Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What actually characterizes contrarians, and what relevance do they have for a communally-thought society? In Room #855 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Pioneering Spirit with brAIn,” the group digs into loaded terms like “lateral thinker,” thinking-for-yourself versus thinking-for-others, and where the line runs between healthy dissent and conspiracy thinking. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A wonderful good morning to you. Today we continue with contrarians and society. What actually characterizes contrarians, and what relevance do they have for a communally-thought society? That’s the topic, or the question, we want to engage with today. And in that context you’re warmly invited, as always, to join and start the joint reflection room with various thoughts, first associations and impulses you bring in, maybe also examples you’d like to pick up. And I quite deliberately and specifically chose “contrarians” as the term, instead of maybe also using “querdenker” [lateral thinker, a term co-opted by German anti-lockdown protest movements] or something in the headline, simply to make sure this morning that we don’t awaken false expectations and thereby have a target audience in the room who might want to talk about something else. So in that sense, contrarians, that can also be lateral thinkers or out-of-the-box thinking, however you want to call it. There are various terms used and applied in this context. And we want to look at that more closely. I’ve also brought the link to the newsletter along in parallel now too. So anyone who likes what we do here and feels like more, so to speak, is warmly invited to sign up for the Pioneering Spirit newsletter too, if you haven’t already. And yes, whoever would like to join is warmly invited. Another quick reminder that the room is being recorded and will be published afterward too. And anyone who joins automatically agrees to that. Then we have three small room rules. One is a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason can gladly use the chat too, to bring in thoughts, impulses, associations here, and then I’ll gladly see that I pick up this or that accordingly. Yes, and with that I’d like to take a look now, and Marc has already given a hand signal. A wonderful good morning, dear Marc. What are your first thoughts on this topic?
My first thoughts are that you’ve made me smile and grin again, but in a positive sense. It was really important to me to be able to say something first today, because that’s exactly, dear Yasemin, what would have been my entry point. And I observe so often, I’ve already been allowed to participate in so many rooms with you, that similar thoughts fly through my head in parallel. And exactly that happened, what you formulated, so this observation of ourselves. And I’ve learned a lot from Jürgen, also this clarity, always this clarity of looking at words. And with contrarians I’d just like to briefly say, we’ve done so many rooms together, and I always find it important to go back to the rooms and also point out that we all have our self-constructed realities, and through that the perception of the world and the situation is different for all of us. And that’s why clarity is so important. And that’s exactly what happened with your term, dear Yasemin, the way you said, contrarians. If someone thinks differently, then they don’t think the same as us. And understanding these processes, and your rooms are a really, really great help there, understanding the processes behind that. If someone thinks differently than me, then that’s not in line, then they think differently. And then what first happens is that if something is different, it’s unfamiliar, that triggers stress and and and. And then the term “thinking differently” also triggers a bit of unease in me, partly the same as “querdenker.” And as soon as I have a new term, so with clarity, simply make it clear that thinking differently can be out-of-the-box thinking, something completely different happens for me. And if you introduce me to a person and say, Marc, hey, I have someone here you really need to meet, who thinks totally out of the box, then I say, oh exciting, I want to know that, out of the box, I find that wonderful, I always find that great. And if you tell me, oh, someone’s coming who thinks a bit differently, to be enjoyed with caution, then it’s a challenge, I face that completely differently already, and that just because I load the words differently. And that’s why this clarity, which Jürgen always brings in here, this clarity of looking at words and terms and always becoming aware again that it’s about unconscious perception, where we’re all different, is totally important for the start of a topic. And of course I also looked again at how our big “G” defines lateral thinking. There it’s first of all a person who has a different conviction on a topic.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. That’s totally exciting, because on one hand it’s of course this aspect, what do we associate with certain terms ultimately too, so what’s positively connoted or negatively connoted for us. That’s an evaluation on one hand, and has to do with our emotions or also prior experiences. And on the other hand it’s certainly also exciting to look at, in the sense of, what does thinking differently even mean? Because you just said we also construct our realities ourselves. That basically means, if we assume everyone has their own reality, then we also have different thoughts in various places. And that’s why it’s interesting to look here again too at whether we don’t per se always think differently anyway. Or what does this thinking differently or out-of-the-box thinking actually do? What characterizes that at all? Is that rather a deviation from something, and if so, from what? So it’s really worth looking more closely at these terms again here too. A wonderful good morning, dear Layla. What are your first thoughts on the topic?
A wonderful good morning. My first thoughts are that I like the topic, that I like thinking differently, that I find what you just said very interesting, because on one hand we want to move toward, Marc just addressed that, out-of-the-box thinking, that’s something very, very positive, so very positively connoted. But then we have, and opposite to that for me stands the mainstream, so being like everyone else. But then we have terms like “norm.” So you don’t conform to the norm, you don’t conform to what society has agreed on. And for me that’s a toward-and-away-from thing. So on one hand we want to be individualistic, and on the other hand we still somehow want to be like the others, because we’re a zoon politikon after all. And I directly thought about it, so with thinking differently, “lateral thinking” also occurred to me. Lateral thinking once had a very positive connotation, if you think about it. It was only through this societal development, the “querdenker,” that we suddenly connected that with tinfoil hats. And then we started arguing about whether that’s even allowed and what you’re even still allowed to say. I think we’re a bit torn back and forth there, but you said it correctly, Yasemin. Every one of us thinks differently, and every one of us has had our own experiences, and yet we live in a society, and that’s why we keep comparing or keep aligning, in order to, yes, be able to make a joint decision, or yes, so that we can and want to do something together, and yet want to be individual. That’s my thought, and I can only say, I find it likeable to think differently. And I find this approach good. Every one of us thinks differently. And now the question is, to what extent do we need to normalize that? Thanks for listening.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Quite a few considerations have already come together. It shows the complexity here too, in quotes, because we can now spin and build further bridges in various directions too. On one hand, if each of us thinks differently, then we had this aspect of individualism and belonging. So we also want to belong. That means, in that sense, for example, viewed individually, a corresponding comparison also takes place, so to speak, to see where I stand, where the others stand. Then terms came up like, for example, mainstream, then norm, what does that actually mean, does anything even, does anything even need to be standardized in this context at all, and to what extent might one thing or another maybe also be needed, for example to move forward communally, in quotes. And when does it still make sense, maybe, to think individualistically at that point and think differently, in the sense of also going into a deviation? And what does that mean in consequence, going into deviation? Because we had yesterday, the whole thing runs under the overarching theme Pioneering Spirit with brAIn. Being a pioneering spirit isn’t necessarily always easy either, in quotes. Especially when there’s a norm or a mainstream that’s an advocate of something specific, and then here someone goes into a deviation with whatever it ultimately is, then we of course also have certain challenges. And at the same time there are these people who do that, and the result isn’t always positive maybe, but the results we evaluate as positive and then see in retrospect, there I think we’d also claim it’s necessary too, necessary from a societal view too, even if there might have been resistance to it at the beginning. And I’m really curious—joins too, then I’d like to bring him in too, and then we can gladly make cross-connections. Jürgen, good morning.
Good morning, dear ones. Can you hear me?
Yes, we hear you. You were, for me at least, gone for a while.
So a nice good morning to all of you again. Regarding the terminology, as always, I’d like to throw in two things again. This “different” immediately provokes the question for me, different how, different from what, different than what. So where’s the counter-position, where do I anchor the counter-position, of being different? That’s the first thing. And the second is thinking. Thinking, my dears, is a process. The nominalization of thinking can be opinion, view, but we’re talking in this context about thinking differently, and that’s, for me, because in judging someone opposite me, in that I imply they think differently, that I know their thinking process and standardize it against something, to classify it, and that’s different. So for me it’s, in terms of the term, a tremendous presumption, when it’s said “holding a different opinion,” then I can pin that down to the result, and can say, that’s someone who, for my sake, doesn’t believe in human-made climate change. But if I say, they think differently, then I’m claiming to know, and also taking the presumption, how they arrived at this opinion through a thinking process. That might be pedantic now, but for me that’s a really essential difference, which, like with many things, pins down the crux, already just with the clarity of the terminology and the understanding of all of us regarding a unified term. Thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And I like this differentiation, and at the same time I’d also like to point out that it’s worth asking the question whether someone who represents a contrary or different opinion might also have a different thinking process. So that would also be worth looking at. Of course in many places we only see visibly, for us, the result of the thinking process, so to speak, which can be reflected, for example, in an opinion or attitude or similar, but possibly the thinking processes are already deviating too, and that’s why I find, on one hand, the differentiation great, and on the other hand I also find it worthwhile to look at that here too, to philosophize about it, so to speak, whether different thinking processes, so to speak difference in thinking processes, also lead to different results, and I’m curious what she says about that. Sonja, a wonderful good morning. What do you say about the topic?
Yes, a wonderful good morning to the round. Well, the topic of thinking differently appeals to me a lot, because by feeling I’d absolutely classify myself into this category, in the sense of not thinking according to the norm. And I wouldn’t really want to just take out the thinking process here, but both. The way I derive things for myself. Okay, that would be the thinking process. But at the same time also, what conclusions I come to. And that’s substantially influenced by how I reflect, how I put information together. And on one hand I’d like to be sure that I really think for myself. I once had a teacher in school who always said “thinking for yourself makes you smart,” and back then we rolled our eyes. But I have to say, that’s a sentence that really stuck with me, and from which I really learned for life. And I remember that very, very fondly, because we often tend, when we’re kind of going along, in standby mode, to nod things off without really thinking about whether we really share the same opinion. And that’s very often laziness in thinking. And I’d really like to break through that, by trying to consciously think along with as many things as possible, to also be sure that what I express is something I really stand behind. And that’s because the value of authenticity is simply very important to me. I don’t want to parrot something, I want it to really fit me. And that’s already a form of thinking differently too, because if I look around in my environment, I couldn’t say with certainty that most people do that. I’d rather say the rule is that people rather think along in standby mode. And only when you notice you’re rubbing someone the wrong way somewhere, then you start going into conscious reflection and consider, do I even mean this, do I feel this, do I think this, is this really my opinion, is this the life I want to lead? And then we maybe also come to different thinking processes. And now I have another thought, which I actually wanted to bring up first. Namely, the further we go into detail, the more we notice that really everyone thinks differently. Everyone has their private logic, and the further we zoom out, the more consensus we find. So if we assume, for example, we want, most people want peace, then I’d say we find a lot of consensus there. If we now specify that a bit and ask a bit more precisely into it, what does peace actually mean and with what do we make peace, then we already notice there are many very different opinions about how you arrive at peace. And if it’s also about such sensitive topics as arms deliveries, then there’ll be much clearer polarizations, and also contrarians, and also a lot more emotions. So I believe, the deeper we dive into a topic, the more often we’re also aware that we’re dealing with differently thinking individuals. Now you also have the term society in there too, and I find that really decisive in this context, because we always have to weigh this tension between our own opinion, our own conviction, and belonging to our social group, and find a good compromise there that feels balanced. And that also leads to us maybe not defending every conviction with full force, but sometimes also giving in, because the community or the society is simply more important to us there. Thank you.
Yes wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And regarding the last point, especially society, it’s also interesting to keep in mind that society isn’t the same as society either, but also depends on which society, or from which society, I’m speaking, so where I belong at that point. And there can definitely be different views, different mainstreams and so on here too, which can then in turn vary this or that in the individualistic view again, so to speak, or can have other effects. So also this cultural, societal reference, which also isn’t set per se as society, but rather is also shaped by norms, values and so on at that point. And the second thing that came up for me again is this aspect of thinking for yourself, the term thinking for yourself. There I ask myself the question, is there also a “thinking for others” [Fremddenken]? And then we’re at this distinction between the process and the end result, or is what we’d think of as “thinking for others” in this context basically just accepting something from outside, unreflected, so not thinking about it at all, but for example consuming information, like the media, without thinking about it, just adopting it. So is there even a “thinking for others” at that point at all? That would maybe also be an interesting question. With that I’d like to bring in Raphael first, and then I saw that Jürgen would also like to follow up again. I can well imagine the others too afterward, gladly Marc and then we’ll go in order. So first Raphael, then Jürgen, then Marc, then Layla.
Good morning Yasemin, good morning to the round. Yes, super exciting topic, and it starts again where everything starts, with the motives and the goals of what we think that we have to consider, and then we of course have intrinsic and extrinsic, and that’s why you can also be thought for and think for yourself. So certainly that’s also correct, and an important question in this area, I also find, is how open are you, and how ready are you to listen, to look at other opinions, to assess them, how that is, and to go into that. And a point that, Sonja said it exactly, that’s the point, well, what’s actually right? Everyone wants peace. Was it bin Laden back then who said, I best achieve peace by having a plane fly into the strongest power in the world somehow? That’s 50 percent who find that good, and the other 50 percent find accordingly that he has to die. And that’s of course a really big extreme now. And then a topic on the level of learning, whether that’s in neuro-linguistic programming, those are thought viruses. What are thought viruses? How do they settle in regarding values and beliefs? That’s also a really, really exciting topic. Do you really get through to certain people still, and what right do you have to judge that, or where do you see that, so there are many exciting, exciting questions in this area.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. I’ll leave you the opportunity now to first make cross-connections, and then we’ll see where we can dock in again. Jürgen.
Yes, thank you dear Yasemin. I wanted to make another reference, but I’ll also go into your last question, another reference or two references to other rooms. Namely, I ask myself, why didn’t this terminology, contrarians or lateral thinkers, exist 20 or 30 years ago? At least, forgive me, that’s my horizon of memory anyway. Back then, well this terminology only came up for me recently, in the context especially of the discussion around Corona, with the extreme position of this “querdenker,” a term that got a very clear—Layla already pointed that out—negative connotation attached, not least through the media. Why didn’t this term exist 20, 30 years ago? So, asked the other way around, what was, or what was the necessity, to mark quite specific people today, completely value-free, with an extraordinary predicate? That’s a question for me. And the second thing, this connection to our rooms, just to this room yesterday, we talked about pioneers there. For me pioneers were the prototypes of lateral thinkers in our history. And regarding the last topic, so as not to let this drag on too long, regarding your question, letting yourself think or being thought through others, we had a room about that too once. That was about role models and idols. And an essential difference between the two terms is that with an idol I ask, when I’m facing a problem or a situation, what would they do now, or how would they think? So does it possibly belong to our basic equipment, of us, of humans, to delegate thinking? Another question from me. Thanks for listening.
Yes, very, very exciting. Nonetheless, I still think for myself, even with an idol. I try, so to speak, to take the perspective of the other, and think about how they would see that or how they would approach the problem. But ultimately it’s a change of perspective I’m undertaking. That means the thinking process isn’t really delegated in that sense, in the classic sense. I don’t think I can delegate that at all, or Jürgen?
Yes, I agree with you to a certain extent, of course. Very well reacted, dear Yasemin. Only I basically fix on the result mainly, because seeing the process as a self-contained, unique unit doesn’t work. Because a process, at least that’s my understanding, is always defined by an initial, a processing, and a result. So the result also belongs to this process. But you’re absolutely right. I think, I definitely have to think, that this is now a thinking that I’m outsourcing.
Okay, I’m completely with you there. Okay, thanks. Thank you.
Yes, then let me let Marc continue first, and then Layla. You just said, I think, dear Yasemin, one of the most important words that have really accompanied me and changed me, namely the word thinking process. This thinking process led me to being a contrarian today, a contrarian to myself, just through changing this thinking process. And something wonderful also happened last night. Now I’d like to briefly bring in the entrepreneurial perspective. Who do I know who thought differently? Thinking differently now synonymous with out of the box. And then I immediately thought of my friend Elon Musk, who certainly thought differently, and thought about who else I know who was extremely successful, a pioneer. And I also read Steve Jobs’s biography. And those were both. I say, what connects these people? How did they think differently? What were the processes there? And it became clear to me, though I can only say this for these two biographies, that both were incredible alpha males, alpha animals, who demanded loyalty to the line. And now I come back to Elon Musk. And what I found totally exciting, Elon Musk bought Twitter. And although Elon Musk has such huge success, because he thinks differently and because free thinking is also totally important to him, at the same time, and this is this contradiction we can also find in all of us, he blocked people who have a different opinion on his Twitter account, even though he preferred, it was an argument of his, Twitter is important, you’re allowed to have a different opinion, you just shouldn’t have a different opinion about Elon Musk. And noticing this contradiction in ourselves too, that’s so exciting, and observing that, and that’s why for me, my insight was from you, dear Yasemin, in your rooms, that the thinking process really leads to other insights, and above all leads to contrarians. And I’m, through this thinking process, a contrarian today, more than I was a year ago.
Wonderful, thank you so, so much. Layla?
Yes, I’ve just oriented myself again. So on one hand I have to say, Sonja, I just looked it up again. For me, thinking for yourself actually hangs as a postcard in my apartment, and then there’s another card that says “think about this decision thoroughly,” and then there’s a sign, and it says “yes/no.” Regarding what Jürgen said, I just thought about that again too, because I just looked it up again, Jürgen, namely this term with lateral thinking, that’s existed for longer already. So according to Wikipedia it was introduced by Edward de Bono in 1967, and it’s simply about thinking around the corner, that you really have this out-of-the-box thinking. And well, you should look at the resume yourself, but apparently he engaged with that a lot, and of course it was then taken over in 2020 to categorize people. But basically it’s simply about not practicing vertical thinking, which proceeds step by step, but that we think around the corner, that we can also make different decisions. And Yasemin, with that I actually wanted to move on to your point briefly, because I also found that very important with the thinking-for-yourself and thinking-for-others, where I thought, well, what is thinking-for-others? And then I thought, well, maybe those are facts, facts we see as facts, where we say, okay, a lateral thinker is for example someone for us who’s also, well not necessarily just Corona, but a flat earther, where we say, okay, but those are facts now, scientifically proven. An apple falls to the ground, gravity. And I don’t know if that’s already thinking-for-others. I’d say no, because of course that’s empirically established, that we’ve determined that so far, that the state of science, but I’d still say I wouldn’t judge that yet as thinking-for-others and as intrusive or imposed on me or presumptuous, because that was also another point I wanted to briefly bring up. When Jürgen said that with the presumption, what do I leave to the other person and what not. I hope I’m paraphrasing you correctly, Jürgen. And then I thought, yes, but nowadays, that’s already through this individualization, we’re so quick to say, don’t take that from me. If I say to someone, you don’t understand me correctly, you’re denying that I understand you. There I can go inward and say, okay, I should have used an I-message and said, I didn’t express it in a way that’s comprehensible for you. Great, I-message. But from when does it become presumptuous? What’s self, what’s other? And yes, so those are the thoughts that came to me. And yes, thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And before I switch over to Sonja again in a moment, I’d like to pick up a word contribution, or two, from the chat too. “But thinking differently and universal scientific facts, ignoring for example the earth is round, are different things. Thinking differently brings us innovations as a society, but on the basis of reality. Unfortunately many people confuse that and drift off in their delusion.” And that connects quite well to what you just said too, Layla, with “the apple falls from the tree.” I think that the insight, or the factual knowledge that science has acquired here, so to speak, and passes on further as knowledge, isn’t really the point per se. Only if I, those are self-evident things we assume, that can lead to us no longer questioning certain things. And here I rather see the problem. That means the knowledge, so if we pick up science as an example again too. If we always just take things as given and no longer question them, then we might always build further things onto this state of knowledge, but possibly only because we defined 1+1 as 2, and don’t even think of also thinking differently here, and also considering, does it always have to be that the apple falls from the tree? Under what conditions might that possibly be different, etc. There are very, very exciting discussions about that. I mentioned that once in the meantime, that’s on Netflix, I don’t remember the name off the top of my head, if anyone of you knows it, gladly add the title of the show or the documentary. It’s about advanced civilizations, and I find it totally exciting that for centuries, so to speak, people have kept discovering many things that indicate that there might have been advanced civilizations before too, possibly, and you’d really need to look at that more closely and really pursue the whole thing. But that’s not being done, because science has decided for itself, so to speak, to say, no, fact, that can’t be at all, along those lines. And that’s because otherwise we’d basically be questioning quite a lot again and starting from zero again. And here, of course, it’s not science itself saying that, but individual players who take the view, no, that’s already law and we’re not looking at that again, while other players, also again from the context of science, say it would definitely make sense for us to pursue that, to check it, maybe we’d need to rethink this or that mistake again, or also come to new insights. Jürgen, is that directly related?
So now let me pick up on Mark and say, you named a really important, a really important noun, and that means meaning, “making sense.” That’s actually exactly the point. So when we talk about laws of nature, which undoubtedly, how gravity is to be classified, because it applies everywhere at all times and can’t be overridden by any other law of nature. There, what a coincidence, I saw a report about this two or three days ago, that there was a very highly qualified, a highly qualified research team in America, that I tried to disprove this law of nature. And now comes your point, dear Yasemin. The question of meaning. If something is a law of nature, why do I question it again? And the answer to that is that a meaning also gets communicated accordingly. And in this, I don’t want to go into further details now, but a list was compiled of what disadvantages currently reduce the situation of people on our globe due to the law of gravity. And they tried it again, but in the end result they eventually struck the sails and said, nothing can be done about gravity. But the essential thing for me is exactly what you said. Question it, when it makes sense.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. Sonja?
Yes, this thing with meaning fits really well with the thought I’d also like to bring in. Because if we’re talking now about this thinking-for-yourself and thinking-differently or thinking-for-others, thinking-for-yourself and thinking-for-others, then I have much more in mind this fast thinking and slow thinking, and the fast thinking, that’s what we adopt basic assumptions with and don’t question. It’s less energy-intensive, and we need, to be able to live, to be capable of acting and living at all, we simply also need this fast thinking too, in which we don’t question basic assumptions. If we constantly questioned everything, then we’d not be able to orient ourselves in the world at all, and wouldn’t be capable of acting. And then there are points, so that’s what’s most closely connected to thinking-for-others for me now, because I didn’t understand thinking-for-others as “someone else is thinking,” but rather with thinking-for-yourself I rather thought of active, conscious thinking, energy-intensive thinking, and for me the counter-term wasn’t thinking-for-others at all, but rather the terms maybe weren’t quite clean, because they’re more generally understandable if you say thinking-for-yourself. Now I’ve lost my thread a bit. So actually I just wanted to distinguish between this fast and the slow thinking, and that that has to do with energy consumption too, which goes along with intensive considerations, thinking processes. And we simply can’t afford, in terms of available energy, to consciously and intensively think about every single point and question everything. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And before I continue with Marc and Layla, I think the second point in the chat fits that too. “These people did that themselves. They called themselves lateral thinkers. Don’t forget. Thanks.” And that ties in again to Jürgen’s question too, which was brought in, in the sense of, why is that so connoted now, for example regarding lateral thinkers? Or why wasn’t this term so strongly visible before? Actually this term “querdenker” has existed for a very long time. It of course got a completely different meaning here medially now, and also regarding the groupings and so on and so forth, and ultimately, basically, that’s a form of marketing that’s being practiced here in the sense of the typing that’s being done. And there we’re back again at this energy consumption mode you addressed, Sonja, namely at the moment when I recurringly connect certain terms with something, that gets stored. And as soon as I then use this term, we no longer need to talk about it in detail, but it’s clear to everyone what’s meant with the lateral thinker for example. And that’s the background, that the media etc., that’s not just the case with the term “querdenker,” many, many terms get picked up from various contexts and then connoted in a certain direction, and through repetition that gets ingrained, and ultimately that’s, on one hand, a typing, so we can now look at it evaluatively and look and argue about whether that’s good, bad or whatever. But first that’s viewed quite neutrally. That’s what happens there. And it’s basically nothing different from what also happens when a brand, a company makes a brand known, like for example, if I think of Milka, I immediately think of purple or the Milka cow. That’s through repetition. That means, by connecting an individual term or a color or whatever like that, and going into repetition, I then no longer need long explanations, so to speak, in the sense of a recognition feature, or similar, but everyone, in quotes, knows what’s meant, and that’s also the background of why that’s done. Marc?
I’d like to add something to, I’d like to polarize a bit briefly, and namely I’ll just claim, we’re all first of all “thought-for-by-others” [Fremddenker], and why? We’ve had these rooms before too, because we all have beliefs, and also profit from others’ experiences. That means, I go to school, I trust the other person, I accept their knowledge. That’s also easier for our brain. And that’s why I think, and that’s why I find your room so brilliant, dear Yasemin. The thinking process is, for me, the only thing that first makes it possible to know about how we think. Then to question, can I also think something else. And only this thinking-for-yourself and the thinking process then leads to me not just being thought-for-by-others, but that I get to thinking for myself. And I think we lead ourselves through various processes. What you just said, Sonja, that we shouldn’t question everything, is exactly right, because that saves us time too. But we probably always switch in our thinking, that once we not only observe others and accept their knowledge, that saves us time, but what’s important in this thinking process, at least for me it was important, was to observe myself. And if I observe myself, then I get different results too. And that only works, I only get different results if I first become aware of how that works. And this basic knowledge, of how that works, there I’m very grateful to you, dear Yasemin, this basic knowledge of how these thinking processes work. I unfortunately didn’t learn that in school. I was taught knowledge. And I could accept that or not. But understanding these processes behind it, I find that so elementarily important. Because understanding these processes is what first enables arriving at new results again.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much, Marc. Layla wanted to follow up on something too, and then we’ll gladly bring in Lydia too.
Yes, and namely I just thought for myself, well you always think a bit differently. And I have to briefly quote Sebastian, Bastian Sick, and say, it’s “sinn ergeben” [to yield meaning], not “sinn machen” [make sense]. That comes from “to make sense.” I know, that’s very nitpicky now and might also seem a bit provocative. But then you notice how you think differently. That’s really my German studies talking. And if we now stay with meaning, and if we think about that now, I just realized for myself, I’m still with the chat contribution, and it’s really the case that things, universal scientific facts, you said that very, very nicely, you can discuss many things, then you can consider, should I approach that differently? We once decided 1+1 is 2, Arabic numerals and and and. But the apple falls from the tree, unless I’m not in the universe and there’s no gravity, but under certain conditions it’s like that. And that’s what I noticed, that such things are also being discussed now. Everything gets discussed in the sense of individualistic thinking-differently. And if we stay with lateral thinking, you also said why such terms are used. It’s like if I now also take Tempo, to take another brand. Everyone knows I want a tissue, and that’s also a sign that the brand is very successful. And yet I’d like to add that these terms are also used to establish narratives. In that sense, that the term lateral thinker—thank you for the hint—was certainly self-chosen, in the sense of what I just mentioned earlier, that it’s this thinking around the corner, but then got negatively connoted. And I think this negative connotation and these narratives are often used, that such terms then also, for example, if I look at what became of cancel culture. If you consider how the term “cancel culture” arose, and by whom it’s now used, and in what contexts, please look that up yourself too, you have to say it’s actually almost a parody in places, that certain groups use this term and talk about “cancel culture,” when you consider how it arose. That’s why it’s also important, as Jürgen said, that you look at these terms again exactly, look at the historical context, and consider what’s planned with that, that these terms, if I now talk about “climate hysteria,” that’s a very, very nice alliteration from the Bild newspaper, and a narrative arises. That might not be a term like “cancel culture” now, but I’d like to bring in that such terms are also used or applied in places to achieve something. And that also has something to do with thinking differently, thinking around the corner, and thinking-for-others. If something gets put into my head, and if I now think of lateral thinker, I unfortunately no longer think of thinking around the corner and how the term arose. But if I engage with it, I do again. Now I’m curious what Lydia says. Thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And here too again the differentiation, maybe, in the origin the term lateral thinker in this context we’ve just talked about, with this negative connotation, in quotes, on the topic “the people called themselves that.” Originally it was, I don’t know if that was an association or a club or a movement you could say, that actually also registered itself that way, to my knowledge, and is called that. But that doesn’t mean every person who had a deviating or similar opinion to this collective at that point also identified themselves as a lateral thinker at the same time. And here, ultimately, through this repetition and how that was prepared, in quotes, in the media and so on, plays a big role in how that then gets utilized or used afterward too. And there are all these narratives you just addressed, Layla, that come along accordingly too. And this with the climate activists at that point, with these glue-on protests, is also a nice example of that, where basically the same system behind it gets used again with other terms in a similar way too. Lydia, a wonderful good morning. What are your thoughts?
Good morning. Yes, I actually have a few thoughts on that. The fact, namely, that up to the age of 25 the part in our brain responsible for us forming executive decisions from the self isn’t yet developed, means people can actually sometimes not yet display this kind of independent thinking up to that point. And this independent thinking is then actually only a sum of what one has more or less parroted, from what was said onto one’s own tapes in the environment, so to speak. So if you take that as a basis of independent thinking, and what that then means for the different-thinking or society-thinking. That’s then basically anchored in the fact that humans at some point learned to adapt, simply because—and that’s also a very scientifically supportable or supported thesis—humans weren’t capable of survival in the past if they were excluded from society. And this thinking differently was for those reasons generally only really accepted if it was in some way beneficial to innovation or progress. So from the developmental-biological or also neuroscientific side, these processes, which you’ve now connected with advertising, are actually also stored in such a way that they only get stored in the visual cortex, not like others, on the frontal lobe, which makes these executive decisions. Because these images get stored in the visual cortex, and the associated accessories, like for example purple, or with lemon, sour. That gets stored in the visual association area, well I unfortunately don’t know the German terms so well, I was trained in English, that’s why. There’s actually this connection simply because it has a survival function that remains functional in a situation where you’re under stress. Because when you’re under stress, the frontal lobe, which should make these decisions, that says, I know so much because I learned all of that in school, is completely useless, because the reptilian brain takes over and says, no, we have to either fight or run away. And especially with such cultures as cancel culture or climate glue-activists or whatever, the emotions are simply so highly connected with things where you think you’ve connected an identity with it, where I actually question whether these people really chose all of that themselves, or whether that’s a trauma reaction, I’ll just put that out there. Or whether this connection arose because they said, I need attention, because I never got it at some point in life, and now I’m getting it this way. And that basically has nothing to do with thinking differently. That’s my contribution. I hope it was comprehensible.
Yes wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Sonja, would you like to follow up on that? Do you have thoughts on that?
I have to confess, I was a tiny bit distracted, because I have to take the turtle outside. So no, I don’t want to follow up. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Yes, ultimately it’s very, very interesting and very exciting to look more closely at that here, and ultimately also to look again, especially with, because you addressed the terminology too, Lydia. I think especially here it’s important, because we also have many from this area who don’t work so intensively with the brain. It’s not necessarily about understanding exactly what happens in which brain areas. What I find exciting though is this aspect you picked up with this. So on one hand this with the function, that our reptilian brain takes over in stress situations. Yes, and on the other hand though. So this with the executive, what you brought into this context, that’s personally new to me, I don’t know that. I’d be curious what the others say to that. Those are of course then in this context probably rather just “opinions.” That doesn’t necessarily have to be scientifically proven first, but it’s definitely very helpful to go into the research yourself here too and check that again too, this or that. So thank you so, so much for this hint too. And I just saw, Layla would also like to follow up on that too. And then we’ve already progressed far enough in time that we can also look, for today, at moving into the closing round, and especially also look again at what that means, what we discussed here today, regarding thinking differently and society too. So the question we started with this morning was the question, what characterizes contrarians, and what relevance do they have for a communally-thought society? And maybe we can then try, in the closing round, to at least establish one or another connection from the discussion too. But first Layla, and then we’ll go into the closing round.
Yes, and namely, I found what Lydia said interesting too, I’ll go into the research on that too. What actually triggered something for me now is actually what she said about young people. I hope I’m paraphrasing you correctly now. I know this term, well children are like a sponge, especially, I think, up to the fourth or sixth year of life. That’s why you should be careful what you say to them and what not. Because beliefs and self-images also arise here too. And yet I studied philosophy, and I love philosophizing with children, which is also an independent form. And Yasmin, we already talked about that once. Do you remember the pictures with happiness? It would be interesting how children think about that. And I find they’re such a tabula rasa. They’re out of the box. And that’s why I really enjoy philosophizing with children, because they’re not yet so overwritten by society. And I just wanted to bring that in as a thought, because I don’t know now if it’s really the case that it’s all from, well I don’t know if I’m paraphrasing it correctly, and have to make sure I don’t get too long now, because we’re already almost at the closing comment. But I believe children are indeed independent in their trains of thought and in philosophizing, if you give them the opportunity to do so. That’s what I wanted to bring in. That’s also not conclusive, just an impulse. And yes, now I’m curious about the closing round. Thanks for listening.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Yes, with that let’s gladly move into the closing round for today. We definitely still have lots of rooms where we’ll connect this or that again too, and also discuss and think further too. So in that sense I think that’s not too bad now. We’re allowed to let this or that resonate too, and also go into research, self-research again too, and pick up this or that accordingly again too. And yes, for the closing round today in the order Marc, Layla, Jürgen, Sonja, Lydia. In that order please, also, what were your highlights today from the room, or regarding this overarching topic we started with this morning, the question, what characterizes contrarians and what relevance do they have for a communally-thought society, to make a connection here again too. Marc.
Very, very gladly I’ll answer that. For society, that means for me taking on individual responsibility, and I remember the Frenchman Francis Picabia, who said, the head is round so that thinking can change direction. And to you, dear Yasemin, quite personally, your neuroscientific knowledge and your thinking differently, than I did it, led me to become a contrarian. Thanks for that, and a great day to all of you.
Wonderful, thank you so, so much. Layla?
My highlights today were thinking-for-yourself, thinking-for-others, then what Sonja’s teacher said with her thinking-for-yourself, because that helped me a lot, because I then thought, oh, you’re not just a link in society, but maybe also someone who can continue sentences and give impulses. And in closing I’d like to say, I was in my seminar called “The Foreign and the Other,” and engaged a lot with such things. And I found that the foreign and the other very often scares us. And the question is whether contrarians have to scare us. Regarding society, when we compare, because thinking around the corner isn’t anything reprehensible from my perspective. Thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And there being active, so to speak, engaging with the topic or with the other, also helps overcome the fear. Jürgen.
Yes, thank you all for your contributions first, and for your moderation, dear Yasemin, on this, as always, highly complex and all the more exciting topic. In direct answer to your question, the societal contribution, let’s set aside the definitely possible negative connotation of “the thinking-differently,” then I say the societal contribution is, for me, synonymous with the engine of our societal and individual further development too. Thinking itself, and the two restrictions or supplementary premises I bring in for that, first, thanks again for this input, dear Yasemin, that it gives a meaning, that I make this meaning transparent and present it as a benefit for myself and for everyone else. That’s basically the core for me, and the starting basis for the second point. Then at some point I also have to get into action, so thinking differently also requires acting differently. Thank you, and a nice day to all of you.
Yes great, thank you so, so much, dear Jürgen. Sonja.
My highlight was Marc’s closing word just now. He brought in a keyword there that I’d like to pick up again here, namely the keyword responsibility. And for me this connection belongs in that we take responsibility for our functions within society, and at the same time also take responsibility for our own thinking, for our thoughts, in the sense of metacognition, that we also observe our thoughts. And if we know a bit about our processes of information processing, then we can also steer these thoughts, and thereby take responsibility. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And with that we’re back at the concept of education too, in the sense of self-organization, self-efficacy and self-determination. Thank you, Sonja. Lydia.
Yes, I unfortunately wasn’t in the room long enough to catch everything, to really be able to pick out a highlight of this episode now. But what I’d just like to throw in now is that our thoughts really do create our world, our reality, and that if we don’t find something so great externally, we actually have that in our own responsibility, and are also allowed to act for that in a way that’s really in harmony with ourselves, and where we can then say, I stand for that, and if I then should or must or may or however think differently for that, then of course that’s sensible too. But it’s basically a question of self-actualization. I just want to put that out there. But I think everyone who can take self-responsibility is probably also a contrarian in some way, and yet we’re together in a society. That means, if we think holistically, and also accept contrarians, even if we don’t understand them so well, then that’s basically a skill we’re allowed to further develop as a society. And just pushing something away because it’s different, that’s ignorance. Because different also means denying an aspect of ourselves. And basically it’s then a real invitation to look, and to see, well what does that actually bring, if you try to understand that, and if you take the time to enter into dialogue. Thank you.
Yes, great. Thank you so, so much. And we made this connection to children again yesterday too, whether children don’t per se have a pioneering spirit, so to speak, in the sense that they’re discoverers, researchers and so on, curiously approaching people, things, circumstances and wanting to explore them. And so I find this closing word here at this point wonderful too, to make this bridge again too. Thank you, Lydia, for that. Because I think we’re allowed, at this point, to discover our inner child again to some extent, in quotes, and be more of a child again at this point, in the sense of openness, curiosity, drive to research, drive to discover and so on, to open new doors here again too, to just see what’s hiding behind them and what new things I’m allowed to discover here. Yes, with that I think this was a really great room with lots and lots of great impulses, totally different perspectives, different bridges we were able to build again. I’m really looking forward to continuing with you tomorrow morning again at 8am. Tomorrow we continue with artificial intelligence and the world of work as the room topic, under the umbrella of Pioneering Spirit with brAIn. What is artificial intelligence, and what effects does it have on the world of work? That’s the aspect we want to look at tomorrow under this overarching theme. That means we’re now building up various perspectives step by step, to then establish the bridges to each other again through these various perspectives, establish the connection, and look, in the sense of understanding connections, what exactly does that mean? And then on the individualistic level as well as the societal level, and in which direction we’re allowed to think, act etc. here. I’m really curious how that develops further. In that sense you’re very warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8am. And if it doesn’t work out tomorrow, then on one of the next mornings. In that sense, I wish you well, thank you so, so much. And until hopefully tomorrow. Ciao.
