, suffocating convictions, which can rob us of the courage to think for ourselves, come from, 

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you’ll come to the conclusion that every single one of us carries these toxic beliefs inside us. We either learned them from others or constructed them in our own brains because others either refused to listen to them or, often enough, even dismissed them as nonsense. And now we’re passing them on to our children, just as unthinkingly as our parents and grandparents did with us. These thoughts, which taint and destroy our joy in thinking, are: “I’m not smart enough”; “I’m always in the way”; “My ideas don’t matter”; “I’d better go with the flow”, etc. No one develops these ideas on their own; they can only form when we come into contact with other people who ruin our joy in thinking. Why they do so isn’t that hard to fathom. Some people simply don’t give any thought to the effects their criticisms, their knowit-all behaviour and their self-righteousness might have on others. It’s more important to them that they prove to themselves they are brighter, cleverer and therefore better than everybody else. And some of them are so convinced of the rightness of their own beliefs that they simply can’t accept it when someone thinks differently and consequently arrives at other conclusions. Further, some people simply never stop to think about the questionable ideas and beliefs they pass on to their children, friends and co-workers. In so doing, they help these ideas to gradually spread and become adopted by more and more people. As a result, the majority of a community’s members can ultimately become convinced that human beings are collective in nature and always need a central leader, that humans are notoriously egotistical and only pursue their own interests, that there can be no advancement without competition, or that intelligence is hereditary. As a matter of course, more and more individuals will begin to orientate how they think and act on the basis of these commonly held convictions, and to shape their lives, including their interactions with others, accordingly, ultimately creating lifeworlds for themselves that perfectly match their beliefs. 24



These developments are particularly problematic when certain convictions, which offer a generic orientational framework for compatible concepts in the form of specific views on the nature of human beings or the world, have spread and become anchored within a community. For instance, if a great many people are convinced that everyone only pursues their own interests and competition is the mainspring of innovation, then each of them will be moved to selfishly pursue his or her own interests in competition with others. This phenomenon is connected to how our brains function. From earliest childhood, we seek to translate what we see and hear into universal concepts and rules. For instance, on the basis of all the traits we learn about by observing different forms of life, a general image of what characterises an animal or a plant gradually forms in our brains. When we later encounter a life-form we’ve never seen before, we then use these concepts of what animals and plants are like to classify it as either a plant or an animal. When it comes to more complex phenomena, e. g. types of behaviour we observe in others, children often have a hard time trying to derive universal concepts for them on their own. As such, they eagerly adapt the concepts offered by the people they live with – like explanations that a certain type of behaviour is typically Jewish, typically Muslim or typically Christian. Or that that’s just the way all people are – that they only think of themselves, that they’re lazy, idle or treacherous, maybe even that their behaviour is hereditary. When many other people think this way, it’s extremely difficult for children, and later for adults, to develop a point of view of their own that differs from that of the majority. As such, the odds are very good that the way the person in question later thinks and acts will be orientated on these beliefs and will be shaped by the convictions developed by other members of their cultural group. 

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But these views on human nature or the nature of the world are nothing more than hypotheses about what human beings and our world are like. At some point, every community, no matter how doggedly it clings to its own beliefs, gains new insights, develops new technologies and delves into new realms of experience. When this comes to pass, inevitably some of the new developments can’t be reconciled with its old views. At first it’s only scattered individuals, primarily those who have done the best job of retaining their pleasure in thinking, who become aware of this discrepancy and work to expand, open, supplement and transform the old beliefs until they are compatible with the newly gained insights. At the moment, we’re witnessing a process of expansion and transformation with regard to our own self-image. Because the significance of this process and its repercussions on how we shape our lives and how we’ll coexist in the future aren’t yet entirely clear, it’s worthwhile to take a closer look at the basis of this learning process. What drives us to seek knowledge?

There aren’t that many differences between human beings and animals. But what differences there are, are essential ones: we’re the only living organisms on the planet that can reflect on themselves, on their actions, their feelings, and even on how they became who they are, and the only ones with the ability to arrive at certain insights in the process. What’s remarkable about this unique ability and the accompanying recognition of our own opportunities is the fact that it is “prewired” as a potential in every human brain. Genetically speaking, we’re no different from our ancestors, who roamed the planet as hunter-gatherers 100,000 years ago. With each step in their evolution, with every invention, every discovery and every new experience, they managed to succes26



sively tap their brains’ intrinsic potential for networking – but only because, instead of keeping their new knowledge and skills to themselves, they passed them on to others; to those they lived with in their respective communities, and of course to following generations who grew up in those communities. This vertical and horizontal dissemination of individually acquired insights and experiences was our species’ crucial advantage. Once someone or the other had discovered a better way to complete a given task, their whole community soon knew. And if what they discovered proved its value, the knowledge was then passed on to the next generation, ensuring it was preserved from generation to generation, until at some point it was supplemented, replaced or transformed by subsequent advances. Of course, much has been forgotten or been lost along the way. But in the course of human history, the wealth of knowledge and skills gathered by communities and passed down trans-generationally has constantly grown – sometimes at breathtaking speed. In the beginning, everything had to be shown or told to someone else personally; later it was written down, ensuring it was recorded and could be shared. Today, we save things electronically and can share them globally thanks to the Internet. No matter who makes an important new discovery, where they do it, or whenever something of relevance to us takes place somewhere on the planet – in no time at all, that news is available practically everywhere. For the first time in human history, it’s become apparent that we’re beginning to grow together into a global community. With the advent of an information and communication network that spans the globe, for the first time there is something akin to a “metabrain” that connects people from all regions and cultures, that preserves our knowledge, and that allows us to share and exchange information with everyone else. In fact, this global network for storing and sharing information offers us so many options that we can all too easily forget 

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why we human beings are so dependent on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and have therefore refined that ability to such a great extent. Searching for an answer to this question leads us to yet another characteristic that separates us from animals, or at least from those animals whose behaviour is determined by neural connections that are innate, that are formed in their brains and can later hardly be changed. No matter what they encounter, they can only respond to it by activating an innate behavioural programme; their behaviour is determined by reflexes, drives and instincts that are firmly embedded in their brains and which work more or less automatically. When they are in danger or feel threatened, they resort to one of these instinctive programmes. As such, they essentially automatically “know” how to react in such a situation; some flee, some attack, and some simply freeze. Every now and then, they also demonstrate so-called “displacement activities”. But there’s one thing they don’t know, at least not like we do: fear. Only in extreme situations do we human beings respond by activating one of the “archaic” behavioural programmes stored in our brains. Then we, too, either fight, flee or freeze up. In all other cases, we have to first learn how to respond in difficult situations, to solve problems and overcome challenges – by gaining more experience and acquiring new skills. When we physically sense or imagine something that is a threat to us and don’t yet know how to respond to it, we become afraid. But once we’ve determined just what it’s all about, where it comes from and how to react in order to avoid the risk it represents, our fears disappear. We no longer dread what had once frightened us, as we now know how to deal with it. The only problem is that whenever our brains don’t know how to respond to a potential threat, it results in chaos, especially in the highly complex regions of the cerebral cortex, reducing us to a state in which we can no longer find good 28



solutions. That’s why we all too often panic, reacting rashly and instinctively instead of calmly and rationally, let alone creatively. As such, once fear takes hold we are no longer capable of devising suitable and viable solutions to overcome or avoid threats; we can only do so beforehand, while we can still think fairly clearly. We have the best and most creative ideas – and make the most interesting discoveries, and learn most effectively – when we feel no fear at all, when we feel really good and all is as it should be. When we can effortlessly experiment to see just what all is possible, what we can imagine, what we can do and learn in the process. But this is only possible when we are in a place that makes us feel safe and secure. Where has our quest for knowledge led us?

We see, then, that our constantly learning brains present us with a problem, the same problem that our ancestors faced: on the one hand, we can only overcome our fears by acquiring new knowledge. On the other, we find it impossible to arrive at creative solutions or to acquire new knowledge as long as we are paralysed by fear. Since the dawn of human history, there has only been one solution to this dilemma: forming communities in which individuals could feel more or less safe and secure, and in which the children growing up in the community were protected sufficiently well and long enough for them to acquire all of the adult members’ skills and knowledge, equipping them to identify and adequately respond to the dangers and threats arising in their lifeworld in a timely manner. Or, to put it in other words: fear is the price we pay for our constantly learning brains. Fear can only be overcome by gaining new knowledge, but gaining that knowledge is only feasible within communities that offer safety and promote trust. Or, even more simply put: all of the skills and knowledge we have 

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today are thanks to the fact that, throughout human history, we have all developed together with others within communities that made us basically feel safe and secure. The rest of the story is fairly simple and takes us to our current situation. Human communities have since spread to every corner of the earth. As there were different types of threats and risks, their members had different experiences and acquired different skills and expertise. The result: from community to community, different beliefs were developed and passed down to later generations. These communities went on to become even more differentiated, cultivating different abilities and growing more distant from each other, until at some point – and here we see something else that sets us apart from animals – they went to war, attacking, slaughtering, enslaving and plundering other communities. As such, the primal fear that can only be overcome in human communities produced a new type of fear, namely that of people from other communities. This mutual fear, this fear of being harmed or threatened by others, is still firmly anchored in our brains; within these societies, it is always passed down to the next generation. And it won’t automatically disappear simply because we learn more and more about what’s happening around the world, about what others have discovered or devised, or about other cultures’ ideas and values. On the contrary! Surfing the Internet or following the news from around the world can make our fears worse than ever. We can’t help but see the horrible things we humans are still capable of, how brutally we still attack one another, how we still oppress, humiliate, exploit or even abuse one another; not even a wild animal would ever do that. As such, we have every reason to be scared. And since our mutual fear is so great, we seek to protect ourselves by entering into alliances with like-minded individuals, by drawing a line between “us” and “them”, and 30



by viewing others as enemies or rivals. By amassing weapons and spying on our neighbours. We invest incredible amounts of energy and natural resources into keeping our fear of one another more or less under control. But it doesn’t work. Nor do our efforts, as individuals or collectively, to deny that fear, to distract ourselves from it or escape it with the help of drugs and medications seem to truly help; they only create new problems and make us sick. That can’t be the right way. Are we capable of recognising ourselves?

Some people will primarily use their brains – out of fear – to differentiate themselves from others, and to pursue their own interests at others’ expense. The neural connection patterns, created throughout the evolution of human communities to date and passed down by each generation to its children, are incredibly robust. These patterns determine how their members think, feel and act, form the basis of the attitudes and views they develop, influence their ideas on what matters most in life, and shape their images of themselves, of human nature and of the world at large. Dispelling them and replacing them with other neural connection patterns can’t simply be done overnight. We’ve all seen it, in others and in ourselves: clinging to views and attitudes that were copied from parents, friends or other people, or which were formed and reinforced as a way of distancing ourselves from said people. Being trapped by the value system of our native culture, the attraction and tenacity of collective ideas and the difficulties involved in seeking to rid ourselves of these patterns and choose our own path. But the fact that we’ve seen this time and again, and perhaps even caught ourselves doing it, does not provide us new ideas or constructive solutions; all it does is spark a feeling. It could be pain, perhaps powerlessness or simply sadness, sometimes even fear. And since these are all unpleasant feelings, we nor

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mally do our best to shake them off as quickly as possible. This is usually achieved through distraction, by doing something to take our mind off the problem, or through denial, dissociation or whichever name psychologists prefer to use to refer to these coping strategies. But the one thing that doesn’t happen here: we don’t start thinking about how we might actually get rid of these concepts, which are firmly anchored in our brains and we seem to cling to. That can’t be forced, and we immediately get a very disquieting feeling when we try to do so. The only people who can reflect on themselves and arrive at meaningful insights are those who truly want to. Those who enjoy learning something new about themselves, who are interested in finding out why they think, feel and act the way they do, and who want to get to the bottom of how all these neural networks, which shape their beliefs, convictions and innermost feelings, formed in their brains. Accordingly, the path of self-recognition offers the only way out of the trouble we’re in. That’s nothing new; many others have described the path and sought to make it a bit easier. What’s new is that, for some years now, these efforts have also been addressed by an academic discipline that focuses precisely on the organ we use to arrive at new insights. Our brains have allowed us to make incredible strides in our understanding of the world around us, and to constantly develop new ways of putting the world to work for our own purposes. In the process, we have automatically also learned a great deal about ourselves and our unique quality. And that quality – as advances made in the past few years, especially those of neurobiologists, have revealed – is a social one; we are social creatures. Just as a brain is inconceivable without its body, and certainly can’t function without it, the human brain cannot be conceived of in the singular, i. e. without its connections to other people. This is because the brain each of us carries was structured by our experiences with other people. Our brains are social con32



structs, individual in terms of their uniqueness, yet formed by the experiences we gather in our relationships with others. And these relationships aren’t always helpful; in fact, they’re often painful. That’s what moves us to put up walls between ourselves and others, or to use them for our own purposes, to raise, shape, employ or lead them in keeping with our own views, or to find other ways to treat people as objects. But when we do so, the relations between the neurons in the brains of all parties involved will remain just as they were. However, we can also make a conscious choice to change this form of interaction, which has evolved between different societies in the course of countless generations. Every fundamental change begins when people are emotionally moved by something that affects them and their relations to those they live together with; it’s the feeling that something is wrong. And when someone gets the feeling that there is something wrong with the life they lead and the world they live in, they start looking for answers. Acquiring new knowledge can help them in their quest. Never before has humanity enjoyed access to so much knowledge. But gathering knowledge doesn’t automatically produce new insights; only reflection and contemplation can do that. To do so, we use the knowledge available to us, together with our own personal experiences; these are the only resources available to individuals for contemplation. Accordingly, every new insight that an individual gains tends to be fairly limited; it may be important, even seminal for them, but not (or not to the same extent) for others. But when many people get the feeling that there is something wrong with the world they live in, they can also decide to search for new answers together. By sharing, exchanging and combining their individual insights, they can produce meta-insights concerning those things that are most important to them as individuals and collectively. 

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As such, not commonly available knowledge, but rather the insights gained by combining individual experiences provide a foundation for making decisions on an individual basis but which are nonetheless approved in consensus. The more varied the experiences that the members of a community share and use to inform their individual decisions are, the more fundamental and lasting the resulting change process within the community – and within the brains of its members – will be. Years ago, I read something in a book by Gregory Bateson that has always stuck with me; he essentially said that the only way to change nature is to give in to it. It took quite a bit of time before I began to grasp just what he might have meant. I myself grew up in a world in which we human beings changed nature more radically and rapidly than ever before – but we didn’t do so by giving in to nature; instead we put nature to work for us. Using new scientific advances and methods, we have bred cattle that produce so much milk and have such huge udders they can barely walk. We’ve succeeded in transforming valleys and dales into monotone agricultural fields where nothing grows except what we commercially cultivate there. In grocery stores we buy tomatoes and cucumbers that were grown with chemical fertilisers in giant greenhouses. And these rapid advances in the exploitation of nature were made possible by the discoveries of natural scientists, whose goal was to find out just how life works. What biologists do with plants and animals is what neurobiologists like myself do with the brain: dissecting, analysing, clarifying functional mechanisms and finding out how disorders can be treated and performance can be improved. This was the exact opposite of the approach I’d found by reading Bateson. So I started asking myself just what he meant by saying that the only way to change nature was to give in to it. Doesn’t nature, the living and the dead parts alike, constantly 34



and inevitably change? The entire history of our planet, and especially that of the evolution of life – from the first primitive progenitors of today’s cells, to the first multicellular organisms, to the rise of the tremendous range of species that now inhabit the earth – is characterised by constant change. And the living organisms involved were always simultaneously shapers of and shaped by this process. They were embedded in it, and the only way they had of changing “nature” was to change themselves, to adapt and conform to the changing conditions. There is only one species that, in the course of its evolution, has developed the unique abilities that allow it to shape its lifeworld as it sees fit: human beings. Only we can change nature as we wish. And that’s exactly what we’ve done as far back as we can remember, and done so more and more effectively, precisely and rapidly. We have made nature an object of our ambitions and actions, and have created our own lifeworld, one we ourselves have shaped. In so doing, we have sought to free ourselves from nature. Yet we remain natural living organisms; we are part of nature and accordingly dependent on other living organisms and the laws of nature. When he claimed that the only way to change nature was to give in to it, Bateson wasn’t truly talking about nature; his words were meant for us, and us alone. However, he wasn’t referring to humans as a species, because as biological creatures we are and always will be part of nature. Rather, he was talking about our attitudes concerning ourselves and nature. We can change those views as we see fit, and those we have historically developed are what have distanced us from the natural interactions and mutual dependencies that unite all living organisms on our planet. But we will only succeed in changing them by recognising where they came from and how they affect us. Life on our planet must have held incredible potential for creativity from the outset. It must have been capable of pre

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serving itself and the structures it developed, despite all the destabilising external influences. It must have found solutions that allowed it to absorb the energy it needed in a self-controllable manner, or to internally produce it on the basis of other forms of energy. And it must have found a way of archiving the information that was essential to its self-preservation and to the formation of its structures. It must have found solutions that allowed it to compensate for the changes in its lifeworld produced by its own activities and growth. As such, it must have had the ability to constantly adapt to these changes, to change itself and manifest different variants of itself. Over the course of time this must have inevitably produced increasingly differentiated and complex forms and structures, each of which served its own purpose and possessed abilities of its own, but which, due to their differentiation and specialisations, didn’t remain mutually independent but were instead able to evolve on the basis of alternating dependencies. Life on Earth – self-perpetuating, constantly shifting into different forms, structures and functions and as such driving on its own evolution – is what eventually produced us human beings. Accordingly, we’re not merely one of many living organisms that developed in the course of this process; we are life itself. And life is neither a status nor a specific form; it is a process. A process in which the information concerning the nature of how all the living organisms involved co-exist was not available from the outset, but was instead gradually produced in the course of the process, through countless cases of trial and error. How do we gain insights of our own?

Over the course of our lives, we all gain certain insights. Sometimes these are insights we gain about ourselves. They can help us to better grasp why we are the way we are. And sometimes we gain insights concerning others, allowing us to better under36



stand their motives and motivations. And those of us with an interest in plants and animals, in science and technology, in culture and the arts, in football or what have you, will also have arrived at an insight or two that deepens and reinforces our understanding of certain developments in these fields. What the person in question has discovered through their own contemplation is always accurate in their eyes; they arrived at it on the basis of their own experience and knowledge. Someone else, drawing on their own background and experiences, may come to a wholly different conclusion. Then the two people would have to try to come to an agreement on whose insight more accurately represents the reality. But, since each perceives and views that “reality” in their own way – one will focus more on this aspect, the other on that one – finding common ground can prove quite difficult. And when the new insights the two people have arrived at concern something that other people also feel to be important, the problem can quickly become nearly impossible to solve: before the two can even begin to think of a way to reconcile their contrasting insights, there are usually already people who subscribe to one school of thought or the other, and who are ready to fight tooth and nail to defend their position from those who disagree. This is far worse than a family dispute, where only Mummy and Daddy’s views on the “right way” to raise their children or plan their holidays are what clash. When large groups of people begin to argue about whether or not Earth is flat, whether or not they’re descended from apes, or whether competition is better than cooperation, it can all too easily escalate to violent conflicts. Insights that are gained through contemplation – or that we take over from other people after careful consideration – also clearly differ from knowledge acquired through simple learning processes in terms of the processes involved in the brain. Certain types of knowledge can still be lastingly embedded in the 

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brain, even if it holds no particular significance for the person in question’s own life or self-image. The new knowledge and its accompanying stimulation pattern merely have to be compatible with the previously formed neural networks they are intended to supplement. The more complex the networks are, the better the resulting expanded pattern can be structurally anchored. This can be achieved e. g. by simultaneously activating several senses, e. g. sight, sound, smell, etc., during knowledge acquisition. Further, gaining new knowledge is also more successful when the learning process is associated with a positive feeling – and can therefore be linked with emotional networks and those networks responsible for regulating the accompanying physical reactions. Since knowledge acquisition in this type of learning process depends on all of these factors, it can also be shaped by external influences, e. g. by the teacher or the quality of their teaching. It’s even possible to force knowledge acquisition using conditioning methods in the form of instructions and punishments. As such, learning can even function when the person doing the learning is reduced to the object of disciplinary and educational measures. But none of this works when it comes to insights that we gain as individuals. This we can only do by and for ourselves, as subjects and not objects. This starts – just as it does in the learning process – with the perception of something new that doesn’t quite jibe with what is already embedded in the person in question’s brain. Not in the form of knowledge, abilities and skills (as in the learning process), but instead from past experiences, the inner attitudes, beliefs and views engrained in the frontal lobe thanks to those experiences, and the resulting beliefs regarding him- or herself (self-image), other people (views on human nature) and the world in general (worldview). The essential characteristic of these “meta-cognitions”, whether they stem from personal experience or are copied from 38



important parental figures, is their inextricable connection to emotional structures. In other words, these insights are never purely cognitive in nature; as they hold a special meaning for the person in question, they shape both their emotional wellbeing and, through physical reactions regulated by the emotional centres of the brain, their physical wellbeing. Whenever a new experience, a new discovery or a new way of looking at things doesn’t seem to fit in with the beliefs formed by our past experiences, we find it unsettling. Over longer periods of time, this condition can grow intolerable, as it is accompanied by the activation of fear and stress reactions (which are what produce the disquieting feeling). When this happens, we find ourselves facing a problem that only we can solve: either by denying or fending off the new insight that has shaken and called into question our previous self-image, views and beliefs. Or by adjusting those views and beliefs in such a manner that our new discovery is no longer a threat and can be integrated into our expanded mindset. When we succeed in doing so, we arrive at a new insight that either expands on or supplants our previous views. In the process, we grow and broaden the horizons of how we think, feel and act. Needless to say, our new insight isn’t the first we’ve ever had. There were plenty of other insights before it, each of which was either accepted as being true and accurate or rejected for being false or dubious. But in the process, we not only felt this unique sensation; we also had an interesting experience. This distinction also warrants a closer look: insights differ from the wealth of things we learn in the course of a lifetime in that the former are fundamental in nature and meaningful for how we lead our lives. We arrive at this type of insight through a meta-analysis of sorts, i. e. by merging and melding countless individual elements we’ve observed throughout our life, or that we’ve acquired in our studies of a broad field. What 

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we essentially do here is to examine the various phenomena we are already familiar with “from above”. By adopting this perspective, we can from time to time recognise certain patterns according to which these individual phenomena are ordered and interlinked; we might even be able to identify certain principles that impose structure on said phenomena. “From below,” i. e. at the level of the phenomena, these patterns and structuring principles are difficult or even impossible to see, a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. This is one way we human beings can use our brains to gain insights of our own. But there is also a second, equally important strategy. We can also immerse ourselves in the phenomena, dissecting them into smaller and smaller individual aspects and analysing them. To continue with our metaphor, this would mean searching by looking “below”. This approach is also important; provided we can successfully recombine the various and sundry phenomena into a greater, consistent image, it, too, yields new insights – e. g. into the neural pathways of the brain, nutrient transport, or the role of chloroplasts in a tree’s leaves. We all use our brains in different ways, at times focusing more on the synthesizing view from “above”, and at others on the analytical view from “below”. As a result, the very same phenomenon, e. g. trees, animals or people, can look quite different from “above” than it does from “below”. Depending on the standpoint from which we observe a given phenomenon, we will inevitably arrive at different conclusions. Some people have more frequently than others noticed that they gained meaningful insights by dissecting and analysing the subject at hand. As a result, they can all too easily come to believe that this is the only “right way” to pursue new insights. Others, who have made important discoveries by looking from “above,” by identifying and merging the patterns and principles behind the phenomena, can just as easily conclude that their way is best. We all know what comes next: quarrels, arguments, 40



dogmatism, and ignoring, disparaging or even attacking the insights put forward by the “other side”. Yet neither party can actually win or be “proven right”, because what each has discovered is right and accurate from their perspective. As such, those who subscribe to one of the two schools of thought or the other can only barricade themselves away, withdraw to their respective positions, reinforce their defences and dig as deep a trench as possible between themselves and the enemy. The result of this kind of “trench warfare” is nothing new: stagnation. And stagnation can’t be done away with by one side or the other getting its way, but by representatives of both sides considering the possibility that in fact both perspectives are needed in order to arrive at a greater insight, one that surpasses what they were capable of discovering with their previous perspective and approach. How can we assess the validity of our insights?

Accordingly, it is both exciting and worthwhile to take a closer look at how we use our brains to decide how to assess a given insight. If it seems sound to us, we consider it to be true and are ready to accept it; if it doesn’t, we’ll continue to doubt it, deeming it to be incomplete, confusing and therefore unacceptable. In this regard, it is rarely logical, analytical thought that moves us to land on one side of the fence or the other. Instead, there is a certain odd feeling that sinks in during this internal assessment process. It makes no difference if the insight in question is one we arrived at on our own, or if we came into contact with it through friends, the media or the Internet. If it rings true for us, we get a good feeling about it; if not, we get a bad one. But what is even more interesting than the fact that a new insight sparks a feeling in our brains is the question as to what 

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it is we use to judge it. Within the brain, what is the potential new insight compared with? With something it is already familiar with, of course, something already anchored in it in the form of specific neural connection patterns. These could be personal experiences, previously acquired knowledge, or views and beliefs a person has accrued in the course of their life. This, too, is fairly easy to explain, as something new can only become imprinted in the brain if it can be linked to what is already there, i. e. if it is compatible with one of the neural connection patterns already formed there. If it can’t, it will be dismissed as nonsense and promptly forgotten; that’s the way every learning process works. But when we try to decide whether or not a given new insight is acceptable, we’re not initially concerned about appropriating the new addition, or linking it to some previous pattern. The first thing we do is try to determine how plausible the new insight is, and we do so by checking how well it jibes with all the other knowledge, experiences, beliefs and views already stored in our brains  – and the new insight doesn’t have to just fit together with one neural connection pattern, but with everything already there. Whenever it doesn’t, we get the strange sensation that something about it isn’t quite right. Which insights prevail?

Looking back, we can see that in the context of assessing the validity of a given insight, at least initially it’s rarely been those groups who found a valid description of observable phenomena, but instead those who were stronger, more numerous and more powerful who managed to come out on top. And with a bit of distance it becomes clear that none of these conflicts really had to do with whether some view was right or wrong; instead, they were about helping one side or the other to gain or maintain positions of power and privilege. 42



At this point, no one cares about the fact that these beliefs are actually the product of insights that an individual human being originally arrived at on the basis of his or her own knowledge and experiences; having been adopted by so many others, they have become an ideology. And that ideology fulfils a function: it offers its adherents a basis for legitimating and actively pursuing their interests. By now, an age characterised by great religious wars and the bloodiest ideological conflicts in human history is drawing to a close, albeit only gradually and by no means uniformly. To find out how far today’s information society has come, we only have to ask ourselves whether we are still under the spell of any ideologies. Are certain beliefs that shape how we think, feel and act still disseminated in books and other media and passed down from generation to generation simply because they are well-suited to explaining, justifying and continuing to pursue our interests? In retrospect we know how hard it is and how long it can take for convictions that we adopted and were convinced of in earlier phases of our development to be called into question and ultimately supplanted by new insights. Today, no one still believes the Earth is flat, that gold can be made with the help of alchemy, or that Newton’s laws of motion apply everywhere in the universe. But the enormous strides made in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, physics and chemistry have not only changed our views on the world; they’ve also opened up opportunities previously never dreamt of for shaping our own lifeworlds. Everything that makes up modern life – electrical power, mobility, communications systems, manufacturing, etc. – is the result of discoveries made in the natural sciences. This belief has accompanied us throughout the past several generations. Firmly anchored deep in our frontal lobes as an experientially reinforced neural network, it has evolved into a fixed belief, an inner conviction, to such an extent that it now shapes our thoughts, feelings and actions, 

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affecting our priorities, judgments and decisions. That’s why we consider learning about the natural sciences at school, preferably starting in kindergarten, to be so important. Further advances in science and technology seem indispensable, and at some level we believe they hold the solutions to all of our problems. We also believe that competition, which allows us to identify and foster the brightest minds, is the only way to safeguard those advances. Granted, these days you’ll no longer hear anyone preaching the idea of a “master race” or the need to “eliminate inferior life”. And most of us believe that all people should enjoy the same rights and are entitled to the same opportunities for development. But aren’t there just as many people who are quite pleased with the notion that some people – and they’re happy to include themselves in that group – were simply born more gifted than others? Who insist that what a person makes of their life primarily depends on their genetic traits? And don’t most of us still consider competition to be the main driver of progress, citing Darwin’s theory of evolution to justify our privileges as the winners of this competition? Just how reliable are these beliefs, which are based on discoveries from the field of biology? On which insights can we orientate our actions?

Whereas advances in all other fields of the natural sciences allow us to make mathematical, physical or astronomical phenomena the object of our thoughts and experiments, when it comes to the search for biological discoveries we are inextricably part of the very same living system we’re exploring. And the discoveries we make have a more direct impact on us than those in other disciplines. Further, our personal experiences and the convictions, attitudes and stances they produce have a much stronger influence. These life experiences – 44



both those individually anchored in the brain of the respective researcher and collectively embedded in the consciousness of a specific community – have a much greater impact on which answers researchers in the life sciences search for, and which approaches and methods they use to do so, than we’re prepared to admit. Accordingly, those topics that seem especially important to individual researchers or a human community at a given point in their development can at times more directly push the focus of research in the life sciences in a certain direction than the object of study’s objective traits. The fact that an observer’s expectations and their influence on the methods he or she chooses to use can greatly influence research findings is something long-since recognised by physicists, who codified it as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. But the recognition that our expectations and the methods they lead us to select can determine whether an electron appears to be a particle or a wave had at best an extremely marginal influence on our own self-image and how we lead our lives. In no other discipline of the natural sciences are both the search for new insights and the theoretical constructs it produces so heavily influenced by the zeitgeist and expectations of the respective society as in biology. Biological discoveries are pursued and found in order to prove that innate drives and instincts determine human behaviour, that there are “better” and “worse” human beings, that the struggle for survival is a law of nature and, as such, “inferior” individuals or even races have no right to go on living. The list of such “biological” legitimations for pursuing certain interests is a long one, and examples can easily be found from the present day: biologically speaking, women are responsible for childrearing. Men are notoriously unfaithful and only interested in the maximum distribution of their genes. Because intelligence is hereditary, we need a selective school system, etc. 

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These views and similar ones left over from the last century have established themselves in every corner of modern society. They have been adopted by other disciplines in the life sciences, by psychologists, educators, doctors, and even by economists and philosophers and used as the basis for developing their own concepts. They continue to be taught at schools and universities, and are very successfully marketed at all levels in the form of popular science. They provide “biological justifications” for why our world is the way it is, and for why the way we live together and our ties to nature can only be changed to the extent allowed by our “biological nature”. In so doing, they satisfy the needs of those people who have a vested interest in safeguarding their own privileges and possessions without having to question their usual conduct and way of thinking. As long as the majority of a community’s members feel this need, it will remain difficult if not impossible to establish other views on the nature of life, on what all living organisms need, what unites them, what potential they and we hold, and how that potential can be nurtured. A relatively young discipline, biology stems from the classical natural sciences. Its subject matter, life in all its varied forms, is so complex that in many areas biologists are still working to gather samples, sort and classify them. In others, their focus is on dissecting living organisms and describing the features of their individual parts as precisely as possible. In this regard they have progressed to the level of individual molecules, cracked the genetic code, and discovered a wealth of signals, neurotransmitters and receptors used to exchange information between cells, between cells and organs, and ultimately between organisms. In some cases, they can even precisely reconstruct how certain living organisms have changed over the course of their evolutionary history, how the requisite information was passed down from generation to generation, and how that information was used to promote specific physical characteristics during the development of an individual specimen. 46



All of these findings on the structure and function of living systems, the product of biological research, not only have a great deal to do with us; they also concern us much more directly than do e. g. our understanding of physical phenomena or chemical reactions. The fact that Newton’s laws of motion only apply in certain cases, that there is such a thing as curved space, that time is relative and waves can transform into particles – for most of us, it’s all wholly irrelevant for our own lives, which is why these new perspectives have had little effect on our lives or our self-image. In contrast, biological discoveries are always discoveries about ourselves. And biologically based concepts are always concepts regarding our own characteristics and accordingly a major component of our own self-image. This makes it essential that we regularly and critically reassess the accuracy and feasibility of the body of theory produced by past discoveries and to which every new finding is added. There’s a great deal of proof indicating that this old body of theory, first created in the previous century, has now grown quite decrepit and should be replaced. There are a number of sound arguments for fundamentally re-orientating biology for the 21st century: ȤȤ Biologists have always taught us that competition is the mainspring of evolution. However, it has long-since become apparent that competition doesn’t lead to evolution, but merely to progressive specialisation of living organisms. Evolution is more than just the development of specialists who are increasingly well-adapted to certain conditions. ȤȤ Biologists have dissected diverse living organisms, reducing them to their smallest components in order to determine how they work. Thanks to the knowledge they’ve gained in the process, we can now describe the structures and functions of cells and organisms more precisely than ever before. But all of these discoveries, gained at the price of countless 

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dead and dissected living organisms, still tell us nothing about what makes a life form alive, or what keeps it alive. ȤȤ Biologists have treated and examined living organisms as objects of scientific study, and in so doing have overlooked the fact that every life form is a subject and not an object. A subject that, as long as it lives, has desires of its own, even if those desires are only its own survival, growth and procreation. Despite the wealth of biological knowledge we’ve accrued, this intentionality of all living things is a phenomenon we still can’t explain. ȤȤ Mechanistic concepts from the previous century have also led biologists to search for programmes that dictate the development of various living organisms. As a result, they are unable to see that the ability of self-organisation is the most important trait of all living things. ȤȤ Because in the past biologists have placed so much value on identifying what makes a given life-form unique, on what sets it apart from others, to date we’ve largely overlooked what all living organisms have in common. We have long-since embraced these perspectives, holdovers from the “old biology”, and we pass them on to our children at schools and universities. Since it will hardly be possible to foster a culture of togetherness, mutual respect and diversity while so many people remain convinced that pursuing our interests at the expense of others is in keeping with our inherent traits, it’s high time that we fundamentally re-examine these convictions, even if doing so means they prove to be ideologies used to justify how we currently live together rather than viable biological principles. And that’s precisely what we’ll now seek to achieve together by closely examining the four basic insights that still shape our self-image and our relations to other living organisms.

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1.1 Living organisms don’t function like machines. They want to live and pursue their own goals, making them intentional subjects

Have you ever made a pie crust? You buy a package of baking yeast and stir the contents into a bowl of warm milk, adding flour and sugar to “feed” it. Then you place the whole mixture somewhere warm and cover it with a cloth. The yeast cells start to divide, and the mixture soon transforms into an expanding clump. You may already be thinking about the tasty pie you could now bake with it. But let’s try viewing the process from the perspective of the yeast cells. Imagine you were this clump of yeast, growing quite nicely, when someone came along, took away the sheet covering your bowl and asked you what you (as a clump of rapidly reproducing yeast cells) had planned for the day and would like to do most. The answer would be: to keep growing and remain a coherent yeast clump, just like now. And if you could think a bit farther down the road and were asked to make a wish, you’d most likely say: “That it stays just as warm and I have just as much to eat as now.” Compared to these single-celled organisms, it’s likely easier for you to imagine you were an earthworm that, following a rain shower, finds itself washed up on an asphalt road and is desperately seeking to get to just one place: back in the ground. You’d be hard-pressed to claim that the earthworm, in its current unfortunate situation, has no goals in mind – unless you consider its actions to be reflexive or instinct-driven floundering, nothing more than automatic behaviour resulting from some basic programme in its brain. You could of course choose to see it that way. And in the scientific literature you’ll find plenty of arguments that an earthworm, with it needle-sized supra- or suboesophageal ganglion, can’t possibly feel fear and therefore want to get off the asphalt road as quickly as possible. While that may be true, an earthworm wouldn’t call what it feels in 

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this situation “fear”; nor would it know what an asphalt road is. Yet its brain, tiny though it may be, is certainly capable of telling it that it would be better to get away as quickly as possible. Accordingly, the truly interesting question isn’t whether or not a worm has feelings and can have intentions, but why so many people in our culture are so quick to claim that other living organisms only passively respond to environmental stimuli and aren’t capable of acting for themselves, i. e. in keeping with their own intentions. Why is that thought so appealing to us? And why are we willing to make exceptions for certain living organisms? Why do we have no qualms about admitting that they have desires, and that in some cases they even find highly creative ways and means to satisfy them? Every dog owner knows this all too well from their own experience. And everyone who likes animals and has observed their behaviour more closely knows that even a water flea or paramecium doesn’t simply wander about its lifeworld like some tiny machine that only responds to stimuli, but instead is pursuing something there – even if it’s just to somehow stay alive – and looking for something – even if it’s only food or a mating partner. Apparently, the insights a given person arrives at largely depend on whether or not they like yeast cells, earthworms, dogs or plants and therefore observe their behaviour closely and with a great deal of sensitivity. Whether they consider other living organisms to be subjects that actively seek to explore and shape their world, or instead consider them to be plants and animals, some more complexly structured than others, that essentially respond to certain stimuli with pre-programmed reactions, depends on the attitude with which they approach the question. And that attitude is always subjective – neither innate nor the same in all people, it is the result of the person in question’s own experiences to date (with single-celled organisms, worms, dogs etc.). The resulting inner 50



convictions and the assessments they produce can, however, change with time – in response to new, different experiences. When this happens, we suddenly view the clump of yeast, the wriggling earthworm or the dachshund scratching at the door in a whole new light. The fact that most people in our culture assume that only we, and neither animals nor plants, act intentionally, have feelings, and pursue goals of our own is nothing more than the expression of a deeply anchored inner conviction, i. e. of a subjective belief. And it is based on an extremely banal experience: it’s not so easy to use another life form for your own purposes or to treat it like an object if you believe that it has feelings and desires, even if it only – just like us – wants to survive and reproduce. That’s an uncomfortable thought, which is why we all try to shake it off as quickly as possible. The easiest way of doing so is to simply adopt the views held by others, the people we grew up with and live with, including the belief that we are the only living organisms that have feelings and pursue their own goals. Even the experts for all living things, the biologists, owe nearly everything they’ve learned to the fact that they use plants and animals as test subjects. Their findings are disseminated by the media, recorded in textbooks and eagerly adopted by all those who can use them to pursue their own goals and confirm their own beliefs. The question of whether a yeast cell, an earthworm or a dog has feelings and goals of its own is an interesting one. But anyone who expects an objective answer from precisely those people who use other living organisms as objects in the pursuit of new findings is either naïve or intentionally deceiving him- or herself. The only objective insight that can be derived from these attempts to justify how we treat other living organisms is one that concerns us: we prefer to cling to the idea that plants and animals have no feelings or intentions; otherwise 

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we couldn’t go on treating them like objects that can be used to further our own goals. However, the key question in this regard isn’t whether we need other living organisms to ensure our own survival; in fact, we are completely dependent on them. Without plants we wouldn’t have any oxygen to breathe or anything to eat; the Earth would be inhabitable for us. In fact, the whole planet would be dead, since there wouldn’t be any animals either. And if animal life had never developed, there wouldn’t be any humans. Needless to say, plants and animals alike need microorganisms, from which the first multicellular organisms developed. They provide nutrients for plants and represent the beginning of the food chain for animals. And without microorganisms that allow our intestines to break down food, no animals could survive, us included. So we need all of these other living organisms much more than we realise in our daily lives. But does that automatically mean we should reduce them to the objects of our scientific or even commercial, profit-oriented pursuits? Why can’t we treat other living organisms, even if we rely on them and use them for certain purposes, with respect, and at least concede that they, too, have feelings and intentions of their own? That’s the real point: it’s not what we do with other living organisms that counts; it’s the attitude with which we do it. This determines how we approach other living organisms and how we treat them – and one another. In fact, this other attitude with which we could approach plants and animals matches the experiences we all have with them, at least in the great outdoors. If they had no feelings or intentions, we wouldn’t even be able to recognise them as living things. You’ll never find a plant that no longer grows or an animal that no longer fights for its survival, except perhaps in very brief, temporary phases; they either go back to living and 52



pursuing their goals, or they’re dead. Living organisms aren’t machines that can be turned off and on. They possess something no machine can match: the ability to develop and maintain the structures and relations upon which their own makeup and abilities are based. They are capable – at least to a certain extent – of restoring their inner order, even in the face of external factors that threaten it. That’s what allows them to survive. And if all else fails, they can also change their inner order to adapt to an ongoing external disruption; in this case, they survive by evolving. 1.2 Programmes and blueprints can help us realise our goals, but all living organisms are self-organising

Ever since the dawn of our species, we’ve been searching. We’ve searched for solutions to the problems that plague us, and for explanations for all the strange phenomena we observe. Whenever and wherever someone has made a useful discovery during that search, they shared that insight with others, or at least with all those who were close to them and who they thought might benefit from it. Not everything discovered and shared in this way proved to be of lasting value; in fact much of it, once new discoveries had come to light, proved to be utterly wrong. But the experience that certain insights are later disproven, bringing them and the theories based on them crashing down like a house of cards, is also an important part of the search process. These errors especially arise when the person searching for new insights has certain preconceptions about what they hope to find. These preconceptions then steer their focus and their thoughts in a certain direction, making them biased and narrowing their observations and reflections. For instance, the assumption that the entire world revolves around you can easily influence your perceptions, not only 

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blinding you to the needs of others – as is the case with children who are doted on – but also to the makeup of our solar system – as was the case with medieval astronomers, who believed that Rome and the Pope were the centre of the world. And we still do something similar today when we apply certain concepts, e. g. those that have proven well suited to describing the functions of machines, to ourselves. Then we can all too easily come to view our heart as a pump, the synovial fluid in our joints as lubricant, and our brain as a computer. And when some part or the other isn’t working as it should, we go to the doctor so they can repair or replace it. When many people adopt this view, and when in addition the idea is appealing because it rids us of our personal responsibility for maintaining our health, it can take quite some time before someone discovers that our bodies can regulate and heal themselves, and before their discovery catches on. Only then will we open our eyes again and realise that doctors don’t actually heal wounds or broken bones; despite all their expertise, all they can do is ensure that the wound or broken bone mends itself as well and as quickly as possible. Doctors mend nothing; our skin and bones heal themselves. But the thought patterns shaped by the machine age not only continue to blind us to what keeps an organism healthy and what makes it sick; they’ve also shaped our efforts to answer the question of how a living organism grows from a fertilised egg cell to become a human being, a plant or an animal. If we want to build something, we need instructions or blueprints. They can tell us which parts need to be put together in which way so that in the end we have a bicycle, a car, a house or a computer. Doesn’t it seem likely, then, that every living organism also has its own blueprint? And of course: that said blueprint determines what the finished product looks like and how well it works? On the basis of this ubiquitous experience, to the biologists it seemed a plausible assumption that the development of all living organisms was also based on some form of blueprint. 54



Accordingly, they sought after it, and in the past century it seemed as though they had finally found it: in the form of specific DNA sequences in the cell nucleus, namely genes. Today, we refer to the genes collectively preserved there, the genome, as a genetic programme. Molecular biologists have since also discovered how these DNA sequences are used to produce specific proteins, and have even sequenced the genomes of many living organisms, including our own, in an attempt to decode their blueprints. Once we know the blueprints, so they hoped, we’ll finally also grasp how a fertilised egg cell grows to become a plant, an animal, or a human being. In fact, this knowledge made it possible to remove specific DNA sequences from the genome in the cells of one species and insert them in the genome of a second species, producing living organisms with traits and abilities they’d never had before. But the hope that this new knowledge would provide us with a blueprint for life proved to be in vain. Living organisms simply aren’t machines. They possess an ability we can never imbue in anything we create: whenever their internal relational network is disrupted, they can remedy the situation themselves – provided it is not so massive and sudden that they die. This is not only true for individual cells; it is a fundamental ability of all living systems. Every multicellular organism shares that ability; every plant and every animal, even slime moulds. The same is true of every social system consisting of individuals; every school of fish, every herd, every ant colony and of course every human community. The key principle is always the same: living systems can bounce back from disruptions, whether from without or within, by falling back on a pattern stored inside them. Every cell has inherited this pattern from its predecessors. A central component of that pattern is the genome embedded in its nucleus. But this basic genetic pattern, used to maintain the cell’s internal order, also includes every aspect needed 

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for expressing individual genetic sequences and processing the proteins they produce. This element, which molecular biologists refer to as the epigenome, determines which DNA sequences are expressed or suppressed, and when. This part of the pattern used to maintain cells’ internal order can – unlike the DNA sequences stored in the nucleus – be changed by the “experiences” a given cell has during its lifecycle. This allows each cell to adapt to the specific requirements of its respective lifeworld. Similarly, every multicellular organism possesses certain automatic response patterns, which it falls back on in order to compensate for externally or internally based problems; this is how e. g. our stress system, immune system, cardiovascular system, endocrine system and, last but not least, our nervous system work. All of these extensive, integrative regulatory systems are formed in the course of our individual development. From the outset, they are closely linked to the brain, which controls or at least greatly influences their functions. These internal systems, too, are to a certain extent malleable; they, too, adapt their functions and structure to match changing conditions throughout the person in question’s life. And of course the internal patterns that person has formed in their brain play a decisive part in this regard. These internal patterns include all of the neural connection patterns created by use, which every human being develops on the basis of their own life experiences and anchors in their brain in the form of their own convictions and beliefs, their views about themselves, human nature and the nature of the world. In short, there are certain internal patterns, and not just in us human beings but also all other socially organised animals, that safeguard the cohesion of their respective social structures and which the members of the respective communities employ to re-order and reconstitute their relations in response to disruptions from without or within. 56



In human beings, these community-promoting internal images include our myths and fairy tales, accounts of our origins, our cultural heritage (like songs and dances), our laws and constitutions, and our shared views on values and norms – all of which were created in the course of a respective community’s development, are constantly refined, sometimes even rewritten, and in the process are modified to reflect changing conditions and needs, time and time again. As such, regardless of the level at which we consider the formation of the characteristics and structures typical of living systems – a cell, an individual, or a social system consisting of countless individuals – the same principle applies: at their cores, they possess an orientational pattern (or internal images), which allows them to re-order and reconstitute their specific structure and organisation – and with it, the relations between the individual components. In the process, not only do they always rediscover just what had characterised their previous structure and function; since the reorganisation process often produces slight changes in that pattern, living systems only remain unchanged for a certain amount of time. They constantly reinvent themselves in an ongoing process of becoming. 1.3 Competition is not the driving force of evolution; it merely moves living systems to become increasingly specialised

No other aspect of our lives is so omnipresent as competition. Even as small children, we competed with our siblings for our parents’ attention and affection. In kindergarten, we then switched our focus to keeping our teachers happy and to being liked by other children, to having the best toys and to getting the best seats at the puppet show. There are always others who want the same things we do, a condition that results in the usual fights and quarrels, the triumph of the winner and the tears of the loser. And this never seems to end: at school, in the sports 

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club, at university, in the quest to meet Mr or Mrs Right, and on the job: whoever loses the fight for pole position gets left behind. The same is true in business, sports, the arts and of course in politics: competition shapes our lives, our thoughts, feelings and actions. It’s hardly surprising, then, that based on these experiences most of us have formed and later reinforced the conviction that competition is something we’ve been subjected to from day one, like a law of nature. And since we all know (and have often experienced it first-hand) that competition tends to separate out those people who have been most successful in the struggle for the best position, the most respect, influence, or to be the most desirable sex partner, we come to view competition as something inescapable, even necessary. Without competition, we believe, there would be no incentive to try harder and improve – whether for individuals, sports clubs, communities or companies. And no matter where we look in the animal world, we find our assumption quickly confirmed. Only those that can run, bite, hide, see, hear, roar, stink, sing, dance, fly, swim (or what have you) best, are who win the struggle for survival and have the best chances of reproducing. There’s no denying that observation. And ever since Darwin’s discoveries, it’s even been scientifically proven that in the course of evolution, over the span of several generations it was the pressure of competition and accompanying natural and sexual selection that ensured today’s species have the typical characteristics they do. The concept of how the diversity of species on our planet came to be, not to mention the idea that we developed from simian forefathers, is based on this premise. And it’s also true that, during this selection process, those genetic combinations responsible for the development of different species’ characteristics were the ones that came out on top and were passed on to the next generation. 58



True though that may be, it doesn’t mean the resultant, widespread belief that competition is the key driver of all innovation also has to be. After all, the only thing the pressures created by competition ensure is that something that already exists – a predisposition for a specific trait, or the genetic combination underlying that predisposition – will become more pronounced, in order to improve the chances that the individual members of a species have of surviving and reproducing. And when something that was already there is merely improved upon and made more effective, the result is progressive specialisation. But living systems never find something truly new – a fundamentally different predisposition, an unprecedented trait, or a wholly new solution to a given problem – when the pressures of competition and selection are at their highest. In order for truly innovative solutions to arise, a fundamental change in their previous relational network is called for. But when the pressures of selection mount, it’s hardly helpful. Quite the opposite: in order for old patterns to loosen up and to allow new relations to form within a living system, that system cannot be subjected to existential competitive pressures. Only then do we have suitable conditions for the actions that bring about creative solutions: playfully trying out new ideas, combining what had previously been separate. That’s how it works in the brain, and the same is true in the great outdoors, wherever something new and unprecedented arises. Only when this happens can we speak of true evolution; everything else is just improving what was already there, i. e. progressive specialisation. Without finding new ways of interlinking the experiences gathered by individual members of a given species in the course of past differentiation and specialisation processes, innovative evolution simply isn’t possible. Competition alone merely ensures that certain characteristics become increasingly pronounced. Wholly new and innovative solutions can only be found through mutual exchange, through the fusion and 

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recombination of individual predispositions; competition can only promote specialisation and the more efficient use of available resources. The prerequisites for generating new potentials and accordingly for true evolution are the exchange, combination and commingling of the experiences gathered by the individual members of a species and engrained in their genome – in the form of specific DNA sequences and the epigenetic factors responsible for their expression. Competition-based specialisation forces individual species into ecological niches, habitats in which complexity and the development of a diverse range of the potentials stored in the genome offer no advantages with regard to survival or reproduction. After all, if you can thrive as a specialist, why become or remain a jack-of-all-trades? We see, then, that where competition is most prevalent, it hardly offers ideal conditions for expanding the spectrum of options embedded in the genome or forming complex relational patterns and organisational structures within and between individuals. We would find better conditions wherever competition is less vital to the individual members of a species’ survival and reproduction – all of the phases in a given species’ development that were predominantly characterised not by misery, suffering and dwindling resources, but by prosperity. These phases of unforced, stress- and competition-free coexistence open the door for creative and innovative solutions, and are where we find the development of new potentials, the playful enhancement and recombination of previous responses and relational patterns. Life constantly reinvents itself: evolving living organisms create increasingly complex internal structures and interaction patterns and enter into increasingly close and complex relationships with other living organisms – and not under pressure, but through carefree, unstructured interaction. In this context, it is rarely the adults who lead the way; the younger generation, 60



who are much more flexible and open for new relationships, assume that role. Everything alive today has successfully found certain solutions that safeguard its continuing survival. What we need to do now is take a closer look at how living organisms manage to find these solutions time and time again. From the simplest bacteria to the more complexly structured multicellular plants and animals, and ultimately to us humans, there would seem to be two parallel strategies: one visible, the other invisible. The observable and quantifiable strategy is specialisation. Here, the living organism in question falls back on its previously developed structures and abilities. For example, a virus or bacteria might fall back on a mechanism that allows it to penetrate cells and manipulate their internal processes so the cells begin producing everything the virus, bacteriophage or bacteria needs to survive and reproduce. Or we vertebrates, who have succeeded in refining our genetic predisposition to develop five-member extremities in vastly different directions: today, moles have their characteristic digging claws, dolphins have their flippers, bats have their wings, and we humans have hands with opposable thumbs for gripping. Whether these progressive specialisations were the result of mutation or recombination at the level of the DNA, i. e. of the respective genetic predispositions, or of the expression of epigenetic factors that modify those predispositions, is an interesting question we’ll surely be able to answer one day. What’s important for the time being is the fact that the formation of these structures and resulting abilities (digging, swimming, flying, gripping, etc.) represents a process of ongoing specialisation. The driving force behind this process is one we’ve known about since Darwin’s revolutionary discovery of natural selection: it’s called competition, i. e. the pressure of selection. However, the processes of self-change through progressive differentiation and specialisation, which are sparked by com

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petition and the pressure of selection, only make up one of the two strategies that allow living organisms to solve the problems resulting from changes in their lifeworlds. What Darwin couldn’t have known is what above all the molecular biologists and neurobiologists have since learned about the genome and the brain: that, beyond specialisation, there is a second strategy for overcoming problems. All living organisms also have the ability to create and store potentials within themselves that would initially seem to have no practical importance with regard to overcoming the problems they face. A potential is something stored as a possibility, but which has not yet been developed into a characteristic – which is why it’s so difficult to identify the potentials within a given living organism. We can’t see, measure or monitor them. They only become evident when they are actually used to develop particular structures or abilities, i. e. when they come to fruition. The first level at which living organisms create potentials in the course of their generations-long development is the genome, where mutation, recombination and duplication constantly produce new modifications of previously existing genetic sequences. But these flawed DNA sequences aren’t normally expressed. Molecular biologists refer to them as “rubbish sequences”, as they are not used for the creation of specific structural or enzyme proteins, but are nonetheless anchored in the genome and passed on to future generations. In most multicellular organisms, there are several times as many of these unused DNA sequences, the product of expression errors, as there are actually expressed sequences. But the representatives of a given species can fall back on precisely this pool of unused variations, this variety of stored potentials, in order to form structures and abilities that are truly new. Abilities that have never been seen before; that were at some point simply developed as a potential at the level of the DNA, but which now may prove to offer new prospects for further evolution. 62



This can be seen particularly clearly in the transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms. Single-celled organisms were able to solve most of their problems through increasing specialisation; this produced the enormous variety of structures and capabilities that today’s single-celled organisms possess. But those single-celled organisms that didn’t go their separate ways following division opened a wholly different avenue. They exploited a potential that had developed during their single-cell phase, one that now allowed them to remain together and form the first multicellular organisms. However, these first multicellular organisms were inevitably confronted with a problem they’d never encountered in their previous single-celled lives: the conditions on the outside of these first groups of cells differed from those on the inside. The simplest and most obvious solution was, once again, to specialise. The innermost cells specialised in coping with the problems “inside” and developed into endothelial cells, essentially a form of inner skin that biologists refer to as the endoderm, while the outermost cells focused on overcoming the problems “outside”, forming an external cell layer known as the ectoderm. Polyps still reflect this structure today: their bodies are characterised by a large hollow space where they digest their food. And they would have always stayed that way if it hadn’t been for a few that took a major step, one that can be seen in their previous stage, today’s fresh-water hydra: a nervous system. Initially this was nothing more than certain cells that could form filaments, allowing them to make connections and relay information inside and outside, front and back, and up and down. The entire multicellular structure could now function as a complete, self-regulating organism, marking a quantum leap forward – or what the business and science worlds refer to as a “breakthrough innovation”. Yet the advent of the nervous system wasn’t made possible by the progressive specialisation of the inner or outer cells, but 

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by some of the outer cells of the ectoderm utilising a potential stored inside them, allowing them to develop everything that makes up a nerve cell: electrical excitability, the ability to relay signals, and the ability to form connections. For the first multicellular organisms, this “breakthrough innovation” opened up entirely new prospects for their development. Now everything between the inside and outside could be formed and interconnected: the mesoderm, the cells of which would eventually become specialised to form connective tissues, blood vessels, the heart, internal organs, muscles and bones. But as a unit, as an organism, all of this only succeeded because all of the elements were connected with one another and with the outside world by a constant flow of signals and a functioning communication network: by a nervous system and – for mass transport and the distribution of hormones and neurotransmitters throughout the body – a cardiovascular system. Other multicellular organisms, e. g. the ancestors of today’s plants, have found other ways of connecting their external and internal worlds, such as systems for mass transport and internal regulation. But the potentials offered by this “invention” and the corresponding opportunities for development were limited. It was only the nervous system developed in animals that offered the possibility of forming a brain. And once the brain was there, it didn’t take long before the nerve cells within it were capable of unlocking something they had long-since borne within them as a potential: the ability to network with one another in a manner that was most conducive to maintaining the smooth functioning of the organism as a whole, its survival and its reproduction. As a result, the first brains, which were relatively inflexible and hardly capable of change later in life, gradually evolved into brains constantly reshaped by experiences and ultimately to the human brain, which never stops learning. However, it was only possible to form the brains we have today thanks to the gradual discovery of a potential slumbering 64



in the nerve cells, a potential that could not be tapped using the initial solution of genetically controlling its formation: neural stem cells’ limitless ability to divide and redivide, and neurons’ equally limitless ability to generate filaments and establish contact with other nerve cells. The new strategy, with the help of which these two potentials could be utilised, consisted in slowing down and preventing premature specialisation. As such, in the course of their development our ancestors must have found strategies that eventually reduced the pressure on their children to mature, differentiate and specialise too soon. In other words, the parents must have been more able to protect their children from all those problems that promote the premature acquisition of certain abilities and survival strategies: from hunger, suffering and misery, from the pressure of selection and pressure to perform. And the better they succeeded in doing so, the longer their children were able to tap into their brains’ potential for producing as many nerve cells as possible and creating as many contacts as possible; the longer their brains stayed in this malleable form; and the greater their ability to learn became. It was a simple as that. Now we just need to find out how our early ancestors managed to do so. Here, too, the answer is a simple one: they had help. They could only do so by forming communities, through mutual support, by exchanging knowledge and know-how, and through concerted efforts. It was only when children had the opportunity to grow up in stable communities that offered safety and met their basic needs that they succeeded in releasing the potentials, their individual talents and gifts, stored in their brains. Surely the adults didn’t always succeed in forming such “individualising communities”. Often enough the pressures at work on their communities, the hunger, misery and suffering, external threats or harsh living conditions penetrated so far into their families that the children also felt them. These 

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children never had the chance to explore their world without a care, to test their own limits and discover their talents and gifts. They had to grow up fast, equipping them to face this uncertain life. Having to compete with others, at times even with the adult members of their families or clans, these children had to quickly learn to stand up for themselves and solve problems on their own – even if the price was that their brains only developed into a stunted version of what they might have been. 1.4 No living system exists for its own sake. It is always connected to other living organisms and can only live and evolve amidst other organisms that want to survive, grow and reproduce

What a wonderful insight that is. It’s attributed to Albert Schweitzer, an organist, theologian and physician and not necessarily an expert on living things: no biologist. The reason why Schweitzer arrived at this insight is as banal as it is reasonable: biology didn’t succeed in establishing itself as a natural science in its own right by seeking answers to questions on the fundamental nature of life; it did so by primarily focusing on the mechanisms of how living organisms function. And when it comes to these aspects, from the structure and function of organs and organ systems to individual cells and organelles, they have managed to unravel many of the mysteries. Their discoveries have been the subject of publications and conferences, been celebrated in the media as new advances, have led to important applications in medicine and agriculture, proven useful in professional sports, the foodstuffs and biotechnology industries, and become important components of biology textbooks and the curricula at schools and universities. Yet biologists were only able to tally up these impressive successes, and to make the discoveries they’re based on, by pursuing an approach that produced just the opposite effect of 66



what Albert Schweitzer so profoundly called for: they reduced life to the sum of its parts. Granted, not all of them did so, but surely most did, especially the most successful ones, those who received the most recognition and were invited to chair the most prominent university departments. It is only now that an age dominated by mechanistic concepts, by the division and dissection of individual living organisms and the quest to decipher the smallest building blocks of life is gradually drawing to a close. And now more and more biologists are finally beginning to piece together the wealth of knowledge on the characteristics of so many individual building blocks. And more and more interdisciplinary fields, which combine insights from their member disciplines, are arising. In the process, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that individual cells, organs and organ systems are intensively interconnected. That everything that happens e. g. in a liver cell can’t be viewed independently of the function of the liver as a whole, and that said function is in turn embedded in and dependent on the entire organism. That accordingly, changes in a person’s lifestyle – in their diet, mental strains or in their relationships with others – can affect them even down to the level of an individual liver cell, sparking specific responses in the cell. No human being exists in a vacuum, untouched by the actions of other people in their lifeworld, by the nature of their relationships, or by the conditions and culture they live in. As such, similarly to the responses of a liver cell, everything that determines how a given person thinks, feels and acts, everything that shapes their convictions, beliefs and judgments, depends on which framework conditions the overarching system provides for the development of that person’s potentials. The patterns that can be used to create and maintain a living system determine its potential. The extent to which the available patterns and a system’s potential can be unlocked depends on the framework conditions under which the system in ques

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tion develops. If those conditions are unfavourable, i. e. whenever the self-organising process of forming relations falls prey to the influence of external disruptions that can’t be compensated for and can only be responded to by adapting its own internal relational pattern accordingly, the respective living system (an amoeba, a tree, a person or a community) won’t unlock the potential it holds. Consequently, certain interactions, their resultant structures and abilities will be intensively developed, at the expense of others. The living system may remain stable, but is so adapted to the external factors influencing its development that, if suddenly confronted with other, more complex conditions or changes in its living conditions, its inner relational network can easily be destabilised. This is true for spruce trees in a forest when all of the other trees have been cut down, for people trying to live as hunter-gatherers in a world of livestock and crop farmers, and for adults who grew up before the advent of digital media and who are now making their first forays into the world of the “digital natives”. Since every living system develops in a web of mutual dependencies with other living systems, its inner relational network inevitably adapts to the needs of its respective lifeworld and of all living organisms with which it is linked and upon which it depends. As a result, no living system can fully tap the potential it holds. Yet every living thing is in the midst of a constant process of making its own contribution to further tapping that potential. In other words, a living system can only succeed in releasing its potential through a coevolutionary process involving all other living organisms. Retreating into ecological niches, which offer only limited opportunities for exchanges with other living organisms, is detrimental to unlocking that potential. It is equally detrimental when we limit our perceptions through the suppression or atrophy of individual senses (losing the sense of sight, hearing 68



or touch). Sooner or later, employing and expanding on methods for controlling and subjugating other living organisms also proves to be a poor strategy. In a lifeworld that is completely controlled, the external stimuli needed for the creation of complex relational patterns are nowhere to be found. Living organisms pursuing these strategies lose their original developmental dynamic, growing increasingly inflexible. The only strategy that can allow a living system to continually and freely tap the potential stored within it is one of constantly adapting and readjusting the relational pattern established within that system to changing conditions, which are the product of the living organism in question’s maintaining as close and varied relationships as possible with as many other living organisms as possible. And when it comes to tapping the potentials locked within us human beings, it would be wise to shape our relationships with one another and with all other living organisms in a way that would allow us to merge the entire spectrum of experiences gathered by all living systems to date into a single, immense pool of experience. We could then use that resource to create and maintain conditions that were more conducive to unlocking not only our own potentials, but those of all living organisms. By doing so, life could truly become a constant learning process. We are part of that process. If we start recognising that fact, it will equip us to consciously take on responsibility for its development in the future.



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Part 2: The Structuring of the Human Brain Through Social Experiences

There is one basic rule that dictates how the brain works, and that rule is: it always conserves energy. Like every other living system, the human brain always seeks to reduce the amount of energy it needs to maintain its internal order to a minimum. Energy demands can always be kept to a minimum when things are working smoothly: when there are no problems, when all areas of the brain – older and younger, the right and left hemisphere, forebrain and hindbrain – are cooperating optimally. When our thoughts, feelings and actions are in harmony and our own expectations don’t differ too radically from what is happening in the real world. When that’s not the case, we have a problem. Then a growing excitation is sparked in the brain, one that sooner or later spreads to those areas and neural networks responsible for controlling our emotions and the processes at work in our bodies. Then we don’t feel so good anymore. We feel insecure and get a strange feeling in the pit of our stomach; we may even feel our heart racing and go weak in the knees. And it’s then at the latest that we realise we have a serious problem – one we have to find a solution for, a solution that more or less gets things back to normal in our minds. But in this state the brain already uses far more energy than usual; actively contemplating the problem would only further worsen our energy consumption. That’s why we tend 

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to instead fall back on something we already know and that’s usually worked in the past – the old beliefs anchored deep in our brains, which we can call up almost automatically. Then we react just as we always have in the same type of situation; we simply try to do so even better and more effectively, in the hope that we can solve our problem by simply doing more of the same. Sometimes the old tricks still work one more time, but at some point we simply hit a wall. Then we have to rethink them – not a terribly comfortable process, and one in which the brain consumes a great deal of energy. This prospect only becomes appealing when we succeed in changing our previous views in such a way that the new version can be integrated into our pool of experience. By doing so, we arrive at a new insight. Not only does this offer us a new way to solve the problem at hand, it also sparks a realisation: that the problem can indeed be overcome, just not in the way we once thought. What is coherence?

When that comes to pass, it means we have reorganised our own conceptual world and arrived at new insights. Our thoughts and actions, even our feelings have changed in such a way that everything now fits together much better. And when that happens, we not only feel a sense of relief; our brains can once again work efficiently, allowing them to get by on less energy. If everything in the brain ran optimally, its energy consumption would be reduced to a minimum. Needless to say, this never actually happens. If it did, the brain would neither be able to respond to the onslaught of signals sent to it from different parts of the body, nor would it notice what was going on outside the body. As such, the established inner order must remain unstable and vulnerable to disruptions; the brain must have the 72



ability to respond to disruptions in the neural networks and synaptic connection patterns it has formed. Sometimes the brain succeeds in compensating for a disruption with a suitable response, allowing it to restore its previous state. When it can’t do so and the disruption persists, the brain is forced to change its internal structure. The result: a reorganisation, re-formation and expansion of the previous connection patterns. In this way, the brain constantly adapts its internal order to the current situation and to changing conditions, a process that repeats itself all life long. We don’t notice these internal processes of adaptation and reorganisation ourselves. But with the help of imaging technologies like functional magnetic resonance imaging, neurobiologists can now see them at work. However, even without these techniques, what signals us that these processes have taken place is the fact that we have somehow changed and learned something new. And the problem that had been troubling us is now gone. Now everything is fine again, and not because everything has returned to the old status quo, but because we – or more correctly: because specific connection patterns in our brains – have changed. What we achieve in the process is never a static homeostasis, but a dynamic and constantly changing movement closer to a state that neurobiologists refer to as “coherence”. When we have problems and the previous order in our brains becomes confused, we grow farther away from this ideal state of coherence. Then we don’t feel particularly well; we notice that something doesn’t fit. In effect the brain is shaken awake and starts looking for solutions, burning up a great deal of energy in the process. But as soon as we’ve found a solution for the problem at hand, our incoherent state is replaced by a somewhat more coherent one. Then deeper-seated emotional regions in the brain – the most important of which have been collectively dubbed the rewards centre – are activated. The adja

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cent neurons release certain neurotransmitters that have a similar effect to that of cocaine or heroin. These chemicals in turn activate other networks, sparking a highly enjoyable feeling we might call pleasure or even happiness. However, at the same time these substances act as neuroplastic messengers, affecting downstream nerve cells like fertiliser: they lead the cells to produce more of the proteins needed for the creation and reinforcement of neural connections. As such, they are conducive to and support the structural reorganisation processes, which are how the brain responds to disruptions. How does self-organisation work in the brain?

The brain organises the ways in which its nerve cells interconnect to form complex networks, which then produce what we refer to as our own insights or ideas, all on its own. It – or more precisely: the person in question – doesn’t “know” from the outset how to solve their various problems, or how to assess or classify their various perceptions; they have to find out for themselves. And they do so in a unique way, namely on the basis of the solutions they have previously found for all the problems throughout their life. Only those neural connections that help make “everything fit” again are reinforced and expanded on. For the brain, nothing else matters. Anything that doesn’t help reduce the amount of energy needed to maintain the brain’s internal order is irrelevant. There’s constantly something or the other we don’t like in our lives, something that doesn’t match our expectations, that troubles us and leads to incoherence. Yet what we find most disquieting is when something happens that shakes our previously held beliefs and convictions, that calls into question how we had previously seen ourselves and the world around us. Such events inevitably lead to fundamental upheavals in our state of coherence. The most obvious and often quickly found solution to help us regain a state of 74



coherence is to simply ignore the problem, which psychologists refer to as denial. We simply act as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn’t heard anything, or as if it simply wasn’t any concern of ours. Though this allows our brain to revert to its preferred energy-saving mode, it only works for a limited time. Sooner or later, the same problem is bound to crop up again, forcing us to look for a more suitable solution. Then our first response is often to seek out like-minded individuals, together with whom we can mutually reinforce our ignorance or join forces against those who call our views into question. But this, too, is only a stopgap solution. At some point we have to face whatever it is we find so threatening, and which time and time again sets our brains running in high gear. We have to talk with those people who think, act and most likely feel differently than we do, and we have to try to understand them. We might even succeed in seeing things from their point of view. Only then can we work together with them to find a solution. But in order for that to happen, we have to be capable of questioning our own convictions and beliefs. After all, it’s never different people who fail to fit together; it’s the different views they’ve formed on the basis of their individual experiences. All of these beliefs, which we adopted from others during our childhood or which we arrived at through our own experiences growing up in a lifeworld shaped by the self-same others, are nothing more than mental constructs, useful concepts that can offer us orientation, helping us to make our way through precisely the lifeworld we ourselves have created on the basis of those beliefs. That’s because, to put it bluntly, the brain doesn’t particularly care if the things we believe in are actually true or not. What matters is that a given belief helps the brain to achieve a fairly coherent state, allowing the brain and the organism it controls to minimise the amount of energy needed to maintain their internal structures. 

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This in turn explains why for most people, the older they become and the more successfully they have gotten by with certain attitudes, the more tightly they cling to them. Just as if they were a part of them, they offer stability, a sense of identity, and safeguard them from insecurities as long as they are maintained. And when many other people share those views, and if their lives are just as successful or even more so, it can take quite a bit of time before certain mindsets begin to fade. How do we become the way we are?

Our beliefs, theories and convictions aren’t just crutches that promote coherence and offer orientation, allowing us to establish some semblance of order in our thoughts; they are also like lenses through which we view our world and ourselves. And they form the benchmarks of our efforts to shape our own lifeworlds. In the first part of this book we addressed the question of how certain fundamental concepts developed in the field of biology, eventually transforming into generally accepted basic assumptions in the Western world. We have all adopted these concepts in one way or another; we talk about a company’s DNA and many of us believe competition is the key driver of innovation. But the fact that these concepts dovetail quite well with our current lifestyle doesn’t mean they’re actually true; the opposite could just as easily be true. Perhaps we have oriented our lives, the way we interact with other living organisms and our fellow man on those concepts. In the course of our lives, each of us develops his or her own views on what matters most in life, and on how to best achieve those goals most important to us. But these individual convictions aren’t something we came up with on our own; they are derived from our experiences with others. And how people interact at home, in their families, at school or university, 76



and later, in their careers or neighbourhoods, how they shape their relationships, are also an expression of the concepts and convictions regarding themselves and co-existence that they developed from their experiences with others. When we’re born, there are no beliefs already firmly anchored in our brains in the form of specific connection patterns. They are only created and stabilised by the experiences every adult has gathered in the process of growing up in their respective lifeworld. They are the solutions each of us has found in order to compensate for disruptions (in the form of unfamiliar feelings, irritations and problems) and regain a state of relative coherence. The most common, and the most serious, type of shock to our emotional equilibrium that we suffer are those concerning our relationships with other people – when people who are important to us don’t act in keeping with our expectations, or when their own views and expectations put us under pressure. When we have to do something we don’t want to. We feel this pressure to conform even as small children, and much earlier than most parents or educators assume. And from the outset, different children respond to this pressure in different ways. In the following, we’ll take a closer look at just why that’s the case. 2.1 The prenatal structuring of neural networks in the developing brain

All parents know that every child is unique from birth, that each possesses his or her own gifts and predispositions, and that each behaves and reacts differently than his or her siblings or other babies. This is especially apparent to those who have identical twins: though genetically identical, after only a short time their mother can easily tell them apart thanks to the differences in their responses and behaviour. 

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Further, the conditions under which these twins develop while still in the womb are never completely identical. And these different conditions inevitably produce certain differences in the formation and reinforcement of neural networks in the growing brain. By no means a passive process dictated by genetic programmes, it is an active one, a reaction on the part of the developing organism to these minor differences in conditions. This process can most easily be understood if, rather than observing and describing it from the outside, we seek to view it from the inside, from the perspective of the growing embryo. When we adopt this point of view, it becomes much easier to make out the features of the conditions and relations that provide a framework for how the formation of relational patterns between the cells and organs of the growing embryo organises itself. It soon becomes clear that the prenatal structuring of the brain cannot be considered separately from everything transpiring in other areas of the growing embryo. This process of self-development begins the moment the egg cell is penetrated by a sperm cell, disrupting the largely coherent state the former had previously enjoyed. Following fertilisation, the zygote proceeds along the fallopian tube to the uterus. At the same time, the zygote produces additional cells through division, a process that takes three to four days. Even these early divisions produce embryonic cells that aren’t quite identical: their internal cellular components are arranged in such a way that even after the first division they aren’t quite equally distributed among the daughter cells. For example, some contain more energy suppliers (mitochondria) or more fuel reserves (granular vesicles) than others. These non-uniform distributions continue on in the subsequent cleavages, as a result of which the ball of cells (morula) developed from the egg cell, and the blastula which the morula develops into, only appear to be composed of fully identical embryonic cells at first blush. 78



In fact, even at this early stage the zygote is already divided into a vegetable pole and an animal pole. And this polarisation determines both where the pocketing will be formed during gastrulation (14th to 21st day) and which cells will subsequently find their way to which of the three germ layers (the ectoderm, mesoderm or endoderm). As such, at this stage the future functions and later development of the embryonic cells are essentially determined on the basis of their respective positions within the embryonic cell structure. Within the fallopian tube, cilia help to move the zygote toward the uterus. Once there, its inner cells form the inner cell mass (embryoblast), from which the embryo itself will later develop. The outer cells (trophoblasts) later form the placenta. As such, what will later become the embryo’s life support system does not come from its mother’s tissues; it is its “own” creation. Even here, the unborn child begins to shape not only itself, but also its immediate surroundings within the space its mother’s body provides. Following implantation, the blastocyst forms a pocketing on one side (gastrulation). This produces a tube-like structure, the gastrula. The cells of the gastrula form three layers: the outer layer (ectoderm) will later become the nervous system, sensory organs and skin. The inner layer of cells (endoderm) will produce e. g. the digestive organs, the lungs and the lower urinary tract. The middle layer between them (mesoderm) gives rise to the heart, blood and lymph vessels, muscles and skeleton. The details of embryonic development are highly complex and there’s no need to describe them further here. Through painstaking work, last century’s embryologists explored each step involved. In the process they discovered how the cells in the different germ layers continue to divide following gastrulation, forming groups and specialising: the respective local conditions move the cells in question to express certain genes more intensively than others and to promote certain functions more 

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intensively than others. In the course of this specialisation, the reactions at work inside the cells also adapt to their newfound requirements. As a result, the different cells become e. g. skin, intestinal, liver, muscle, glandular or nerve cells. As the cells use certain parts of their experiential pool (genome) particularly intensively – while wholly disregarding others – they acquire more and more specialised abilities. At this point, it is no longer possible for these specialised cells to access all of the gene sequences they originally acquired from the fertilised egg cell. From now on, they can only give rise to daughter cells that are programmed from the outset to become e. g. skin, intestinal, liver, muscle, glandular or nerve cells; their specific surroundings have radically changed the embryonic cells. They have “learned” to be cells with specific functions, having adapted to the requirements of their respective “lifeworlds”. The most important prerequisite for this type of specialisation and the formation of relational networks consisting of dovetailing, interdependent functions within the embryonic form is the mutual coordination between the cells. Just as the children growing up in a given community constantly inform themselves about what is happening in it and what matters most to its members, embryonic cells regularly exchange information about their status, what they’re doing and what they plan to do. They learn from one another through interaction and communication, using a broad range of chemical messengers to do so. This constant exchange of information between the growing embryo’s increasingly specialised cells is initially limited to adjacent cells. Later, when the first tissue and organ primordia have formed and are connected by a functioning circulatory system, that system also carries the chemical messengers they release to distant parts of the embryo. In this way, the growth and differentiation processes at work within the different organs can continue to be precisely coordinated. 80



Yet at every point in prenatal development, the formation of all these embryonic structures is already linked to the assumption of specific functions and roles. As such, structural and functional maturation processes can never be separated. The embryo isn’t like a machine that has to first be assembled in order to work. From the very beginning it is a living organism that seeks to adapt to and cope with its surroundings. Accordingly, the heart doesn’t wait until its structure is “finished” before assuming its function; it does so while still developing. The inseparable link between structure and function can also be seen in the fact that the still-forming neural pathways don’t “know” from the outset what they’re growing toward or how to interconnect. The growing dendrites can only be linked in a certain configuration to create functional networks if they are used in a certain way. Even the development of the extremities is linked to their future functions from the start. The arm buds make “bending” and “grasping” motions as they grow, whereas the legs make “extending” and “stretching” motions, practising for their future functions while the body is still forming. Beyond this early “development-immanent practising”, ultrasound tests made with embryos and foetuses have revealed explicit practising behaviour: they reach for their umbilical cords, suck their thumbs, practise “running” and “standing up”; they even make breathing movements and move their tongues as if trying to speak. These observations make it abundantly clear that the foundations for all human beings’ future functions are laid during the early development of the embryo. This basic principle of function-dependent and use-depen­ dent structuring has far-reaching consequences, as it clearly shows that “learning” and “growing” are by no means discrete processes. Accordingly, everything that happens in the prenatal phase can have a tremendous influence on the subsequent development of function and abilities, in children and even in 

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adults. And there will always be certain intrauterine conditions and factors that can help or hinder that development. Our children are born with incomplete and immature brains. But it is precisely that fact that sets apart the development of the human brain from that in other mammals: the slowness with which it progresses, even in the prenatal phase. The development of the brain makes it particularly clear that our most distant forebears must have made a decisive breakthrough at some point in time. That achievement, referred to as “deceleration”, opened new opportunities for our species that would remain forever inaccessible to the progenitors of today’s apes and our other animal relatives. This deceleration slowed the entire developmental process. The result was an increasingly clear delineation of the stages of development, which had initially followed one another in quite rapid and as such nearly automatic procession. It was only at this point that it became possible for the seemingly automatic charting of certain developmental pathways of cellular differentiation to gradually be softened, making them more and more open to modulating external influences. It was precisely this change that allowed the progression of the developmental process in the brain to be increasingly influenced by everything that took place in its surroundings – in the immediate vicinity of the developing nerve cells, in the various still-forming organs, and in the world outside the embryo as a whole. Even if it may sound absurd at first: the formation of the nervous system during embryonic development can in a sense be compared with the gradual construction and constant adaptation of the traffic system in a growing city. Just as it’s impossible to say in advance where there will one day be streets and plazas, for the countless millions of nerve cells the question of how they will be expanded and interconnected is not something determined from the outset. Once two neighbouring districts have formed, roadway connections between the two will 82



be planned, built and subsequently expanded on the basis of changing requirements. The longer this process takes, the more complex the interconnections will be. Initially, all nerve cells are still capable of division. The farther the resulting daughter cells are driven from the inner surface of the neural tube and begin migrating to its outer side, the more susceptible they become to the influence of neighbouring cells, which are older and have already become more specialised. These older cells’ outer cell membranes contain characteristic cell recognition molecules that steer the newcomers’ migration. Further, these already specialised neighbouring cells put out specific chemical messengers that help the new cells determine which functions to specialise in. Subsequently, these cells’ internal structures increasingly adapt to these new tasks until at some point they lose their initial pluripotency, having in a sense reached maturity. Those nerve cells fortunate enough to not be pushed from the inside of the neural tube early on are spared this fate the longest. At the front end of the tube, where the child’s head will eventually form, the interior is somewhat broader. All those nerve cells that happen to be arranged around this broader interior essentially form the outer layer of a small, liquid-filled blister (ventricle). Here the conditions are ideal for further divisions, and the daughter cells are much less likely to be rapidly pushed out from here than from the middle or rear areas of the neural tube. A growing mass of cells forms around the small ventricle. As a result of the increasing pressure the mass exerts on the interior, further ventricles form in the front: two back to back, as well as a double ventricle (the two lateral ventricles) at the very front. This lays out the blueprint for the brain’s subsequent structure: the nerve cells forming around the first ventricle become the brain stem; those around the second become the midbrain; those around the third become the diencephalon, and those 

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in the two front-most ventricles form the two cerebral hemispheres. The daughter cells produced by the still-pluripotent nerve cells near the ventricles are pushed outwards into these different parts of the brain, where they either group themselves into separate cell clusters (the nuclei) or arrange themselves in stacked layers (the laminae). From a small fold between the two rearmost ventricles forms a further, division-intensive zone, which later gives rise to the cerebellum. Here the pluripotent cells lie on the outer surface, and the newly formed nerve cells are pushed inside, where they initially form nuclei and subsequently clearly distinguishable cell layers. All of these migration processes, which involve new cells produced by division and other cells pushed out of the pluripotent zone, are steered by neurotransmitters and adhesion molecules produced by the “older” nerve cells that arrived in these areas earlier. Further, previously formed blood vessels and long filaments from other, older “helper cells” (astroglia) serve as “signposts” during these migrations, directing nerve cells to their future “workplaces”. Even if this entire microcosm of orientation-providing, guiding chemical signals still hasn’t been completely deciphered, it can clearly be seen that the formation, the migration and the typical configuration of nerve cells during the development of the human brain are neither a matter of chance nor controlled by genetic programmes. Genetic predispositions merely determine which functions the nerve cells are capable of fulfilling when they find themselves in a given situation. But what the concrete situation (or the sequence of specific requirements that a nerve cell enters in the course of its development) looks like is determined by everything that previously happened within the embryo: which other cells have been formed, to which extent they have already become specialised in the different areas, which “signposts” and “specialisation signals” they generate for newcomers, and which conditions await said newcomers. 84



As such, anything that comes later is always embedded in what came before, which also shapes its further development. Principally speaking, every newly formed nerve cell is essentially like a newborn child that grows up as part of a family and later as part of a specific human community, embracing its requirements, rules and types of behaviour. The subsequent maturation process for the various nuclei and connections within the developing embryonic brain continues just as it began: from the older, rear segments (spinal cord and brain stem) and the middle ones (midbrain and diencephalon) to the youngest, front-most areas (cerebral hemispheres). While cell division progresses full speed ahead in the front areas of the hemispheres, the nerve cells in the brain stem have already formed fairly distinct groups called nuclei, have consolidated and now begin to produce filaments. Similar to the migration of the nerve cells, the growth of these filaments proceeds in a direction typical for their respective area and is shaped by the invisible influence of neurotransmitters. Once they have arrived there, the ends of these filaments begin branching out, forming synaptic contacts with local nerve cells and their filaments. This produces a dense network of connections between the nerve cells, in which the first electrical stimulation patterns begin to spread. Initially the patterns are still unstable and unstructured; the stimulus often starts spontaneously at a given area, then spreads across the available network of contacts. Yet in some cases, the transmission of these stimulation waves can ultimately set off a reaction that overwhelms or deactivates the initial cause of the stimulation. The more often it is activated, and the more practiced and reinforced it becomes, the better this kind of control loop works. The resulting reaction chains and networks in the brain stem are still fairly simply structured. They are responsible for controlling basic bodily functions, such as regulating the respira

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tory musculature, the circulatory system, body temperature and the autonomic nervous system, the last of which is itself responsible for coordinating and regulating a disparate range of organ functions. In contrast, the networks formed in the midbrain and diencephalon are significantly more complex and even more intensively connected with one another and with the cell groups of the brain stem. Here complex connection patterns between the nerve cells are created, which, as neural regulation systems, are responsible for coordinating mutually dependent organ functions and metabolic functions, and for controlling simple, schematic movements and responses. In these middle areas of the developing brain, the various incoming signals provided by the different sensory organs and other parts of the body are compiled into a highly schematic yet comprehensive “overview”. In turn, the stimulation patterns produced in the process serve as the catalysts for the creation of (similarly schematic and similarly comprehensive) response and behavioural patterns. Throughout our lives, the networks and connection patterns formed before birth remain essential for all of the non-sensory impressions that reach the brain and are translated into corresponding moods and responses whenever something crucial begins to change in the body or its immediate surroundings, e. g. when our blood sugar drops and we start to feel hungry; when we get a bad feeling in the pit of our stomach because we’re worried about something we’ve never encountered before and can’t even describe; or when we feel an inner urge to suddenly burst into action, or feel lethargic and despondent, without the slightest inkling why. Starting in roughly the seventh week of pregnancy, it can be observed how the embryo floating in the amniotic sac makes its first, uncoordinated movements. In the beginning this generally consists of twitches, set off by the contraction of certain muscles in the rump and extremities. At this time, the nerve cell filaments sprouting from the spinal cord and the brain start com86



ing into contact with these muscle cells. Now the muscle cells can be activated to contract in response to stimuli from certain nerve cells and the accompanying effect of the neurotransmitter (acetyl choline) secreted by the ends of their filaments, and in turn the muscle spindles can use sensory nerves to signal their degree of contraction to the spinal cord and brain. In this way, the first connections between the motor and sensory pathways are created, first in the spinal cord and later in the brain centres responsible for coordinating movements. Where once we had a surplus of available synaptic connections, gradually only those patterns that are regularly activated in relation with the body’s increasingly complex and coordinated movement processes are created and reinforced. From the outset, here too we see a process of learning by using and practising the corresponding bodily functions. Over the course of this lengthy and complex process, the embryo becomes capable of moving its rump, arms and legs in a coordinated manner, to perform regular “breathing movements” by contracting its diaphragm and rib musculature, and to stick its thumb in its mouth. All of these movement patterns become increasingly “polished” and are already available at the time of birth. What is true for the central nervous control of the body’s musculature is equally true – albeit less visible and measurable – for the formation of all those neural connections and synaptic networks involved in the control and coordination of all other bodily functions. These include all of the control loops formed in the brain (in a manner similar to that for the sensorimotor representations) for regulating the functions of the internal organs and peripheral glands, circulation and respiration, as well as the blood sugar level or oxygenation (or the carbohydrate saturation) of the blood. The stimulation patterns transmitted to the brain by pressure sensors in the skin, too, reinforce the corresponding neural connection patterns. The 

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resultant internal representations formed in the brain essentially provide an image of the skin’s characteristics. The establishment and reinforcement of these representations are wholly automatic processes, as they take place at a point in time where those areas of the brain that will later link conscious perceptions and reactions are not yet mature or functional. Nevertheless, within an unborn child’s brain the image of its own body and the processes at work inside that body steadily grows more complete and complex. Because all of the neural networks and synaptic networks essential to survival were already established in the older areas of the brain (the brain stem, midbrain and diencephalon), the forebrain (neocortex) can now take its time when it comes to the development of all those neural connections that aren’t vital to basic survival. Yet precisely these “unnecessary” neural connections, the very last ones established in the cortex, form the basis for all functions of the human brain that are most important in our later lives, including the ability to learn to walk erect, to learn languages and communicate, to read, write and do mathematics, and to learn how to use devices of all sorts. Further functions are the ability to develop an image of ourselves and our self-efficacy, to acquire psychosocial competencies, to plan actions in advance, and to predict the consequences of those actions. Children gain all of these abilities, plus countless others, step by step and on the basis of their own experiences. Regardless of how a given pregnancy progresses, every unborn child can feel that it grows, that it gains one new ability after the other and develops a bit more every day. At the same time, it is intimately linked with its mother throughout this developmental process, a subconscious experience that becomes anchored deep within its brain. Accordingly, all newborns take with them the knowledge that connectedness and personal development aren’t mutually exclusive. Even if they’re not consciously aware of it, this experience shapes their expec88



tations for the future: that it will continue in this way, that they will continue to grow, gather experience and new skills, and become more independent, all without sacrificing their close sense of connectedness. Because the neural networks within a given child’s brain were formed on the basis of the signal patterns transmitted from their own body, and because that body will naturally differ from child to child, every child is born with a brain that matches their particular body. Accordingly, every newborn is unique and from the outset, each will look in his or her own unique way, not for what they need to survive, but for those things that will satisfy their innate need for both belonging and autonomy. 2.2 The structuring of children’s brains through their own experiences

Even after birth, genetic predispositions do not determine how the billions of nerve cells in the rapidly developing neocortex network and interconnect. Now, too, they only ensure that an initial surplus of nerve cells is produced. Each new experience a child has determines which connections are reinforced, which ones remain active and which ones atrophy. Just as it did prior to birth, the brain continues to “learn” on the basis of the signal patterns it receives from the sensory organs and the rest of the body, determining which of those patterns the nerve cells and neural connections actually “need” and regularly activate. And in the process, it also “learns” which response patterns are best suited to processing those signals in such a way as to compensate for how they disrupt the state of coherence. These networks are reinforced and maintained for future use; the others are neglected. As a result, the growing child increasingly develops internal images based on its perceptions of the outside world. 

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The formation of connections that offer a sense of security is vital to ensuring that a newborn does not lose the openness and readiness to explore all aspects of their lifeworld, which is stored within their brain. Children who feel secure can be recognised by how eagerly and meticulously they study and explore all things in their surroundings, great and small alike. How they decipher codes, uncover secrets and learn about life and living – safe in the knowledge that someone will always be there to support them. In order to cope with his or her emotions and develop a sense of trust, every child has to learn one key lesson: that he or she is important. This can only happen in the custody of a sensitive and caring person. Small children constantly need to be told that what they are doing is good. Every new discovery, every insight and new ability sparks a storm of enthusiasm within their brains, a phenomenon we adults can hardly imagine. This ability to get excited about yourself and about all there is to discover in the world is the most important “fuel” for children’s continuing development. Secure children experience whole series of these “enthusiasm storms” on a daily basis. Every new discovery that thrills them activates the emotional centres in their midbrain, moving these cell groups to release more of what are called neuroplastic chemical messengers. In downstream networks, the messengers initiate the expression of specific genetic sequences and the increased production of those proteins needed in order to grow new filaments and to create and reinforce contacts between nerve cells. That’s why children have the easiest time learning about things they can get excited about. And excitement is only sparked when something is important, when it has a real meaning for the child in question. It is a blessing for children when they can discover themselves through their interactions with others. Those who aren’t given the chance to do so will have a harder time of it as adults: these children cannot satisfy their deep-rooted need for a sense of con90



nection through collaboration, but only through the close personal relationships they have with their most important attachment figures. As a result, they do anything and everything to get their attention. They follow their parents around wherever they go and constantly want to be close to them, as this makes them feel connected and therefore secure. As they grow older, they come to recognise that this overly close relationship hampers the unlocking of their own potential. They increasingly feel confined and un-free, and are consequently unable to satisfy their second innate need: that for growth, autonomy and freedom. These negative experiences leave lasting marks on a child’s brain. The connections between nerve cells in their frontal lobe must first be formed and reinforced. But this cannot come to pass if the child in question can’t find what it needs and is desperately seeking. This produces a constant state of inner turmoil (incoherence) in their brain. This doesn’t just make learning more difficult; above all, it hinders the acquisition of those meta-competencies anchored in the frontal lobe: the ability to control impulses, to cope with frustration, to plan actions in advance, to gauge the consequences of those actions, to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, to take on responsibility, and to focus our attention on a single topic. These vital skills can’t be taught; children can only learn them from their own experiences, by solving problems and overcoming challenges. Yet this work, which is so crucial and sensible for children, primarily takes place where we would least expect it: during play. By dealing with the problems they encounter in a playful way, children prepare themselves for their future lives. In the process they gain new skills and have their most formative experiences. By playing they encounter other children, who they ally themselves with and feel connected to. They learn to resolve conflicts and meet new challenges as a team. When it comes to acquiring these skills, it is equally important that children have parents or other important role models 

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who already know everything the children still need to learn. If there were no-one there who already knew how to walk upright and speak, to dance, swim and jump about in the backyard, no child would ever learn how to do so, either. Thankfully, the brain contains the wonderful mirror neurons, which allow children to mimic the movements and behaviour of others, and to engrain them so effectively that the corresponding neural connections begin forming before the child in question has even mimicked the movement or behaviour. But in order for these mirror neuron systems to be activated, there has to be someone there who is important to the child, someone they feel a strong emotional tie to, and from whom they want to learn how to do everything the “other kids” do. The deep-seated need to belong is something every child is born with. After all, they were intimately linked to another human being up to the moment of birth. And the same is true of the second need – also embedded in the prenatal brain – to explore their own potential and discover their world. That’s why all children want to learn everything they need in order to stay connected, and in order to grow and gain new abilities. Because this need is anchored so deeply in them and their brain, they develop an impressive determination to slowly but surely learn anything and everything that helps to sate that hunger. And whenever children learn something new, it makes them happy. Then they have succeeded, through their own efforts, in changing the incoherence created by their inherent needs into a state of coherence. The accompanying release of dopamine and endogenous opiates not only activates emotional networks that spark this feeling of happiness and excitement; the chemical messengers also stimulate the growth of filaments and creation of new synaptic connections. They essentially work like fertiliser for all of the networks in the brain that the child used to re-establish coherence. That’s why children can learn anything that contributes to this at incredible speed – not just 92



crawling, walking or learning to speak, but anything that helps them solve all the other problems that disrupt the coherence in their brains. From birth to death, those animals that never developed brains capable of learning remain much more dependent on their innate instincts and drives: they seek to mate whenever the sexual hormones flood their brains. Every buck deer has to run off rivals that cross into its territory, every migratory bird has to take flight when the autumn comes, and every snail has to hide in its shell in the face of a perceived threat. They have no choice in the matter; their brains are too structurally fixed and therefore far less capable of learning. Before a crocodile can even realise that it has a problem, the activation of a corresponding innate mechanism has already produced a response to the problem – in the most primitive case through the fight, flight or “play dead” reflex. We humans only resort to these archaic responses under the most extreme circumstances. Over the course of our lives we can learn how to best react in difficult situations. The archaic response patterns stored in our brainstems are only used when all of the problem-solving strategies we’ve learned can’t help us. This happens whenever we are confronted with wholly new problems, ones we haven’t yet found solutions for. In small children, this happens constantly. But they also remember very well just which solution helped them overcome the problem at hand. Once they’ve done so, they usually repeat that solution over and over again, until they’ve perfected it. All the experiences we’ve gathered, as children and later in life, have made us smarter and more competent. Those experiences that are particularly formative, and those that have been repeated again and again in similar form, condense in the frontal lobe into what are known as meta-experiences. Taken together, these attitudes, stances, convictions and beliefs form a mindset. They steer our attention, are essential in terms of 

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what we find good or bad, shape the decisions we make, and influence what we take an interest in and what we don’t consider to be any of our concern. To a certain extent, they have an impact on everything we think, feel and do. Yet the attitudes, convictions and beliefs that inform our behaviour aren’t something we were born with; we acquired them through experience. We put them in our brains, so to speak, because it proved to be the right and/or suitable choice to react, think and feel a certain way when faced with a specific situation or type of problem. But the world doesn’t stand still for us. Mummy and Daddy are no longer just a room away, and our first great love may have since left us. We’re by no means the same as we used to be, and we travel in very different lifeworlds. And the attitudes and beliefs that are stored in our brains, and which continue to influence our behaviour, don’t always fit so well in them; in fact, sometimes they can be highly problematic. For example, if we firmly believe that it’s essential to perfectly organise everything, regardless of whether it’s in the bathroom, the backyard or at the office, to always put the cap back on the toothpaste, to always put books back in the same spot on the bookshelf, and to tell others how they should be doing whatever it is they’re doing, we’re likely to become increasingly annoying for others; it’s not so easy to get along, and we encounter more and more problems. When this happens, we tend to blame everyone else – because they simply don’t do things the right way, the way they have to be done to avoid problems (we believe). The only catch: they feel exactly the same way, and consider us to be obsessive-compulsive, or even a bit daft. And then you can be sure they won’t do things the way we want them to. I think you can imagine how this all ends without my describing it for you … If this only happened at home, we would “only” drive our partners and family members up the wall, potentially moving them to distance themselves from us. But we carry these convic94



tions and beliefs with us wherever we go. Outside of our families, in our neighbourhoods, when visiting friends, at work, or when meeting with our children’s teachers, we couldn’t be more sure that there is only one right way to do things. And we’re not just talking about leaving the cap off the toothpaste. We’re talking about fundamental issues: whether we should trust strangers, whether we only do our jobs for the money, how we should raise our children, whether same-sex marriages should be legal, whether or not to eat meat, how much money a person should reasonably earn, whether digital media are a blessing or a curse, and so on – the list of things that are important to us is practically endless. We’re even prepared to fight to finally make things the way we feel they should be; that’s how convinced we are. Further, since we always have better chances of getting our way when we’re not alone, we seek out like-minded individuals. Of course, the “other side” does the same. And then we, and they, work (and potentially fight) together to achieve what the members of the respective clubs, committees or parties feel is most important. These groups usually elect a leader to convey the members’ beliefs to the rest of the world, and to represent them in their public conflicts with the “opposition”. The best candidate for this position is someone who represents the members’ convictions and attitudes, their “values”, especially well. Someone who thinks, feels and acts just like all the others, but who does so particularly vehemently and seeks to implement their values despite the resistance of other groups. We only need to browse through the nightly news or talk shows to see ample evidence of the results. But let me say it once again: the inner beliefs engrained in our frontal lobes are not a matter of chance, nor are they “pre-programmed” by our genetic dispositions. They are the product of the experiences we gather, a life long, in the course of solving the problems we encounter. As such, they are acquired. 

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Consequently, the views a given person holds are never right or wrong; they simply correspond to the experiences that person has gathered. If they had grown up under different circumstances, in a different family, with a different social background, in a different region or culture, their experiences would have been completely different. Then they would have developed different beliefs, convictions and attitudes, would have joined a different political party, and would now have different priorities and pursue different goals. And if they’d grown up among the tribes of the Amazon rainforest or with the Inuit of the Arctic Circle – and, because of their different experiences, developed very different views on what matters most in life and how we interact with others – and then came to visit us, they would think we were crazy. It goes without saying that life in a tropical rainforest is different from our own lives; it’s a completely different world, with vastly different conditions. But even when children grow up in our society, the circumstances in their respective families, neighbourhoods or towns, and even in the kindergartens or schools they went to, can vary greatly. Developmental biologists and developmental psychologists refer to these external circumstances as the child’s “environment”, and in the past they spent a great deal of time and energy trying to determine how much it shaped their development, particularly the development of their brains. Their experiments were intended to clarify which aspect has a greater influence on the formation of children’s brains: the environment or genetic predispositions. Unfortunately, except for a constant back and forth of positions, and a great deal of arguing, to date they have little to show for their efforts. The reason why is simple: children are active creatures; they’re not objects formed by one environment or another, but subjects with their own backgrounds, who interact with what used to be called their “environment” on the basis of their own needs, expectation and intentions. 96



Within their respective lifeworld, not all things are equally important to them. They only interact with, pay attention to and are moved by those things they feel are important and meaningful. Not everything that children (and of course adults) perceive in their “environment”, not every opportunity that presents itself and not everything that happens, is of equal importance to everyone. It is always the individual child who, acting as a subject, consciously or subconsciously decides what he or she is interested in. As such, every child assigns his or her own subjective meaning to what we consider an objective environment. This can be clearly seen if we take the example of a family raising two children of the same sex, perhaps even identical twins. Most parents with two children work very hard to treat both equally, and are convinced that they succeed in doing so. In theory, then, the two children grow up in essentially the same environment; that’s what an external observer would say. But in the eyes of the two siblings, the worlds they grow up in quickly seem very different. Before the parents even realise it, one of the two, usually the firstborn, has secured his or her special spot. They’re always the one who gets to sit on Daddy’s lap or who gets more of Mummy’s attention. For the other brother or sister, who has to play second fiddle, the world looks very different. And when the parents sing, dance, paint or cook together with their children, one child will always be more interested or less interested, depending on the activity. Children, even identical twins, are never truly the same: they have their own tastes and needs, their own talents and gifts, their own subjective expectations and therefore their own perspectives on their ostensibly identical lifeworlds. They only open themselves for and interact with those things they subjectively consider to be significant. Only these things affect them, activate the emotional centres in their brains, spark certain feelings and move (by releasing neuroplastic chemical 

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messengers) the nerve cells activated in the process to form new filaments and contacts. It is only this intensive participation, this interaction, that leads to the formation and reinforcement of corresponding relational patterns between the nerve cells of the brain. The first and most important relational experiences children have involve their own bodies. All the signals sent to the brain by the body lead to the formation of characteristic stimulation patterns within the surplus of synaptic contacts the brain provides. The more often a given pattern is formed, the more the synaptic connections involved are reinforced. As a result, increasingly complex and structurally anchored representations of the signal patterns sent by the body (as well as the brain’s own response patterns) are initially formed in the brain. Later, when the sensory organs are sufficiently mature to pass on the stimulation patterns produced by specific perceptions to the brain (sensory cortex), these sensory impressions, too, are stored in the brain as internal representations of the sensory experiences and linked to corresponding response patterns. And still later, as the child interacts with more and more people, these relational experiences are embedded in the highest, most complex regions of the brain as meta-representations. But now everything learned from those relationships and stored in the brain can also become a problem. Because these relational experiences are now increasingly shaped by other people, how they behave, their convictions, opinions and ideas, it can easily come to pass that the new connection patterns forming in a child’s brain are no longer compatible with his or her earlier experiences, which were based more on his or her own bodily experiences, perceptions and activities. For example, the need to move one’s body is suppressed, either through disciplinary measures or simply through the example set by adults. The impulse that small children have to 98



use their entire body to express how they feel is later stifled: through their interactions with others, their feelings of fear, pain, excitement and joy are increasingly controlled. In the course of his or her childhood, every human being adapts to the conceptual world and behaviour of the adults he or she grows up with. Later, as adolescents, we are increasingly guided by the thoughts and behaviour of our peer groups, and in the process, we grow more and more distant from the factors that primarily shaped our thoughts, feelings and actions as small children: our own bodily and sensory experiences. As we begin suppressing everything that was once a self-evident and primal part of us, we become strangers to ourselves. Our bodies and the needs associated with them – because they now stand in the way of our urgent need to feel we belong and are accepted, to find and develop identities of our own – come to be seen as a burden, and are therefore suppressed and ignored. The less secure a child feels in his or her interactions with others, the more fear they have that they won’t be accepted, appreciated or liked for who they are – and the harder they try to be noticed by others. This makes them extremely willing to adopt the views of others in order to “fit in”, and they can all too easily lose the most important source of happiness: the joy they feel in thinking for themselves, and in exploring and creating with others. We all went through this in one form or another as children and adolescents. In some cultures there is more pressure to think, feel and act like everyone else than in ours; in others, there is less. But no child growing up in a community, which has its own views on how people have to behave in order to be accepted as members, can escape that pressure entirely.



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2.3 The structuring of the human brain through the transgenerational sharing of experiences

As a growing child increasingly interacts with all those as­pects of their lifeworld they consider to be important – with everything there is to discover and shape at home, in their family, on the playground, at kindergarten and later at school – they structure their brains better and better on the basis of the experience gained in relations with others. As a result, every child ultimately has a brain that is precisely as it should be, and must be, given his or her various social experiences; otherwise, the child wouldn’t have been able to survive in the respective lifeworld they grew up in. Even if they are an outsider or misfit in said lifeworld, they must succeed in finding solutions that allow them to assume a position in the community that offers at least a modicum of tolerability and safety. Just as the brain initially structured itself in a relation of mutual dependency and inseparable connectedness with the body, in the growing child it now does so in mutual dependency and inseparable connectedness with everything the child’s community demonstrates, makes possible and permits. Even before birth, every child forms and reinforces unique and highly complex relational patterns within his or her brain. As such, each is born with his or her own abilities, talents and gifts, preferences and expectations, needs and interests – and from the outset, he or she will be more interested in certain things and less in others, and will more intensively experience and explore some, while avoiding others. As every child has his or her own priorities, each will display a different degree of readiness to interact with different aspects of his or her lifeworld. However, there are some things that all children have experienced in a similar way, leading similar relational patterns to be stored in their brains. All children seek to gain attention 100



when they don’t feel well; when they’re hungry, cold or tired. And all seek protection and a feeling of security. All want to be noticed and appreciated, all share an incredible joy in thinking for themselves, exploring and creating. And all seek to somehow achieve those goals they consider to be important. In this regard, all children depend on their parents or other attachment figures, without whose protection and nurturing they can’t survive. That’s why hardly anything is as important to all children as maintaining a stable and reliable connection to their primary attachment figures. They’re willing to do everything in their power to make that happen, which is why they focus their attention on anything and everything that helps to strengthen that connection. This is important to them; it activates the emotional centres in their brains and releases neuroplastic chemical messengers, ensuring that all those connection patterns that proved helpful in this regard are reinforced and expanded. That’s why children so quickly learn to read their parents’ body language and facial expressions, and to develop counterparts of their own. It’s why they so quickly learn to read their parents’ moods and to cheer them up through their own actions. And it’s why they quickly learn to talk by parroting everything their parents say. It’s not hearing the words and sentences that’s essential to learning to speak; it’s the emotional charge that what is said holds for the child. Because it’s so important to them, learning these abilities is attended by feelings of intense happiness and the increased production of neuroplastic chemical messengers in the brain. And that’s why children can so quickly learn everything that makes their parents (and later, their siblings, friends, kindergarten and school teachers) happy. The phenomenon is so simple, and yet so complicated. Because not everything that makes their parents and others happy later proves to be helpful for the child in question or conducive to the latter’s development. 

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Children mimic not just our language, but also the way we express ourselves. They also copy the way we think and the way we show our feelings. They copy our value judgments and orient their actions according to what we consider to be right and important. And they copy all of these things not just from their parents, but from everyone who they encounter in the course of their childhood and consider to be important for some reason or the other. These include their parents, grandparents and siblings, but later also the role models they admire, whether from their peer group or those they only “know” through the media. They copy their behaviour, values and beliefs. And all of this takes place faster and earlier than most parents or educators would ever dream possible. The much-cited African saying that it takes a whole village to raise a child is also true in a negative sense. When the people a child is most interested in and who become their role models hold views and beliefs that erode their natural joy in thinking, exploring and creating and stifle their openness, empathy and creativity, then that “village” prevents the child from unlocking his or her innate potential. Consequently, the transgenerational sharing of experiences is not limited to the positive experiences that parents and teachers pass on to children; it encompasses all the experiences that the members of a community have gathered in connection with what matters most in life. These experiences are passed on in the form of the convictions and beliefs they engender. And because the most important experiences all humans have involve their relationships with others, the question arises as to what has shaped how humans live together over time. And throughout human history, all across the globe, it was always fear. Nothing sparks so much confusion in our brains, such incoherence, such a horrible feeling of powerlessness as primal fear. And nothing has ever shaped human beings’ thoughts, feelings 102



and actions as much as their efforts to find strategies for overcoming that fear. We never would have survived as a species if we hadn’t succeeded time and again in finding these solutions. Innovations in science and technology diminished our fear of forces of nature, hunger and suffering, while medical advances took away our fear of many diseases. And the fear of death was countered with the belief that our souls live on. In all of these areas, we recognised over and over again that we could much more readily overcome our fears and greatly boost the efficacy of our strategies for doing so when we worked together, when we combined our knowledge and experience and joined forces against the threat at hand. Initially, these alliances were limited to the members of individual families and clans, to the inhabitants of specific regions or communities. Some of these communities were so well organised, had so many resources at their disposal, lived under such favourable conditions and acquired so many new abilities and skills that they came to assume a position superior to that of their neighbours. At some point they then fell upon said neighbours, as they felt no sense of connection with them. Rather, their neighbours were merely seen as strangers in possession of some resource or another that was of value. These attacks came quite early in human history. And they sparked the greatest kind of fear, one we’ve yet to overcome today and which still shapes the lives of human beings in every corner of the world: the fear of other people. This fear is not something innate; it is not embedded in our brains from the outset. It’s a fear we ourselves created, as an unintended but inevitable side-effect of our quest for solutions and strategies that would allow us to live without fear. Further, this fear isn’t created by individuals, but collectively. No human being kills another simply because they don’t know them. We are only prepared to do so when we’ve been told since our earliest childhood that said person is one of “our enemies”, 

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who want to kill, rape and rob “us”. Or when we or someone close to us has been the victim of such atrocities. These beliefs and traumatic experiences are then passed down for several generations, and it can take a very long time before they gradually fade and are replaced by new, more positive experiences between the members of the once hostile groups. In the town where I live there are two neighbouring villages, only a few kilometres apart. One lies in an area that was annexed by the Archbishopric of Mainz at the end of the Thirty Years’ War roughly four hundred years ago and remained Catholic; the other fell into the hands of the Hanoverians and its inhabitants became Protestant. To this day, relations between the residents of the two villages are difficult, to put it mildly. And what back then mostly took the form of fistfights between the children of the two villages at the local fair can now be seen when children from the two villages take the same school bus: children from one group consider the other group to be “stupid”, arrogant or, as they are fond of saying today, “retarded”. And so, just as they did then, they use any excuse they can find to clean each other’s clocks. This is just a small example of painful, fear-laden experiences being passed down from generation to generation. “Man appears to be the missing link between anthropoid apes and human beings.” With this concise statement, Konrad Lorenz aptly described our current status in the process of becoming human beings: we’re beginning to grasp what we could become. Yet we continue to carry with us any number of attitudes, holdovers from the past and firmly embedded in our brains, that keep us from tapping our own potential. Though we’ve long since come to realise that we can’t use the self-same attitudes to solve the problems that they themselves created, nevertheless these old views on the world, our enemies and human nature, developed by some distant ancestor and 104



successfully used for generations, have embedded themselves deep in our brains. They remain so firmly anchored in the collective memories of families, clans and ethnic groups, and are so massively reinforced through constant retelling – and in the case of larger communities, even through corresponding laws, regulations, and codes of conduct – that they continue to hinder the concerted efforts to find new solutions despite our differences, efforts which are so urgently needed today. Letting go of these old attitudes is no mean feat. After all, for generations human beings with different backgrounds have used their at times vastly differing views as a source of mutual orientation within their families, groups, classes or cultures, allowing them to successfully organise how they live together and shape their respective lifeworlds. As a result, diverse family-, group-, class- and culture-specific living conditions are created, which in turn contribute to maintaining and reinforcing their underlying beliefs – including their respective views on the world, their enemies and human nature. “And they lived happily ever after …” Thankfully only fairy tales end that way. In real life, the attitudes, goals and orientations we carry inside us can only determine the direction we head off in. What we actually achieve in our attempts to make headway, the concrete form and extent to which we change our previous lifeworld, always depends on the knowledge, abilities and skills that we possess and employ in order to reach those goals. The beliefs passed down by families, clans or cultural groups and used for orientation often remain unchanged for generations. But the knowledge, abilities and skills within a community constantly grow: new knowledge is gained, abilities and skills are refined and perfected. This takes place at different speeds in different communities, depending on the respective starting point – i. e. the previous state of knowledge and previously developed technical resources – and affects diffe

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rent areas, depending on the respective goal orientation. But the consequences of the inevitable growth in knowledge and accompanying technological development are always the same: at some point, the new knowledge and newly acquired abilities no longer jibe with the old, time-honoured paradigms and the orientation they provide. When that happens, the old ideas have to be expanded on and new goals defined. When a goal that offers orientation is fairly clearly defined and engenders a clear inner image for a community, then joint efforts and technological advances can actually help the community to reach that goal sooner or later. Of course, once it does so, the community in question also loses the source of its previous orientation. However, in most cases the use of new, more efficient technologies inevitably produces a number of additional changes in the respective lifeworld that were neither desired nor foreseen – changes that now pose new problems. To help solve those problems, new perspectives are developed, new goals defined and new visions drafted; from now on, they offer internal sources of orientation, shaping the community’s further development and the means and technologies it uses to achieve its (new) goals. Depending on how long this process continues, in the end the community in question may become wholly occupied with trying to solve the problems it itself created. The more numerous and diverse these problems are, the greater the risk that a community’s social structures will crumble once the shared internal images that held it together have faded and been discarded. Once things have reached this point, there are only three strategies a community can pursue in an effort to fend off its impending collapse: it can select one specific problem from among the plethora it faces and make it the focus of all the members’ joint efforts, e. g. by thinking up a new enemy or developing a radical new vision, like traveling to Mars. By doing so, it creates a new, shared orientation in the 106



form of its self-defined goal. This strategy can be used to postpone the dissolution of a community for a time, but not permanently prevent it. The same is true of the second strategy. It consists in the attempt to expand, i. e. to distribute the task of solving all of the “home-made” problems across a constantly growing community, and to use its available resources to solve or at least alleviate those problems. The third strategy is the hardest one to implement, but is the only one that actually opens the door for sustainable development: it involves seeking a new orientation that is universally valid and equally appealing for all people and all communities – finding an internal image that can spread globally and become embedded in the brains of all people, one that is capable of expressing what truly matters in life, in living together and in our relations to the outside world: trust; mutual recognition and respect; and both feeling and knowing that we all depend on one another and are responsible for one another. Now, for the first time in human history, this type of common vision is slowly taking shape. We are finally realising that we’re all in the same boat, and that in a world with limited resources we can’t afford to constantly consume more and more energy and raw materials. It is dawning on us that the fossil-fuel age is drawing to a close, and that in the future only one type of thing can grow: the intensity of our relationships, the sense of responsibility, the scope of our self-understanding, and the comprehension of our own embeddedness in the process of the evolution of life, which gave rise to our existence on this planet. We already fulfil the biological preconditions for achieving such a massive cultural breakthrough. They are our potentials, and include our genetic predispositions, which allow us to form such tremendously malleable brains, brains which can be restructured throughout our lives. Though the first representatives of our species had the same brain, the experiences 

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they gathered in the earliest communities were very different from those we encounter today in our families and communities, at educational centres, companies and retirement homes. Because all of these experiences are structurally anchored in our brains in the form of specific neural connection patterns, we think, feel and act differently than our ancestors, and unlock different potentials. We can still only unlock those potentials by working together. But not in communities organised like anthills, buffalo herds or flocks of birds; we need individualised communities in which everyone counts, in which every member can tap into his or her unique talents and can use his or her own abilities to help unlock the community in question’s collective potentials. Perhaps the secret of these individualised communities is the fact that they develop an internal structure that in many ways resembles that of the human brain. In fact, all developable communities that are not held together by force function in a similar manner to our brains: they learn by trial and error, they develop flat and highly networked structures, gain experience and constantly adapt their internal organisation in response to changing conditions. Thanks to self-optimising communicative networking at and between the different organisational levels, they not only rapidly and efficiently respond to new challenges, but also devise prudent and sustainable solutions to do so. Further, just as there are brains in which the communication between the right and left hemispheres, and between older and younger regions, is less than ideal, many communities suffer from similar deadlocks, divisions, imposed structures and comfortable ruts. Though these communities may survive for some time, they are by no means vital or flexible, let alone creative or innovative. In this regard, too, things run the same way in human communities as in the brain: like a seismograph, the variety of new ideas generated reflects their internal status. And in all those 108



communities that are merely scrabbling to preserve their previously created structures, the outlook is just as bleak as in brains whose owners have at some point lost their innate curiosity, enthusiasm and creativity. Magnetic resonance imaging has revealed that when creative people view a given image, contemplate a given idea or seek to solve a given problem, not only more, but also more remote networks are activated. As such, in terms of the brain, creative solutions can only be found when we succeed in simultaneously calling up many disparate and previously separate forms of memory and knowledge, and in finding new ways of interconnecting the regional networks needed to activate them. Accordingly, being creative is less about inventing something new and more about recombining previously available but separate knowledge and ideas in new ways. For human communities this means: in order to unlock their potentials and evolve, they must interact with other communities so as to link the knowledge available “here” with what is known “over there”. However, these interaction processes often prove to be difficult, especially when the respective communities have long been separated and evolved individually, developing their own specific patterns and structures in the process. Yet in some cases a human community, just like a brain, can become so overwhelmed that all of its “circuits” – all of its members, just like the synaptic connections and neural networks in the brain – have to work at maximum capacity to complete all of their duties and fulfil all of their responsibilities. This may work for a short time, but in the long run the community in question will have to change how it is organised. But this can’t be achieved by breeding fears, creating pressure, or precisely dictating and monitoring how everything is done. When independent thought is no longer valued and its members can no longer take on personal responsibility, the community’s spirit of innovation loses the updraft it needs to spread its wings and soar. 

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This initially results in desperate and futile efforts, which quickly ferment into frustration and resignation. The dopamine-based motivational and rewards system in the brains of the community’s members lacks the incentives it needs and subsequently begins to atrophy. Unless it can succeed in reviving its joy in discovering and creating, precious little innovation can be expected from such a community. Yet the desire to participate, to contribute one’s ideas and energies, isn’t something that can be (en)forced; it can only be inspired. What can happen much more quickly, easily and lastingly is the suppression of that desire. This is nearly always the product of frustration – because of a lack of duties and responsibilities, a lack of appreciation, insecurity, pressure or the breeding of fears. Every human community is characterised by something that holds it together like an internal bond; if that bond is broken, the community will collapse. Similarly to the attitudes and convictions embedded in the frontal lobe, which shape how an individual thinks, feels and acts, everything the members of a human community work towards, all that is important and meaningful to them and holds them together at the core, is determined by something every bit as invisible as these inner attitudes. It is the spirit maintaining the respective community. Just as athletic teams need team spirit if they want to succeed, families need family spirit, schools need school spirit, and companies need company spirit. Normally the thoughts, feelings and actions of a community are shaped by this shared spirit to such an extent that it is capable of achieving and maintaining exactly that which brought it together, the reason for and purpose of its formation. Accordingly, an athletic team should have a team spirit that helps the players play together optimally and win as many games as possible. School spirit should help teachers and pupils alike fulfil the school’s purpose, namely optimally tapping pupils’ potentials by inviting, encouraging and inspiring them to acquire all 110



of the knowledge they will need later in life. And family spirit should strengthen cohesion and help the family fulfil its purpose: giving the individual family members the feeling of being closely intertwined, and with that feeling the energy they need to tap their potentials, to grow and to flourish. Lastly, those people who work together e. g. at a hospital, from the chief surgeon to the janitor, must all be motivated by the desire to do everything in their power to help patients become healthy; that would be a good example of hospital spirit. Yet what we see time and again is that, at some point, the members of these communities – families, schools or organisations – no longer primarily attend to their original purpose, the reason they were formed. Then the community spirit disappears, and is replaced by another, as if it had been waiting in the wings to take control of the community’s fate. It begins to dominate the atmosphere in the respective family, school, hospital or company, and the members of the community sense that they are now merely “managed”, moved back and forth as needed, and exploited. In turn, these experiences cause new attitudes to be formed in their frontal lobes, ones which correspond to the new spirit that has invaded their family, school or company. From now on, they couldn’t care less about the prosperity of their community or its purpose: they may still try to live up to their obligations, but inside they’re just counting the hours until the end of the day or the years until retirement. Once a community has sunk so low, it may yet survive for some time, but will merely continue to function without any further development. It can no longer unlock the potential that it and its members hold, and becomes a mere shell of what it was once, of what it could have become. This has been the fate of some religious communities, many hospitals and schools, and many universities and companies. Even unions and political parties can fall victim to this phenomenon. 

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The cause of this unfavourable development is easy to recognise: the bond of shared intentions, which normally holds a community together and gives its members a feeling of connectedness, can all too easily be broken. The chances of that happening automatically grow together with the number of members forming the community, and it is often only some form of external pressure that holds human communities together. When their concerted efforts have allowed them to overcome hunger, poverty and suffering, to better control nature, and to conquer or keep in check their external enemies, these “communities of necessity” inevitably begin to crumble. Then every member pursues his or her own goals, and the community in question can only barely be held together with the help of new laws and regulations. Beyond this external bond, which brings together the members of a community in order to achieve specific shared goals, human beings can also feel a deeper connection with one another. This sense of connection is why life partners, the members of a family, true friends and sometimes even neighbours and colleagues remain closely knit even when there is no (more) external reason for doing so. Sometimes a shared faith, shared convictions, attitudes or values are what bring together and link people with different backgrounds. But these communities, too, can easily fall apart if the emotional bond is so tight that the members no longer have room to breathe, when their need for autonomy, self-determination and freedom is stifled. When communities are no longer held together by a strong internal or external bond and more and more members start dropping out in order to shape their lives as they see fit, conflicts and attrition inevitably arise. These communities in decline can be recognised by the increased consumption of natural resources to compensate for the attrition, and by the competition and growing pressure to perform among their members. 112



Those who suffer most from these developments are the weaker members, especially children and the elderly, as neither group can now find a suitable place in these communities: the elderly can no longer share their experience, while the children can no longer gather the complex and varied experiences they need. Both groups are increasingly “managed”. Sooner or later the costs of these management measures and the losses due to attrition surpass the capital and resources the community produces, starting a downward spiral. Though these crises can strengthen the external bond holding the community together and spark new concerted efforts, if the crisis is successfully averted, the cycle simply begins again until the next one develops. Crises are dangerous and seen as threats. Every crisis results from an imbalance, and as such can only be overcome by restoring equilibrium: just like with a set of scales, weight has to be added on one side or taken away from the other until the system has been successfully readjusted. But even once this has been done, though now more stable, it is still the same system and hasn’t truly evolved. And the members of these “crisis management communities” simply keep doing more of the same: with the same attitudes and convictions, the same problem-solving strategies, and the same cognitive, emotional and behavioural patterns. This could go on indefinitely if it weren’t for another way, one that can help communities break out of the vicious circle of crises and crisis management. That option is transformation. Every human community eventually turns to it, and not in the form of managing the latest crisis, but as the solution to a dilemma resulting from the community’s previous development strategies and concepts, its old assumptions and ideologies. Western civilisation currently finds itself in precisely this situation, as can be seen in the fact that more and more people are beginning to sense that their basic need for connectedness, and for autonomy and freedom, cannot be satisfied by 

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simply trying harder to strengthen one or the other; we need both. And when both needs can’t be met at the same time, we feel stuck in a dilemma. It’s hardly life-threatening, nor does it spark a fear response. We can even carry on just as before if we want – but we won’t be satisfied if we do. The more intensively people feel they are “only” members of a collective, the more they feel their freedom is being infringed upon. And the more freely and independently they can shape their own lives, the more easily they lose their sense of connectedness with others. This dilemma can’t be remedied through more collectivism or individualism. What is needed is the creation of a relationship culture, a way of living together with others, in which every individual feels equally connected and free. 2.4 The lifelong re-organising capacity of established neural connection patterns in response to novel experiences

The most important discovery that neurobiologists have made with the help of imaging technologies – and initially to their own amazement – is that the brain is essentially a giant construction site, and not just during childhood, but throughout our lives. And that’s definitely a good thing: if the adult brain were something like a finished house, if it later needed repairs, we’d have no way of fixing it and ensuring it was soundly resting on a stable foundation. As neurobiologists can now demonstrate on the basis of numerous examples, the sum of our experience is something constantly recreated by us, and by our experiences with the world around us. Those neural connections we no longer use become atrophied: “use it or lose it” is the rule that applies here. Those experiential and behavioural patterns that we regularly activate are reinforced and structurally embedded (or “embodied”) in the brain. Every new stimulus moves the brain to call up 114



and activate similar, previously stored patterns. Consequently, as adults we unknowingly repeat experiential and behavioural patterns that were created in our childhood and constantly reinforced later in life. The neural connection patterns activated in the process are strengthened with each repetition. As such, when someone says “that’s just the way I am”, all they are really doing is reinforcing the structure of their experience and behaviour by constantly calling upon their old patterns. But neurobiology has since also determined that our brains can reconstruct themselves at any time in our lives, and can do so as soon as we abandon one of these old motor, sensory or affective patterns and begin seeing, feeling or acting in a new way. And when we succeed in creating a new pattern at this level, it automatically influences all other levels. If we could start seeing the world from a new perspective or thinking in a new way, if we could manage to not always respond to the same catalysts with the same feelings and behaviour, it would have tremendous impacts on the “construction site” that is the brain: not only the neural connection patterns directly involved in the new response would be restructured, but also all the other patterns connected to it in some shape or form. This phenomenon, which neurobiologists refer to as “coupling”, will be familiar to anyone who has succeeded in cheering themselves up. When we do so, we can automatically more easily remember all the things we experienced under similarly happy circumstances. Conversely, when we feel depressed, we tend to remember the things we experienced under less fortunate circumstances. The reason is simple: our memories and feelings are linked to impressions from the respective sensory system that was activated at the time of the actual experience. Synchronous stimulation patterns, which are always formed in a similar manner between neuron groups in different regions of the brain in response to specific perceptions or experiences, automatically serve to reinforce the corresponding linkages. 

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Further, not only is the human brain much more adaptable than previously assumed; our perceptions and sensations, thoughts and feelings, moods, posture and everything happening in our bodies are also much more closely interconnected than previously believed. We see, then, that we definitely could change; that’s not the problem. What makes true change so difficult is the fact that everything is so closely connected – and that unfortunately includes everything that constitutes our personal “hang-ups”, all of the strange ideas, questionable views, copied behaviours and suppressed feelings we’ve accumulated in the course of childhood and later in our lives. Once established, these old cognitive, emotional and behavioural patterns are just as hard to get rid of as they are cumbersome. Someone who has exhibited obsessive-compulsive behaviour and now only feels comfortable when everything is in its proper place can’t simply choose to stop tidying things up. Or consider someone who is convinced that no one likes him for who he is. He may have spent his whole life trying to make himself the way he thought he had to be in order to finally be respected or liked by others. Of course he could change. But then he would most likely lose the majority of his previous friends and no longer be able to enjoy what he worked so hard to achieve. Most likely you’re beginning to recognise the dilemma here, one which most of us find it far easier to slip into than to find our way back out of. The brain of a person in this dilemma is like a construction site where the house has somehow become crooked. The person living inside the house, i. e. everything we call the “self ”, hasn’t a clue that anything’s wrong; they’ve always lived in the house and consider it to be perfectly normal. But everything installed in the house has been adapted to its crooked position: the pipes and ductwork, tables and chairs, even the toilet. Everything is crooked, but everything works – more or less. As such, this only truly becomes problematic for that person when the whole house threatens to come crashing 116



down on top of their head. Only then does the “self ” finally realise that something’s wrong. Fortunately for us, the brain is constantly under construction, not a finished house, which means the crooked structure can still be changed. We could make stopgap repairs. They make life a bit easier for the “self ”, but can’t make the crooked house more stable. It has to be straightened from the ground up. But how? The answer is quite simple. The networks within a person’s brain, which shape how they think, feel and act, attained their current form because the person in question used their brain to interact with something. Initially, i. e. prior to birth and in their first years of life, that “something” was their own body. Back then, the brain used the signal patterns it received from the rest of the body – and which it had no control over – to structure itself. Later, as a small child, the brain first turned its attention to important attachment figures and subsequently to everything there was to discover and shape in the child’s respective lifeworld. Here, too, the brain encountered a wealth of things beyond its control; they were simply there, and reached the brain through the sensory channels they activated. Yet even then, some of the things “out there” were more important than others. When the child was hungry, their mother’s breast or the formula bottle became most important, and all of their attention, all of their desires and aspirations, were focused on it. Sometimes the child felt other needs, like the need to play with their rattle. Then that became the most important thing, and that desire had to be satisfied. And there were also the two innate, basic needs for connectedness and security on the one hand, and the need to “do things on their own”, to acquire new skills and enjoy autonomy and freedom, on the other. When it was unable to satisfy one or the other of these two basic needs, the child became upset and broke out in tears, either because Mummy was too far away, or because her con

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stant presence kept them from doing whatever it was they wanted to do at that particular moment. And when the child felt that they weren’t getting the sense of closeness and security they needed, they made plenty of noise to gain attention. If that didn’t work and the child was now a bit older, they looked for something to help them calm back down. Then an object or activity became the most important thing, or the child sought to cheer their mother up and win back her affection by trying harder to meet her expectations. As they grew from children to adolescents, there was always something or another that seemed particularly desirable, something that received the lion’s share of their attention and was suddenly more important than anything else: fitting in with their peer group, computer games, shopping, or some pop star they idolised. There’s no need to continue this list of all the things that are important to us as children, adolescents and adults ad nauseam. What matters is that we understand the principle: that in the course of their life, a given person forms and reinforces certain networks in their brain intensively, while others, which could just as easily be reinforced, are largely neglected. The key to understanding this principle is “subjectively ascribed significance”: everything that a given person considers to be important in the course of their life, everything that helps to satisfy their needs, is emotionally charged. It activates the emotional centres of the brain, creating a sense of inner turmoil; it is an expression of the fact that the brain is in a state of incoherence. Now things simply don’t “fit” like they should: the person in question’s expectations clash with undesired realities, and their needs cannot be satisfied. They are no longer happy and want things to change. And when they find something that – as they would put it – makes them happy in this situation, or which – neurobiologically speaking – makes the resulting incoherence in their brain somewhat more coherent, then the neural connections acti118



vated in the process are expanded and reinforced (neuroplastic chemical messengers are released, “fertilising” these networks). Expressed in more general terms: the brain structures itself on the basis of the solutions that a person finds over the course of their life with regard to what is most important to them. And the same thing is most important to all of us: we seek to shape our lives in a way that will make us happy (to keep the status of our brain as coherent as possible, so that it requires as little energy as possible). The only snag: we all have different, sometimes radically different, views on what it is that will make us happy. For passionate lottery players, it’s getting all six numbers right in the next drawing. For football fans, it’s their team winning the next big match. Researchers aspire to be nominated for the Nobel Prize, while music fans dream of meeting their favourite pop star. Whether there might also be something else that is important to all of these different happiness seekers is a question that only an external observer can pose. Yet it is the most important question to answer if someone is seriously interested in fixing the crooked house in their head from the ground up. This can only happen if something other than their previous focus gains more importance for the person in question. As such, it’s worth trying to discover whether there might be something that is equally important for everyone – regardless of what each of them personally considers to be important. To answer that question, we would have to look for a need that is innate to all human beings and was meaningful to them before they began ascribing importance to anything else in their lives. If we search among people who grew up under disparate conditions and gathered different individual experiences, our efforts aren’t likely to produce meaningful results; they’ve all long-since found something they think will make them happy. Instead, we would need to seek among those people who ­haven’t yet been shaped and formed by us: our children. For children 

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all around the globe, what matters most is, and always has been, the same thing: satisfying both their need for connectedness and belonging, and their need for growth, autonomy and freedom. These two basic needs are so firmly embedded in the brain that they never fade. That’s why we adults still (and sometimes, especially) feel the need to travel (when we feel stifled at home) on the one hand, and feel homesick (when our freedom starts to make us lonely) on the other. As previously discussed, the brain organises its inner structure and functions all on its own. Anyone who has been away from home long enough because their priority was to be free and independent will find that their connection with others is gradually becoming more important to them – provided they weren’t too deeply hurt by their interactions with the people they want to feel connected to. By the same token, anyone who has lived long enough in close connection with their family and hometown (neither of which they’d ever want to give up) will nevertheless someday feel a yearning to get out and make their own way in the world. Not everyone has the good fortune of living long enough to complete this change of orientation. Many go to their graves lonely, while many others remain prisoners of the community they grew up in to their dying day. But those who wake up in time could ask themselves if it’s possible to live together with others in a community in such a way that everyone could feel more free and autonomous, and could unlock their potential better, than they could on their own; and so that each could nonetheless feel a deep and abiding sense of connection with the others. And those for whom that question is sufficiently important could begin working with others to create such a community. If they did so, the networks in their brains would also undergo a fundamental transformation.

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Part 3: Unlocking Potential in Human Communities

On their own, without any contact with other people, no one would have ever turned out the way they did. We are social creatures and our brains are social constructs. As children, we never would have survived without other people taking care of us. And if there had never been anyone there to show us how, we would never have learned how to walk, swim or do anything else. We wouldn’t be able to speak or read, nor would we have any knowledge; we need to be together with others in order to learn all those things. Biologically speaking, we merely possess the theoretical potential to learn all of those things. Every human being is born with that potential; though not initially visible, it is locked within every child. It is evidenced in the brain in the form of a massive surplus of initially provided potential connections, the ability to form new connections, and in neural dendrites’ ability to grow further. This networking potential surpasses by far the number of connections that a given person actually needs and reinforces in order to cope with the lifeworld they grow up in. In fact, the potential is so great that every child on the planet is capable of learning everything he or she needs to, and everything the people around them know and can do. Thus the knowledge and abilities, beliefs and convictions that a person – as a child, an adolescent and ultimately as an adult – acquires in their community and reinforces in the form of specific neural 

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connection patterns in their brain, represents only a fraction of what they could have learned if they had grown up elsewhere. And new connections can be established and reinforced even later in life; we never lose the ability to imprint new knowledge and new abilities in our brains – provided we don’t lose our innate joy in thinking and creating for ourselves. Harmful prenatal influences, e. g. drug abuse, malnutrition or excessive stress on the mother during pregnancy, may somewhat reduce the number of initially provided connections in a newborn’s brain. But even then, the available potential would suffice to acquire all the abilities and skills the growing child needs in its respective lifeworld. The only thing they dare not lose in the process is the joy of discovering and creating. Nothing else can so critically and lastingly hinder the unlocking of the potential embedded inside every human being as losing the joy they feel in thinking and shaping for themselves. Their innate joy in discovering and creating is something no one ever loses on their own; it can only be taken from them by others – through neglect, mistreatment, disrespect, marginalisation, degradation and all other negative experiences that can be the result of an individual’s interactions with others within a community. Our embeddedness in a community is not only essential to unlocking the potential within us; it also allows that potential to be smothered. As such, tapping potentials is never an individual process. No one can develop his or her potential alone; doing so must involve relations to others. Yet their experiences in these relationships can be so discouraging that they ultimately lose the joy they once felt in thinking for themselves and in creating with others. Accordingly, it’s worth giving a bit of thought to the question of which characteristics the relationships between people would need to have in order to preserve this vital fuel for the unlocking of human potential.

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3.1  How do we currently live together?

The way we currently live together is not conducive to tapping the innate potentials provided by the biological makeup of our brains. You need only take a brief glance at our families, schools and universities, companies, the government, the Council of Europe or even the United Nations. Everywhere you look, contrasting opinions collide, arguments rage on, and everyone fights for their own interests. Yet the key question doesn’t concern the way things are now, but instead how they got that way. Why do so many people live together in a way that doesn’t make them happy, and which is neither constructive nor sustainable? How much confusion, how many conflicts and quarrels, and how many dysfunctional relationships can a community withstand before it falls apart? Perhaps it would help to approach the problem from a different perspective, by asking ourselves how much chaos a brain can stand. When does the level of incoherence become so great that all the fuses blow and – since nothing works anymore – the person in question is diagnosed with a psychosis or burnout, and sent home? The answer is simple: it depends on the abilities he or she has acquired for coping with stress and conflicts, and on the level of support he or she receives from others. It also depends on whether or not the person in question still believes there is a solution to their problem, i. e., on how much hope and optimism they still have. We might now ask ourselves how much chaos in the form of frictions, quarrels and conflicts a family can take. Or a sports club, company or school; they’re all living systems, just like an individual brain. And here, too, the relations between the members can become so dysfunctional that things grind to a standstill. How massive does the incoherence in these social systems have to become before things begin to fall apart? And is what happens next also a psychosis or burnout, but at the collective 

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level? In any case, at this point the family, club, company, etc. will achieve precious little. On the contrary, the system in question will most likely need and consume a great deal. You’ll recall we established a basic principle of the self-organisation of living systems: the worse all the parts work together, i. e., the higher the level of incoherence, the more energy it takes to maintain the structure as a whole. The brain can’t tolerate such an incoherent state for long. When it comes to its energy supply, it relies on the glucose and oxygen supplied by the carotid artery. Since the supply is limited, the brain rapidly runs out of energy when things no longer gel. We sense this in the form of disquieting feelings, which move us to do our best to restore a state of relative coherence. But what about communities that are plagued by constant conflict? They consume substantially more energy than those in which the people get along and support one another instead of constantly snapping at or even attacking one another. These incoherent communities will inevitably run out of steam, once the attrition of all the conflicts has become too great and no one can muster the energy to keep putting the pieces back together again. How, then, do some married couples manage to tolerate their constant bickering for years? Or the residents of an apartment building, the teaching staff at a school, the employees in a given department, or the members of a government? Where do they find the energy? It’s precisely here that the essential difference between the brain and human societies becomes apparent: the brain can’t supply certain areas with energy at the expense of others, but communities can. Those for whom living together is difficult can always seek to compensate for the higher energy consumption caused by this attrition, and to do so at the expense of others. And as long as they succeed, as long as they can acquire everything that makes living together more or less tolerable, 124



they can go on living together – or more accurately: living beside one another – just as incoherently as before. Then there’s no reason to dissolve, and they remain together, despite the high price they pay. But as long as the family budget is replenished and everyone can treat themselves to something now and again, even a fairly dysfunctional family life can be coped with. And when the employees of a company are constantly at each other’s throats, when one bosses the others around and everyone tries to look good at the expense of the others, they have to treat themselves to something special from their salaries now and then; otherwise they wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore. When a country is home to many people who don’t feel particularly satisfied with either their private or their business relations, and who can only cope with their situation by compensating for the attendant frustration in the form of purchasing items from department stores or online shops, the result is an enormous market for unsatisfied needs. As long as consumers’ purchasing power remains stable, that market will also be filled with corresponding products. To get the most revenues from those products, companies outsource their production to low-wage countries. And then the inhabitants of these rich, highly developed countries can tolerate their dysfunctional relations within the family, at work and with their neighbours and indulge in their vice of choice – at the cost of those people who were born in and grew up in the so-called developing countries. This isn’t rocket science; it’s just a bit painful to look the reality in the eye. That’s why most people living in economically powerful countries don’t particularly enjoy giving much thought to why they need and consume so much. Instead they prefer to view their consumer choices as their personal contribution to strengthening the domestic market, to promoting economic growth and to safeguarding jobs. 

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For most people, understanding their own consumer behaviour as an expression of the unsatisfying, frustrating and taxing relationships that characterise their interactions with others at home, at school or university, or at their company or other organisation, fills their brain with too much confusion. That’s perfectly understandable, as anyone who opens themselves up for this point of view will not only have to consider why they live with others in such relationships; they will also have to question to what extent they are responsible for shaping those relationships. And here at the latest, when the search for an explanation leads to an insight that concerns them personally, most call it quits and stop thinking about it. This allows their brains to avoid a massive spike in energy consumption, at least for the time being. Our deliberations have now brought us to a point where we should be able to think through this final and most essential question. What is it, then, that always prevents us from living with others in a constructive, vibrant and fulfilling way? It’s not the many problems we have, nor is it a natural law or biological predisposition. The answer is much simpler: all too often, we fail to encounter one another as subjects; instead, we use one another as objects in the many relationships we enter into. We treat others as the objects of our ambitions and interests, our projects and plans, our evaluations and expectations. At times we even make objects of ourselves, convincing ourselves we’re too stupid, unlovable, or simply not good enough. The dangerous aspect of these relationships is that they put us in a situation where we believe we are purely observers, and can monitor, assess and judge others. Or we go so far as to manipulate others, seeking to control their actions. In this way we separate ourselves from the other person; we are no longer in a reciprocal relationship with them, which is why such relationships can produce nothing more than pain and the feeling of being neither seen nor heard, but only used. 126



People who enter into subject-subject relationships with others, i. e., those who are prepared to approach their counterpart as a human being and not simply as a useful role or function, feel no such separation. They see themselves as part of the relationship, and the reactions of their counterpart always concern them personally. It is only in these “you-and-I” relationships that both partners can grow and evolve. In “me-and-it” relationships, where our counterpart is reduced to an object, both parties remain trapped in their respective roles and assignments. The essential question is why so many people choose to live and work together in such unhealthy relationships. One reason can be found in the way our brains work. Though our brains never stop learning, in order to learn something we must choose to engage with the phenomena we experience, with those things that interest us and which we want to learn more about. If what we’re interested in isn’t something living and therefore incapable of forming relationships with us, we view and treat it as an object. We all do so, and the more frequently and intensively we interact with inanimate objects, observing, exploring, disassembling and reassembling them, the easier we find it to establish objectifying relationships with living things, even with other human beings. A second reason can be found in the experiences we all have as small children. At first they don’t involve objects, but living things in a child’s world: first Mummy and Daddy, then other family members, perhaps even a cat, dog or pet canary. As soon as the child interacts with them by petting, tickling or smiling at them, all respond. And they do so in their own unique way, not mechanically but as subjects with a will of their own. All children learn their first lessons with these persons – and this is initially limited to a small selection of attachment figures – and do so in relationships very different from those they will later have with inanimate objects. These early relationships are subject-subject relationships. 

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All small children even expect the objects they feel attached to, like their stuffed animals, to respond to their actions. Their primary relational experience is based on interactions with living counterparts like their mother, who not only respond to them but also do things themselves that the child reacts to. These relationships are vibrant, self-reinforcing and increasingly reciprocal in nature. And every child needs them, not only with their mother, but with all other people in their life. Otherwise they can neither experience themselves as a living, self-efficacious subject, nor feel they are connected to and belong together with others. So far, so good. Equipped with these initial experiences, these “you-and-I” relationships that reinforce their sense of self-efficacy and connectedness, children grow up in a social world in which they will sooner or later realise that sometimes other people, perhaps even their own mother, no longer see and address them as a subject, but merely as an object. At the latest, this occurs when they become the object of their parents’ efforts to raise and educate them. This feeling doesn’t jibe with the expectations they have on the basis of their past experiences. They no longer feel “seen” and experience a sense of powerlessness; their feeling of connectedness is lost, and the incoherence in their brain quickly builds. Their attachment system is activated, their exploration system suppressed. They have a problem, and have to find some way to fix it. They may start crying, or they might try to protest against this type of treatment. If that helps, then all is well. But if their efforts fail and they are treated as an object time and time again, children can only solve their problem by adjusting their expectations of the people who treat them like an object or their expectations of themselves. And most children find the answer sooner than their parents or teachers would ever imagine. One answer is: “I’m not good enough”, or some similarly negative self-description. This answer is fatal because the child in question makes 128



themselves the object of their own assessment. But at least it allows them to restore a semblance of coherence in their brain; from now on they “know” why they are treated like an object, why they are rejected or disciplined, and no longer have any real problem with someone telling them they’re simply too stupid. The other answer to this problem is: “Mummy (or Daddy or my teacher, etc.) is stupid, is a show-off, an idiot, is daft” – or something else along those lines. Because they have been made the object of certain actions and assessments, they simply make others the object of their judgments – and later, the objects of their actions and plans. Now it doesn’t hurt so much when others tell them what to do. They’ve solved their problem by learning how to treat others as objects. From now on, they can do the same thing all of us have learned in one way or another: how to treat other human beings, other organisms as if they had no intentions, hopes or needs of their own and instead were objects that could be moved back and forth as needed, ones that can be distributed, investigated and used as needed, perhaps even taken apart. When they acquire the unique ability to view and treat themselves or others as objects, children graduate into our world, one dominated by objectifying relationships. From that point on, they will shape their relationships and how they live with others accordingly. Some even succeed in making themselves or others the object of their admiration. But that doesn’t mean they’re happy with themselves, or that they share dependable and sustainable relationships with others. And anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable with themselves or with others chose to solve the problem they faced as a child the only way they knew how to. But doing so didn’t make them truly happy or fulfilled. At best, these people enjoy a fleeting moment of happiness when, from time to time, they manage to get their hands on or treat themselves to something they’re convinced will make them happy. 

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We’ve all been through this difficult phase, and we’ve all learned to judge ourselves and others, to not only accept the roles resulting from those judgments but to do a better and better job of fulfilling them. Many consider themselves to be losers, and have not only accepted that “fact”; they are firmly convinced that they’re not particularly good at anything. They train for a job, and may very well stick with it all their lives, even though they never find it rewarding. They may even identify with the role and connotations their occupation has for others, in which case they make themselves the objects of others’ expectations in yet another respect. When asked who they are, they no longer respond with their name, but their occupation: “I’m a mechanic/an editor-in-chief/a neurobiologist”, or with their function: “I’m Clara’s mother/the goalie for the local football club.” It’s hard for people to approach one another from subject to subject when they have made themselves the objects of their respective roles, and do their best to fulfil those roles perfectly. And this is all the more difficult when the people involved have mastered the art of making others first the objects of their judgments, and later of their ambitions. Some are in fact so skilled that they exploit others for their own purposes and plans, seeking to mould them to fit their expectations in the process. This produces relationships in which one or the other person does all the “donkey work”, and is used to achieve the other’s personal goals. Not limited to business and organisations, these relationships can also be found between partners and neighbours, in families and clubs. The consequences are always the same: these unhealthy relationships produce tremendous attrition, and the energy it takes to keep these communities afloat can only be acquired by finding and exploiting “external” resources, i. e., at the expense of third parties (which also explains the term “third world”).

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3.2  Are there alternatives?

If confronted with the question of what human life will look like in the future, most of our contemporaries could quickly come up with an idea or two. The pessimists would say: horrible. It can only get worse – a dying climate, environmental pollution, dwindling resources, the breakdown of social welfare systems, and so on. We’re teetering on the brink, and the end is near. The optimists, on the other hand, would dismiss their counterparts’ grim prognoses and assure you that scientific advances and technological innovations will soon allow us to solve all of today’s problems. But the real question here is a different one: not what human life will look like, but how we will live together in the future. That question can’t be answered with either dystopian or utopian visions of the future, and that’s exactly what makes it so intriguing. Strangely enough, the question rarely comes up in either the media or among researchers, let alone among engineers. And since we hardly ever talk about it at home, at school or with our neighbours or co-workers, the question catches us off guard. Given the variety of problems we’re faced with on a daily basis, most of us haven’t given much thought to how we hope to live together in the future. But perhaps, given the wealth of problems we ourselves have created, that’s the most important question to answer. After all, if our answer is “just like always”, nothing will change about how we live together – or in our brains. Why should it? Then we’ll just keep doing more of the same. And then the outcome of our efforts to survive on this planet will remain just as open for one prognosis or the other. Then again, we might come to the conclusion that the way we’ve lived together so far was anything but ideal, and that indeed the way we lived together was what produced the host of problems we now consider practically insurmountable. If that 

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came to pass, we would have to ask ourselves why it’s so hard for us to imagine living together in a different way in the future, not to mention why we are so reluctant to dwell on the question. The most likely reason is that we simply have no idea how things could be done differently. And in the course of human history, we soon convince ourselves, every option has already been tried out, but none of them worked. The great leaders, who were convinced they knew best and were all too happy telling everyone else what to do, were wrong time and again, their empires long-since crumbled. And every effort to create a social system in which everyone could decide together how they wanted to shape their lives has been an equally dismal failure. So what would a better way of living together look like? There are no suitable models from our entire history that could offer us guidance; therefore, it simply can’t be done, we think. But if it’s true that all living systems only invent themselves during their own formation, how can we expect to find models for a better way of living together that would fit the modern era? As a living system, we have to discover for ourselves how to shape our relationships so that the problems we have don’t continue to worsen, but instead lessen and become more manageable. The countless generations preceding us have merely shown us what doesn’t work. But that also has its good sides, as it means we don’t have to experiment with approaches developed in the past. But how to do things differently, how to make them better, is something we have to find out for ourselves. By now we all know from painful experience which types of relationships are least conducive to tapping our innate potential: no one can discover and develop their own talents and gifts if they feel they are treated like an object, and not respected and appreciated as a subject; if they were made the object of childrearing, educational, vocational or other measures during their childhood, adolescence or adulthood – not to mention all 132



those who toil for the plans and prosperity of their masters as slaves, serfs or day labourers. But becoming an object, and being treated as one, is also something that can happen to workers, researchers, civil servants, prostitutes and soldiers, to schoolchildren and university students, to consumers, and now even to unsuspecting Internet users. In every facet of life, there are those who seek to use others in the pursuit of their own interests. In the past, it was above all those who had come into wealth, power and influence who told their underlings what to do and not to do. Wherever these old powers have been supplanted, overthrown or ousted, others have come to fill their places, often through putsches, occasionally through revolutions or democratic elections. But our democratic societies, too, have yet to succeed in reshaping the way we live together so that no one is used to further the goals and ambitions of another. Those who were the lower class in the old authoritarian societies have now simply joined forces to form a variety of lobbies and interest groups, which are interdependent and bound by mutually conditional objectifying relationships: producers and consumers, employers and employees, politicians and voters, physicians and patients, teachers and pupils, administrators and the administrated. In a society based on the division of labour, where different people bring with them different talents and acquire different skills, this type of development is unavoidable – that’s what everyone who sees themselves as being on one side or the other of this dichotomy would prefer to believe. But is that really true? Is it a law of nature that someone who possesses greater knowledge or skill in a certain field automatically has to make all those who are less gifted the objects of their teachings? And perhaps even to do so for so long that their students can no longer imagine being able to acquire the knowledge and skills they need without such a teacher? When 

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that happens, both sides have stumbled into a mutually objectifying relationship: the teacher needs their students just as much as they need him or her. One teaches, the others are taught, and both sides are convinced that there is no other way. But haven’t there also been teachers who did things differently, just as long as there have been schools? Those who didn’t just give their students information, but sought to wake their own interest in gaining new knowledge? Those who invited, encouraged and inspired their students to join in? Those who, instead of treating their students as vessels to be filled with information, sought to spark their passion for learning? Those who saw both their students and themselves as seekers and learners, and who interacted with the former as equals – from subject to subject? Yes, there were such teachers from the very beginning, and have been ever since. In fact, there have likely never been as many such teachers as there are today; and there were likely never so many students who can interact with their teachers as equals, allowing them to gain more knowledge than they ever could have as mere objects of their teachers’ efforts to educate them. We see, then, that there is another way; and it works much better. Why, then, don’t all teachers use this approach? Are they unable, or simply unwilling? Are they afraid to treat their students as subjects? What are they trying to protect themselves from? Why did such people choose to become teachers in the first place? These are all questions that only the teachers themselves can answer. In the working world, at companies and other organisations, the situation is much the same. Here the members of one group are referred to as managers or supervisors, the others as staff or employees. And they (inter)act accordingly. The managers manage, while their employees are managed – until at some point the latter no longer know what to do without their fearless leader, don’t know what they’re responsible for or where they are free to 134



make their own decisions. In many areas of the business world, things look more like the military – and not just in terms of the organisational structure, but also military thinking and terminology. Hostile takeovers are fended off, labour struggles rage on, companies are led by Corporate Executive Officers (CEOs), new markets are conquered and new employees are recruited. Granted, there was a time when military successes could only be achieved when the generals used their soldiers as a closed front, one that could roll over the opposing troops like a war machine. But where can you find that type of war in this day and age? When it comes to the success of military operations, something very different has long since proven its value: flat hierarchies characterised by mutual responsibilities, mutual trust, individual competencies and a strong sense of community. Why this approach hasn’t yet caught on everywhere is an interesting question. Even in the military, the traditional relational structures are increasingly proving to be poorly suited; nonetheless, the same thought patterns are still floating about in our minds – and in those of today’s business leaders, as evinced by modern “Human Resources Departments” and the “headhunters” who work to fill them. Managers seek to maximise profits by making workflows increasingly efficient, and by using controlling measures to better monitor their employees – until the day comes when they realise that said employees have long since “quit” emotionally and the entire company has lost its innovative spirit. When this happens, those who can save themselves quickly switch companies. But there is another way. And the number of managers who have now given up on these old ideas has been growing for years. This new breed of manager can most often be found in young start-ups, but now and then you’ll also find them in the upper management at major corporations. 

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These people no longer see themselves as managers and leaders who know it all and tell their employees exactly what to do, but instead as part of a team of equals that works together to find the best solutions. In this approach, referred to as “Supportive Leadership”, managers see themselves as enablers, not shot-callers, and their role is to invite, encourage and inspire their staff to contribute their energy and expertise to achieve a common goal. Every society is home to certain areas in which especially stable and strictly ordered hierarchies were formed in the past, e. g. at administrative offices and authorities or at universities, i. e., wherever the employees’ positions and responsibilities – and therefore their relationships to one another – are determined and regulated by higher state authorities in the form of appointments, assessments, civil service examinations, etc. At these institutions, every employee, from the facilities manager to the director or president, automatically feels they are the object of various guidelines, rules and regulations “from above” that are passed down from one level of the hierarchy to the next in an ordered, precisely prescribed way, right down to the rubber stamp. One might think it was practically impossible to loosen up, let alone do away with these rigid organisational structures – which makes it all the more remarkable that over the past few years there have been more and more examples demonstrating that things could be done differently. That in fact things work much better when employees are no longer forced to stick as closely as possible to their instructions and responsibilities, but are instead invited and encouraged to think for themselves, to act on their own recognisance, and to coordinate their methods with the other members of their team. It should come as no surprise that this type of relational culture not only yields considerably better results; it’s also more enjoyable and cuts losses due to illness; it reduces costs and boosts employee satisfaction. 136



Relationships in which people view and treat one another as objects have been formed because they allow educational, work and administrative processes to be more easily controlled. Sooner or later, these historically formed relational patterns, e. g. those between supervisors and their employees, between officers and their soldiers, and between teachers and their students, change all on their own, once they become increasingly problematic, insufficient and unsuitable in the face of new societal developments. But there are also interpersonal relationships characterised by the fact that the partners – regardless of their historically based social differences – assume vastly different positions a priori, simply because of their disparate situations. A typical example is the relationship between doctors and their patients. Anyone who has broken their arm needs someone to help them; regardless of which social system or culture, that fact remains constant. Nor does it matter whether or not the helper refers to him- or herself as a doctor; the main thing is that they know what to do, and that the patient regains their health. Given the circumstances that bring a doctor and their patients together, it can easily come to pass that the former – because they consider themselves more competent and more intelligent – treats the other as the object of their judgments (“How could you be so unthinking that you had this accident?”), diagnoses (“The bone is shattered”) and therapies (“You’re going to need screws”). And not just for patients with a bone fracture or some other physical ailment, but also those suffering from burnout, depression or some other trauma, i. e., from emotional problems. When someone is treated as an object, they don’t feel “seen”. They must comply with what others do with them, and may even feel they are the victim of the tests and treatments they are subjected to. They feel helpless and abandoned; what they experience doesn’t match their needs or expectations, and 

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produces an unspecific but rapidly spreading feeling in their brain, namely incoherence. When this confusion is sufficiently intense, it penetrates to the deeper-rooted areas responsible for regulating bodily processes. The blood pressure rises and a stress reaction is sparked, which in turn suppresses the immune system. Under these conditions, the body’s otherwise smoothly functioning mechanisms for self-healing can’t work as they should, slowing the healing process. Therefore, it’s not particularly surprising that meta-analyses are increasingly concluding that the quality of the doctor-patient relationship has a major impact on recovery. When patients are not treated like objects, when they feel their doctor or therapist takes them seriously and takes the time to talk to them, to explain what their test results really mean, what could help and how they can help themselves, they more quickly regain their health. More and more doctors and therapists have now embraced that fact and are working to build trusting relationships with their patients. We see, then, that an astounding change from our previous relational culture is underway throughout today’s society, at schools and universities, companies and organisations, even in the military and at the practices of doctors and therapists. Instead of treating one another as objects of their own plans, those working at these places are beginning to approach one another as subjects. This certainly hasn’t caught on everywhere. But wherever people muster the courage to take this step, learning, working and promoting health, i. e., everything they are working for, will become easier, more effective, and yes, even more profitable. And everyone involved will feel better, as more and more of them rediscover what they had long since lost under the conditions of the old culture: their joy in thinking for themselves and creating with others.

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3.3  What do we want to live on?

The owners and operators of the large retirement homes created in the past few decades made quite a surprising discovery. Their efforts to optimise care for the increasingly old, bedridden and demented inhabitants of their facilities led to a strange development: though the costs per patient initially sank as expected, a few years later they began to rise again. Startled by the new numbers, the operators tried to find the source of the problem. They were shocked by the answer: the more efficient they made the care for their clients, the more care they needed. In these optimally streamlined institutions, the senior citizens had practically no opportunity to do anything by themselves except waiting for food or their next treatment. In response, more and more retirement home operators have now begun purchasing and remodelling apartments and houses in the inner cities, so that they can offer their clients assisted living in apartment buildings and housing communities. The result: the residents are now livelier again, help one another, shop for groceries and cook their own food, with each doing as much as they are able. The care staff have less work to do and find their jobs more rewarding, and even those suffering from dementia can be integrated in these communities. Everyone feels better, they need less medication and fewer treatments, the costs dwindle and the operators can report healthy profits. For years now, companies have been complaining about employees with too many sick days, about their growing “absenteeism” and lack of commitment. Surveys are constantly distributed, and costs analyses carried out. No matter what the specific outcome is, it’s clear that the costs are tremendous. For a country like Germany, it amounts to billions; it’s hard to imagine how high the losses are worldwide. If we could successfully counteract the “attrition” caused by employees who 

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are frustrated and have no desire to do their best, the resulting growth rates would be astronomical. Interestingly, there are also companies where the employees are ill less often, where they take on responsibility, contribute their own ideas and inspirations, and apparently enjoy coming to the office every day. Not only do these companies net higher profits, they can also flexibly respond to changing customer needs and market conditions. They are more adaptable, innovative and more resilient to crises than “normal” companies. The “secret of their success” lies in their leadership and relational culture, i. e., their far better working environment. Not only is it possible, then, to do things differently; it can also be more profitable. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to retirement homes and companies; in government, at schools and universities, in cities and municipalities, wherever human beings live, learn and work together, practically unimaginable profits could be generated if we could successfully do away with the enormous attrition resulting from the simple fact that the way things are currently done serves to rob us all of our joy in thinking for ourselves, and in creating things with others. We could live quite well on the amount of money saved by changing the way we interact with one another. So why haven’t we started working toward that goal? Most likely because we simply don’t know how. And of course because we know that it can never happen unless the structures in our economy change. As long as the “global player” companies remain so powerful, and the politicians so powerless. As long as others can decide our fates and exploit us to further their own interests. By now, nearly all of us have come to see ourselves as either embittered victims or enthusiastic proponents of their growth ideology. Interestingly enough, in recent years even many economists have begun to voice their concerns as to whether our current financial and economic system is viable in the long term. And the economic strategists are desperately looking for the next 140



great innovation to move us forward – pioneering new inventions that can reshape the course of economic development for decades. The Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev recognised the long cycles that such innovations can create for the global economy, identifying five “Kondratiev cycles” since the late eighteenth century. The first began with the steam engine, the second with steel production and the railroads. The advent of electrical engineering and chemistry sparked the third cycle, while the fourth was based on the automobile and petrochemicals. In the 1950s, information technology became the driving force for the fifth cycle, after which economic progress was determined by the growth of the information sector. The global recession in the new millennium ended the fifth cycle, and the economic strategists have been looking for the next fundamental innovation ever since. Currently, that innovation (and the dawn of the sixth Kondratiev cycle) is expected to come from increased productivity in the health sector. Massive investments are currently being made in biomedical engineering, molecular biology, wellness, etc. But what if improved health, higher satisfaction and in­creased productivity can’t be achieved with more diagnostics, biomedical engineering products, fitness equipment and healthcare clinics? What if these strategies are unable to provide what is needed for people to stay healthy, feel happy, and keep learning and remain productive for a lifetime? For example, that people don’t lose the joy they feel in thinking for themselves, and in collaborating with others. If that’s the case, then improving technologies won’t suffice; the way we live would need to be changed to ensure that each of us felt invited, encouraged and inspired to unlock our unique talents, gifts and potentials. Then of course the next major innovation, one that would shape our lives for the next several decades, wouldn’t be a new discovery or invention, but a new attitude, a new self-understanding, and a new way of interacting with others and the world 

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around us. Then we could pave the way for new development by avoiding attrition. We could grow practically infinitely without the need for consuming more resources. And we could do so, simply by following the example of our own brains: by improving and expanding on the relations between everyone involved. 3.4  What do we want to live for?

Some time ago, I surprised a group of medical students by asking them how they planned to put the gift of life they were given to good use. I then clarified that “put to use” might not be the ideal phrasing; I was more interested in hearing them give a bit of thought to the question of what mattered most in their lives, what guided them in their decisions of what to do and what not to do. In a sense, I was asking them about the meaning of their lives. At first there was only silence; then one of the students protested that it was a very personal question. I countered that the focus of the seminar was on what people need in order to stay healthy or regain their health as quickly as possible. And in the process, I continued, we had come across various studies showing that patients have better chances of surviving a major illness, bounce back more quickly, and fall ill less often in the first place when they have something to live for: mothers with small children, businessmen who want to get back to running their companies, or nuns who want to get back to caring for their fellow man. This explanation helped a bit, yielding the first hesitant answers. Some claimed a family and children were most important, others cited their careers, while still others simply wanted to be good doctors. Most seemed to consider family and career equally important. I had already discussed with the group the importance of coherence in the brain as the prerequisite for the smooth 142



functioning of all the neural networks that are responsible for regulating our bodily functions, helping to keep us healthy. As such, I asked those who wanted both (family and career) what the effect would be on that coherence when they pursued two such fundamentally different goals simultaneously. Their answer: the brain would have difficulties, and incoherence would be the result. Afterwards the group seemed to be at a loss, yet showed no particular interest in pursuing the question any further. This experience preoccupied me for some time, and I asked myself whether human beings had always had difficulties finding something to help them shape their lives, and which was so encompassing that it could accommodate and structure all of their daily wants and needs, everything they lived for. Granted, in countries struck by famine, nothing is more important than finding enough food; where wars rage on, the people long for peace. But when the famine or war is over, people once more begin pursuing their individual goals – except for those people who, after all the suffering they’ve seen (and in many cases, even experienced directly), start doing what they can to ensure the killing and looting, jealousy and hate, distrust and hostilities finally come to an end. These people know what they’re living for, and if anyone asked them about the meaning of their lives, their newfound cause would be the only answer. We see, then, that there is something like finding our own purpose after all. Human beings aren’t by nature predestined to simply develop their skills in any number of areas, willy-nilly; they are also capable of finding something that offers them guidance, something at work in the back of their minds when they go shopping, go on holiday, when raising their children or at the workplace. Given this overarching, personal source of meaning and purpose, everything the person in question does, everything that shapes their thoughts, feelings and actions, somehow fits together, which increases the level of coherence in 

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the brain. In turn, that coherence gives such people the energy they need to focus their attention on the tasks before them. To some extent, whether or not a given person ever seeks to find something that can give their life meaning depends on the respective conditions under which they grow up and live. People can even be seduced with the promise of meaning. Not all that long ago, Nazi Germany succeeded in giving a majority of the people, especially among the very young, a purpose, one they adhered to so fervently that they were prepared to reject anything that didn’t fit into their ideology as being worthless, even to the point of fighting and “eradicating” it – with catastrophic consequences. And in my own youth, growing up in the “communist” half of Germany, those in power also sought to give the lives of as many people as possible (and again, especially the young) a purpose, one in keeping with the interests of the government. As such, I should have been thankful that the students’ responses to my question were so reserved. But is the fact that especially young people can be sent out into the world with ideologies that are cold-blooded and inhumane sufficient reason to simply stop asking whether there could be some greater purpose to their lives? Isn’t such a purpose what all young people are searching for? If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be so vulnerable to manipulation. But are they less vulnerable when they grow up in a world where their family, school and peer group no longer give the idea of a greater purpose much thought? I fear such a world makes them just as easy to manipulate, though in a more subtle way: those who don’t know what it is they’re living for have no source of orientation to help them make their way in life. But those who do know what they want aren’t going to let others tell them what they need to do to be happy. Anyone who has found something that gives their life meaning is more resistant to all those who try to tell them what they “truly” need. They don’t fly to the South Seas just for fun, need no fancy car; 144



in fact, they need precious little of what the advertising world constantly seeks to sell them. They themselves are perfectly happy about not being the ideal consumer, but all those who live from peddling their products have a real problem. Further, those who have found a purpose of their own are much harder for political parties to recruit. Nor do they pay any mind to advertisements in magazines or on television. As such, the very idea that there could be something truly important beyond the products they offer is a nightmare for all advertising strategists, and for all those whose livelihoods are based on selling products that only seem essential to those people who still don’t know and have perhaps never even asked themselves just what it is they want to live for. Perhaps that’s why the question as to the meaning of life has become so taboo in our consumer society. It just doesn’t fit, and threatens our society’s very existence, in much the same way that sexuality did in Sigmund Freud’s day. Back then, sexuality, and above all the sexual needs of women, had to be made taboo; otherwise the stability of many middle-class families, as well as the passing on of their accrued wealth to the legitimate heirs, would have been jeopardised. As such, tabooing sexuality was essential to upholding and reinforcing the social system of the time. Could it be that the continuing existence of today’s social system depends on as few people as possible, especially young people, realising that there might be something in life worth living for and dedicating themselves to? If that state could be maintained, then having as much fun as possible and attracting as much attention and affection to yourself as possible would be the only real purpose in life. Just as Freud’s time was characterised by a growing wave of neuroses and hysterias, today it would seem that more and more people are suffering existential crises, moving them to seek help for a variety of mental and psychosomatic symptoms at treatment facilities. 

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Objectively speaking, it may well be true that our lives have no meaning, and that our planet is nothing more than a randomly created ball of dust warmed by the sun, just a tiny speck in a constantly expanding universe. But it is every bit as objectively true that all living things are characterised by the fact that they want something, even if it is only to survive and reproduce. But we can never achieve this alone; we need others to help us. And not just other people, but also the countless other living organisms, like the bacteria, single-celled organisms, fungi, plants and animals with which we share our world. We need the elderly and their wealth of experience, and we need the children, with their unbridled joy in discovering and creating, which helps us to stay vital and to evolve. We need people from other cultures, who can show us how diverse and varied the facets of human life can be. We need the sense of community with others, so that we can share our experiences, learn from one another and work together. And all of these “others” need us just as much as we need them. Without us, they couldn’t live, evolve, or recognise and rejoice in the diversity that life has to offer. We have the opportunity to share all of our knowledge and skills, our joy and our enthusiasm, with others. No one can force us to seize that opportunity. But we can decide to do so ourselves – and, by doing so, to give our lives a meaning that will endure when we are no more. 3.5  When will we take the first step?

If there is no genetic programme that determines how our brains are formed and dictates how we live together, and if we don’t want to assign that responsibility to some all-powerful ruler or extraterrestrial power, we have no other choice but to take the first step and start shaping how we live together in such a way that the potential stored in each individual’s brain can 146



best be unlocked. All living systems must structure their relations in such a way that the amount of energy needed to maintain said systems is reduced to a minimum. Accordingly, each develops an internal structure that ensures maximum coherence, as well as internal regulation systems capable of restoring that state following disruptions. We, too, both individually and collectively, are and will remain embedded in this self-organising developmental process. As such, we don’t even need to get the process rolling. Instead, we can simply do our best not to stand in its way. Our past efforts to stop or even reverse the process have at best only succeeded for a time; no matter how adverse the conditions, there have always been individuals who refused to lose their joy in thinking for themselves. And throughout the ages, in every corner of the world, communities have been created – even if it was only in the form of individual families or clans – that did not rob their members of the joy in creating and shaping things together. If that hadn’t been the case, the human race would never have succeeded in coming so far. That being said, we have only begun to recognise this developmental process and our own role in it. Perhaps in the past this was due to a lack of knowledge. And perhaps our past ideas about ourselves, our evolution and our opportunities for shaping our lifeworlds had to first be proven wrong time and time again, so that we could learn what doesn’t work. Surely we also had to first overcome the immediate threats to our existence posed by hunger, misery and suffering, and above all by constant violent conflicts, before our vision could become sufficiently clear to recognise our embeddedness in the self-organising development of life on Earth in the first place. Not yet everywhere, but especially in those places where sufficient knowledge is available, where the worst existential threats have largely been overcome and where people have had the chance to learn from their own mistakes, it has not only 

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become possible to recognise the process that created us, but to collaboratively shape it. In a certain sense, this dawning phase of human evolution resembles another transformative process, one of the most decisive steps in the development of life on our planet, that took place millions of years ago: the transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms. Single-celled organisms, too, had initially settled in a wide range of habitats. And they, too, went through a phase in which they diversified into a number of specialised species, and in which they developed and stored in their genome practically everything a single cell was capable of. All of the metabolic functions, response patterns and regulating mechanisms that our cells still use today were once developed by the different single-celled organisms. And of course, then, too, the competition for limited resources was the chief motivator for developing all of these functions and specialisations. Though we still don’t know exactly when, at some point certain single-celled organisms stopped trying to devour one another, and began combining and remaining together. The first multicellular organisms were formed, and what this meant for the subsequent evolution of life on Earth requires no further explanation. Most likely we human beings, too, had to first go through a phase in which each individual, driven by competition, thought up, invented and manufactured practically everything humanly possible. But now we find ourselves in a situation similar to that of the single-celled organisms back then: now we, too, have to start joining forces and putting together all the knowledge and expertise developed by human beings of various cultures during this long phase of dividedness. This process began some time ago, and has since taken on a global dimension. And most importantly: we are now beginning to consciously take note of the process. What we have not yet truly succeeded in doing is consciously shaping it. 148



This process of awakening is now being supported by a number of increasingly manifest phenomena that have formed all on their own, i. e., in a self-organising manner, over the past several years. These include the tremendous acceleration of the processes we set in motion, which has now spread to all aspects of our lives. Because we can now implement everything much more quickly and effectively, the consequences of our actions also become much more quickly apparent. A few decades ago – and even more so, a few centuries ago – it was the children and grandchildren who had to face the consequences of their parents’ and grandparents’ actions, and who had to try to undo the damage. Examples include the deforestation of Scotland to build ships, or the destruction of entire landscapes during the California Gold Rush, let alone the long-term effects of the countless wars our world has seen. But now events transpire so much faster, and a given generation is often confronted with the consequences of its own actions: garbage patches in our oceans, air pollution, species going extinct, and climate change. The old “devil-may-care” attitude simply doesn’t work anymore; as a result, more and more people are now coming to recognise the impacts of their careless actions. Further, for the most part those impacts are global in nature. As such, they can only be mitigated or reversed with the help of international initiatives; this, too, is a new aspect, and differs greatly from the situation a few generations back. As a result, more and more people are coming to realise that the problems we create today can only be solved through joint efforts. Further, many of the problems are far more complex than those we faced fifty or a hundred years ago, and finding viable solutions to them requires the collaboration of experts from different disciplines. The more diverse the experience and cultural backgrounds of the members of such teams, the more feasible and sustainable their approaches are likely to be. Accordingly, 

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more and more people are beginning to appreciate the value of individual and cultural differences. The current developments in the business sector make it particularly clear how structures and systems based on our old ideas are now in danger of growing beyond our control. The original purpose of the economy was to facilitate the production and trade of goods. It was an instrument designed to make all the goods available to a given region or culture that the local populace was unable to produce or otherwise acquire. In other words, business was originally meant to serve mankind. The advent of money greatly facilitated these economic exchange processes. Back then, money served the economy. In the meantime, however, the tables have fundamentally turned. The evolution of our economic system has not only resulted in the fact that human beings now subordinate themselves to the needs and interests of globally operating conglomerates, effectively reducing themselves to objects in the service of business; the financial system has also taken on a life of its own, putting the business sector to work for it. As a growing number of people are starting to realise, the crises resulting from these developments are increasingly jeopardising our monetary systems, our economic systems and with them our social systems, both regionally and globally. Economists and financial experts are desperately looking for solutions. But since what we’re actually dealing with here are the consequences of processes that we human beings have permitted and, through our elected governments, have made possible or even accelerated, these trends can ultimately only be stopped by us. Today, more and more people are shaking off their stupor and beginning to once again take responsibility for their own lives, and for shaping the way we live together. In this context, rediscovering the joy of thinking for themselves and collaborating with others is an essential step towards finding meaningful solutions. 150



Remarkably, not all that long ago there was a similarly deadlocked situation that no expert knew how to remedy. Dubbed the “Cold War”, it was also the result of two systems that had taken on a life of their own  – in this case, not simply two economic systems, but also two defence systems. Back then, the people living in East and West Germany seemed to have accepted the situation that arose following the Second World War, and to have settled into their respective systems. At the time, hardly anyone believed the problem could ever be solved. Yet only a short time later the Wall was gone, and the two halves of Germany began growing back together. What was it that set this unexpected change in motion? A great many very brave people who rediscovered the joy in thinking for themselves and in working with others. So things can change, but apparently in a way incompatible with our previous thought patterns. Many people still believe that the essential preparations needed for the upcoming transformative process in our economy and society have to be initiated by those “at the top”, i. e., by national governments, the UN, the Pope or the heads of global conglomerates. But they’ll be waiting quite some time if that’s where they pin all their hopes. “We are the people” was the banal rallying cry with which the citizens of East Germany rose up and began working to take their lives back into their own hands and shape their future together. The Arab Spring and the movements in Kiev and Beijing were driven by the same sense of awakening, especially among the young. However, taking to the streets to protest against any and all forms of state control is only the beginning of a restructuring “from below”. Every social movement will eventually run out of steam, and can even end up making matters worse, if it fails to change the way people live, learn and work together so that they view and treat one another as subjects, and no longer as objects. 

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Accordingly, real change always begins in our minds, when we ask ourselves how we as individuals, as subjects, can help ensure that other people (children, adolescents and adults alike) either never lose their innate joy in thinking for themselves and creating with others, or at least rediscover that joy as quickly as possible. Those who enjoy thinking for themselves no longer need anyone to tell them what to do, or how to live their lives. And the more people who take the first step together with others who also enjoy thinking for themselves – and therefore don’t all simply share the same ideas –, the better the chances are that they won’t be led astray. For they are not alone; many have already begun, and their number is growing, here and everywhere else on the planet.

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The road ahead …

Surely much more could have been said, and some points could have perhaps been presented in greater detail. But I decided to stop here, open a bottle of champagne with the woman who has shared my life for so many years, and drink a toast. This was the hardest book I’ve ever written because, as we would say where I come from, it’s about “the heart of the matter”. It’s about our ability as human beings to learn and our self-concept, about the relationships that we form with one another, and in many cases simply tolerate. The fact that so many of us lose their joy in thinking for themselves and creating with others is actually no great surprise. Yet it is wonderful that we can rediscover that joy. And, though we can come up with new ideas on our own, we can only implement them through trust-based collaborations, by approaching and sharing with others. That is also why I chose to title this book “Co-creativity and Community”, as my goal was to invite, encourage and inspire you to do exactly that. I know, just as you do, about all the suffering in this world, about the millions of children who are starving, are abused, who never get to go to school. Just like you, I read the frightening news from around the world: the brutal wars, the unscrupulous financial sharks, the fanatical holy warriors and the countless refugees who – assuming they don’t die in the Mediterranean or somewhere else along the way – are housed in deplorable camps, because there are too few people in their new 

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homes who are willing to share what they have with them. I’m aware of all this, just as you are. And that’s precisely why I wrote this book. I live here in Europe, a comparatively safe region of the world, and one not directly affected by all the suffering mentioned above. It was only that fact that made it possible in the first place for me to more intensively contemplate where all the suffering comes from, and how it could be remedied. That’s a luxury not enjoyed by the millions of migrant workers in China, who are grateful when they can earn enough money to keep their families fed, and the same is true for all the refugees, and those living in the slums of our megacities. And all those people who think they know exactly how the world works, those who have been extremely successful when it comes to oppressing, exploiting, cheating and using others for their own purposes, aren’t likely to ask themselves if there might be a different way for us to live together in the future. Most likely, they prefer to keep cruising about on their luxury yachts, or to buy themselves an island in the South Seas. Perhaps I also began thinking about this question because I grew up in the centre of Europe, in Germany. In a culture in which human beings waged war time and time again, for any number of reasons. Where my father’s and my grandfather’s generation unleashed two devastating World Wars, and where the most horrid, barely conceivable crimes were committed. Without a doubt, the fact that in the years since, so many people have succeeded in coming to terms with the scope of suffering, accepting their own responsibility, and pursuing reconciliation was a great motivator for me to search so doggedly for what it is that makes us human, and what shapes the way we live together. I’ve already mentioned how difficult it was for me and how long it took before I was capable of recognising that we human beings are not controlled by either our genes or our brains. I then sought to describe my findings in a number of books, arti154



cles and presentations. I was convinced that I could change my readers’ and listeners’ previous views, and with those views, their thought patterns and behaviour, by sharing with them the latest findings on the evolution and functioning of the human brain. It took more than a decade for me to concede that my approach wasn’t and in fact couldn’t be the answer. No one is ever going to change their life simply because someone else tells them that it would be better for them or their brain to act differently – unless they greatly admire, perhaps even idolise the person who tells them so. Only then will the message he or she conveys have a sufficiently strong emotional charge: only those things that truly move us also stay with us. Yet even in this case, it’s not a personal insight, merely one copied and adopted from another person. Personal insights, as I have since come to understand, are something that each of us can only arrive at through contemplation. Ever since coming to that conclusion, I have sought to invite my readers and listeners to find out for themselves what helps them most and produces a state of increased coherence in their brain. But doing so is no mean feat, and we often fail. In order to finally be able to contemplate in peace and quiet how the old thought patterns, beliefs and convictions passed down and reinforced from generation to generation could be called into question and ultimately replaced by more favourable ones, I withdrew from all public activities for an entire year; I gave no talks, wrote no articles – only this book. And as I was writing it, I finally realised what human beings need in order to find the courage to finally begin tapping into their hidden potential: they need other human beings, in the form of small communities, whether at home, in their neighbourhood, or where they study or work. And these must be communities in which the members invite, encourage and inspire one another to go the extra mile, to try out new things and overcome their limitations; ones in which the members help one another to redis

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cover the joy in thinking for themselves and in collaborative creativity. In such communities, the members would view and approach one another as autonomously thinking subjects, ones who share the insights they have arrived at as individuals with one another, and who will ultimately set out together to implement those goals they all cherish and have jointly opted to pursue – bravely and resolutely, without fear of being condemned or rejected by others, and without reducing others to the objects of their own intentions, judgments or expectations, let alone of their ambitions. There may very well be many people who would like to be joined in such communities. Accordingly, I decided to found an academy, organised as a non-profit cooperative, to help them establish communities that can unlock human potential. (www. potentialentfaltungsgemeinschaft.eu) The transformation from single-celled to multicellular organisms wasn’t a one-time, universal process; instead, here and there the first small clumps of cells formed – while other single-celled organisms stayed just as they were. In much the same way, first a handful of these communities will form, then more and more will follow. Within them, the members will find their own strength because they will experience once again what most had likely all but forgotten: the unbridled joy in thinking for themselves, and the deeply felt satisfaction of collaborating with others. I know how hard it can sometimes be to approach others. In order to do so, we sometimes have to first backtrack a bit, perhaps even back to the point where we somehow lost our way. I have adopted this approach myself, and over the years I’ve learned to respect my own needs and to go a bit easier on myself. In the meantime, I seek to do the same in my relationships with others, whether at home, at work or underway. I don’t always succeed, but seem to do so more and more often. 156



When I smile at others, they smile back at me; when I give them my attention, I receive the same back from them. And for some time now I have been on the lookout (at the university, in the city and wherever I happen to be travelling) for people who are truly happy. I can recognise them by a certain sparkle in their eyes. From time to time I’ll ask a friend or acquaintance if they, too, can recognise it. To my surprise, they seem to know just what I mean. Apparently we’re all capable of telling just by looking at them if another human being is merely satisfied, upbeat or in a good mood, or if they are truly content deep inside. I’m very happy that such people are out there. They appear to know the secret of how to be at peace with themselves and the world, how to achieve coherence. Unlike many children, where this sparkle in the eye can be seen more often but is then gone again the next moment, with these people it remains; they seem to have attained a state of lasting happiness. In my own life, I’ve only met a handful such people, including a cleaning lady, an Indian guru, a businessman and a nun. As such, true happiness doesn’t appear to depend on a successful career or a certain degree of social status. In my talks with them, I noticed a few major aspects: they have no fear, and as such there is nothing they cling to desperately. Further, they have nothing to prove, which makes them open and allows them to see things more clearly. And you get the impression that they have something to give, yet they don’t seek to force that gift on anyone. In the future, we’ll likely be able to recognise all those people who have joined together with others in communities for unlocking human potential by the sparkle in their eyes. Once that has come to pass, this fundamental transformation in the way we live together will be unstoppable.



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Author’s note

While writing this book, I have intentionally chosen not to include citations or other references to the works, concepts and theories of other authors. There are simply too many, and it would have been impossible to give their contributions due credit without neglecting all the others who came before them and made their achievements possible – not only as educators, but also as loving parents and grandparents, as sources of constructive criticism, as encouraging supporters, and anyone else who helped them develop their ideas; they all deserve their share of the credit. Accordingly, everything I’ve written here can gladly be shared with others. These ideas are not my property; I merely arranged them in this way. Gerald Hüther

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