Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: A new overarching topic opens up — thinking. In this first approach, Dr. Yasemin Yazan, Marc, Sonja, Ria, Sabine and Jürgen brainstorm freely: conscious versus unconscious thought, whether men and women think differently, why thinking needs a system to make sense of the world, and the still-open question of how thinking and reflection actually relate to one another…
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 very good morning to you. Yes, so we’re off with the next overarching topic, thinking, now that we concluded reflection yesterday, and today we want to start first with a first approach. So what are the first thoughts, impulses, associations you have with the term thinking? We can gather that today first, with the goal of picking up or handling, checking off, two aspects, so to speak. On one hand, easily or gently entering the topic first, that’s why it’s a first approach. And the second aspect is, accordingly leaning on what comes together today, to also check the room planning for the coming days, so to speak, to see whether everything’s been considered so far, or whether it might need specific additional rooms for certain focus topics under this overarching topic of thinking. So you’re all really, really warmly invited to just join in and bring in your first thoughts, impulses, and so on, on the topic of thinking, so we can shape the reflection room together today in exchange. Another quick reminder, the room gets recorded the entire time and published afterward too. That means, anyone who joins automatically agrees to that. Then we have three small room rules: a profile picture where you’re clearly recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And yes, anyone who doesn’t want that, or can’t speak right now, is of course also warmly invited, as always, to use the chat. With that I’ll gladly mute myself now and see who’d like to start the round with me this morning. A very good morning, dear Marc.
Good morning to the group. As always, nice to be with and among you. And yes, I’ve really resolved that this also doesn’t get too deep now, but I’ll just go with my gut and start with the topic of thinking by saying that thinking is something that concerns all of us here in the room, that connects us, and anything that connects is already good. Because thinking is a central component of human intelligence, and basically enables us to apply knowledge and experiences we’ve had to situations. And spontaneously I thought about it, so I won’t go deep, this is just about the topic of thinking, that there’s conscious and unconscious thinking. And then thoughts come up like, well, do we actually think differently? So do all of us humans think differently? Do women and men think differently? Are there thinking errors? And then I also found it exciting, can you train your thinking? And I found reports where thinking is compared quite strongly with intelligence, at least in the training phase, that you can train it. And so on and so forth. But what occurred to me first automatically led me to the difference between women and men. And for me that was basically already the answer, that we apparently all think the same. We all think, but we don’t all think the same. And the biggest thing, you once said we want to repeat this, we cannot not communicate. And I’ll just claim, we also can’t not think. Unless we’re experienced in meditation and can really totally switch off. But I think you really have to train that. I don’t know if it’s Zen, but you need a certain meditation technique to really completely switch off. But otherwise it’s probably not possible not to think. Those would be my first thoughts that occurred to me and ran through my head.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. There were quite a lot of aspects in there too, some still with question marks too. On one hand an important point you addressed, that it’s a central component of human intelligence. Then we have conscious and unconscious thinking. We also already had conscious and unconscious reflecting with reflection. Now, of course, the question also arises here, to a degree, from when it’s reflecting and from where thinking then starts too. We want to pick that up toward the end, so to speak, once we’ve also looked at the overarching topic of acting, to open up the connection again too. But we can maybe also look at that a bit on the side already. We’ll have to see how that develops. Then the differences in thinking, I also found that really exciting again. So on one hand maybe from the perspective of genders again, woman, man, so to speak, you just opened that up. And then this aspect of training thinking, all the way to the question, or the consideration, can you actually not think at all? And you can possibly train that, as you also said, with regard to various techniques or similar that, so to speak, bring us to switch off. But what actually happens then? So does thinking then stop, or do we keep thinking something regardless? But this thinking is maybe a different kind. We can also think about that and look at it more closely again. I find that really exciting too, this question at this point. Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, are there other points you’d like to build on for deepening this?
Yes, while you were speaking, dear Yasemin, it went through my head that I sometimes checked out of discussions at school when they had no relevance for me, so when it got too philosophical and I hadn’t engaged with the topic, because I always try, or I basically try to design my life so that I ask, what added value do I have, where can I currently apply this, what does this bring me, and that’s also why I always try to give examples here in the room, because examples from lived situations resonate more with me personally, just for me, where I say, oh, I can use that, I can apply that. And I notice that when it comes to the question, can you not think or can’t you not think, that’s when the brain starts to knot up, and ultimately the solution doesn’t get me anywhere. I’ve reflected for myself that there are really, really many things I don’t know the answer to at all, because nobody knows, and I could think about that for hours, days, weeks, months, but that doesn’t get me anywhere, and that’s why it’s important for me, and I’ll also try, with this topic, to give examples where someone says, oh yes, right, that happens to me too, and now I have a practical application, so I can always draw added value for myself from the topic, and not get lost in philosophy, which I find totally great, just, in some rooms, or when it’s about business topics, people start speaking their technical jargon. Then I can’t follow at all anymore, because there’s business jargon, medical jargon, and so on. And then it’s hard for me to stay on track, to see for myself, oh, that’s interesting for me, because with these new insights I can get to this and that. And when it gets too abstract — and that’s exactly it, there’s also abstract thinking — then it’s sometimes hard for me to follow the topic, because we’ve also often said in this room, we always ask ourselves, what’s that good for? We’re all egoists too, otherwise we wouldn’t survive. In that case I ask myself, what’s that good for, for me? But I think the topic of thinking and reflecting overall is a totally exciting topic, because it connects all of us here. There’s nobody here in the room who says, that doesn’t interest me, I won’t do that. Every one of us thinks, and every one of us reflects. If we can all take something away from a room like this, where we say, I hadn’t had that train of thought yet, that’s totally exciting, then that’s really great. And on training thinking — that’s exactly what we’re doing right now. I found one point — to anticipate this, you can train thinking in discussions. And that’s what we do every morning. We meet here every morning, exchange thoughts and discuss. So the Deep Talk Club is also a room where we train thinking.
Yes, thank you so much. And with regard to these differences in thinking, another aspect occurred to me. You’d addressed genders, among other things. Possibly it’s not actually the difference between genders and the difference through that in thinking too, but maybe also cultural. At some point in this context I’d picked up a study and briefly mentioned that, for example, language plays a role in how the brain regions are wired together, so to speak, especially also the right and left brain hemispheres, or how intensely pronounced this wiring is. And it was found that, for example, people from the Arabic-speaking region use these areas, various areas, much more strongly than, for example, is the case in the German-speaking region, traced back to the language and the complexity of the language. So here too really, really exciting to look at. I know there’s relatively a lot with regard to genders and so on, but here too maybe to look at what’s maybe more myth and what’s actually fact, so to speak, what do we actually know about that. That means, there are certainly differences in thinking, but what’s that actually traced back to. I find that also a really, really exciting aspect to pick up too, though it’s certainly also necessary to get into a bit of research and see what we can find on the topic. And exactly, so maybe that too at this point. And the training, you said, also takes place in discussions, so in exchange, so to speak. I’d also mentioned Martin Buber yesterday, and I find that fits in quite well here too, this idea that through the other person, one’s own identification also develops, one’s own personality develops. And especially there, with humans as social beings, so to speak, this interaction is a really, really important factor that plays a role in what we then think too. And that brings me next to the topic of socialization, because, yes, we don’t develop isolated from others, so to speak, but our thinking processes take place embedded in what happens in the environment, in what we experience. You’d also addressed experiences earlier, and accordingly, depending on which society I grow up in, there certainly are, and this is possibly where the first distinction lies, certainly differences in thinking, so in what we think. But it’s also interesting to differentiate, on one hand, what we think and, on the other, how thinking per se works. So maybe also make a differentiation here between the what and the how of thinking. Marc, would you like to build on this again?
Very, very gladly. I find that totally exciting, and I’ll say, I keep repeating myself, because that’s my life experience today, that thinking and reflecting are among the topics we unfortunately didn’t discuss in school, at least not like this. Sure, every one of us has had biology and knows we have a brain, and also knows that we smell and have sensory perceptions, and so on. But engaging with this thinking and reflecting, that really moved me forward, that completely changed my life. And I just thought about whether it’s possible, and yes, it’s actually a rhetorical question, or a rhetorical statement, that it’s possible that, when it concerns ourselves, we think differently at 8am than at 9 or 10. And I’m mentioning this because you can think emotion-free, based on facts and logic. But I can also be so triggered by emotions, by the emotions, that my thinking processes run completely differently, that I’m no longer able to think clearly and logically at all, but that I’m full of emotions, that I maybe go into defense mode, and so on. And that’s why this topic is so complex, because we think differently at different points in time, and if we think differently, we also arrive at different strategies and also at different results.
Yes, absolutely. And one of the aspects you just addressed, I find that really exciting again too. Let me open up an example. In the morning, shortly before things get started, depending on when I got up and how fit I already am, I often have the impulse, and now we’re at the impulse, that I think, I’m so tired, I could actually use a few more minutes now. And maybe I’ll lie down for a bit afterward, if I don’t have an appointment, I usually don’t have appointments right after the Deep Talk rooms, because I leave a bit of a buffer. Maybe I’ll lie down for a quick power nap afterward. But after the room has been shaped together with you and is over, I’m so fit that the next thought is, now you don’t need to lie down at all anymore. So this being full, full of energy, so to speak. And I find that totally exciting, because basically, so no sleep or anything took place in the meantime, but what did take place is this joint exchange, and so on. And that changes, so to speak, on one hand for example the emotional state, and that’s what I’m getting at. That means, I can also, with thinking and with acting, so often also in combination, for example influence that too, but since our focus is thinking, because, with the aspect of thinking, you can also influence emotions at that point, because you’d also addressed emotions, and can thereby, so to speak, also go into steering, so into a changed experience, so to speak, at that point. That’s what I wanted to bring in again too. Marc, what do you say to that example?
Yes, I just see “good morning, Ria.” I think Ria can say a lot, a lot more about that. I saw a documentary on TV, and this isn’t school-bashing now, but exactly what you addressed, thinking, when we think together or are with other people, that in school it’s often not about knowledge transfer, but about first inviting people to think, to take part in that. And this exciting thing you just described, this effect, when something interests us or when we’re totally excited, then we’re wide awake, then we have fun, then we want to know more. And for this knowledge — I don’t know, I’m not that familiar with what belongs to teacher training, I’ll just assume that’s addressed too, but I’ve noticed for myself, not just in school but privately too, when people speak with enthusiasm, and when they explain it to me in a way I can follow, and when it’s not just jargon, then I feel taken along. Then that’s incredibly fun for me. And there are also situations where I don’t feel comfortable. That’s always the case for me when I have to deal with doctors. I can go there alone, I’m a grown man. But I still feel like a child there, because I don’t understand the language. I always think, man, damn it, you’re over 50. You know German, you’re not stupid. And still I don’t understand what the doctor tells me, partly out of nervousness. And I can’t reflect on it later either, because through this nervousness I forget a lot of things too. And that’s not because I probably don’t understand the connections, but I don’t know a single term. And basically I often have the feeling I’m standing in front of someone speaking Chinese and don’t catch anything. And those are situations where, even as an adult, you don’t feel like a child in the positive sense of curiosity, but completely excluded, and think, I’ve just entered a universe, a world, I understand nothing and I can’t follow you either. And then we feel uncomfortable and switch off. And what you just described, when this energy comes, this cross-pollination in such a room, that it was exciting and that it was great, that just leaves a good feeling. And that leaving a good feeling is one of the reasons why I love starting the morning with you all so much. The exchange with you and with Jürgen. And also when the others here in the room give feedback, I have a smile on my face at 9am. And that’s at least as strong as two cups of coffee.
Yes, great. Thank you so much. Yes, how is it for the others? It would be nice if we could include a few more contributions, just to really enter into the exchange and capture different perspectives too, as a first approach, to really open up different facets. The topic we’re engaging with today is thinking. It’s a first approach. That means, we’re now really first gathering everything that comes to mind for us on the topic of thinking, and just seeing that we slowly venture the start into the topic, so to speak, and at the same time also check, for the coming days, based on what comes from your side, check the room plans that have been made, whether there are further aspects here where further deepening points are specifically needed too. So, in that sense, the more facets we get today, the more valuable it is for the coming days too. Sonja, a very good morning. What do you say
on the topic? A very good morning. I hope you can hear me, because only one hotspot is loaded. And I don’t know if that’s enough.
We can hear you wonderfully.
Wonderful. Okay, so first of all, a really exciting topic. And with thinking, one point fascinates me above all. And that’s the point that this thinking is so strongly influenceable. It’s constantly happening. And if we don’t try to control our thinking, then the probability is extremely high that our thoughts somehow seek out a social context. That we somehow engage with other people or with ourselves. And that shows so clearly what social bonding means for us humans, how important that is. And also the example Marc gave, with the ability to be enthusiastic. If someone tells about something in an enthusiastic way, then it’s so much easier for me to listen to the person. And then it’s also easier for me to understand what this person is saying. And I’d even go further. I even then want to understand what the person is saying. I want to be connected, and cultivate this connection. And, yes, now I’ve drifted a bit. But what fascinates me about thinking is simply that it’s so incredibly easy to influence, and very socially oriented. That was my first thought.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And I find the two aspects you picked up now really nice too. On one hand understanding, so how does understanding and thinking connect? And the other is this aspect of being connected. So maybe to look at that here too. So those are two aspects we can gladly look at more closely at this point too. And before we make cross-connections, I’d gladly like to welcome Ria to the round first too. A very good morning, dear Ria.
A very good morning to you too, and I’m happy to have found you again. Because of the changes to Clubhouse, I was completely lost in the woods for a few days here, and thought, what’s this now? Hello, hello, is anyone here or anything? Then I really started thinking, thought, okay, now my Deep Talk Club is gone, that’s a shame. But now you’re back. Yes, I wondered, or it was already almost clear to me, I could listen in briefly yesterday, that the topic would change, and the topic is now so big that at first I thought, you can say nothing at all or everything. And in that moment Marc had also addressed me directly, and since then I’ve been thinking about how, or what I’d tell you, because suddenly so much is popping up. The first thing I’d like to share is, I saw something by Vera Birkenbihl again by chance yesterday evening, something I’d actually never had so consciously in view before. Specifically, she said that if you compare the conscious to the unconscious, then the unconscious is about eleven kilometers long, and the conscious only 15 millimeters of that. And then, of course, you could say on one hand, only that little consciousness? She said, no, that much subconscious. And I’m now grappling with the question, can you think subconsciously, so in the subconscious, or do you only think consciously? I think, so I can imagine that really, really many things take place without you first becoming conscious of them, but that that’s also thinking. I think Jürgen is the better person here who can help me with that. The second thing, yes, I experienced a wonderful situation again yesterday. And I think that, if I now connect thinking with consciousness, for conscious thinking and communicating that results from that, you need a system. I had a class in geography yesterday, grade 10. That’s of course a bit more advanced. It’s about climate change and climate problems and climate protection. And I dealt with the sustainability triangle. And we got into a discussion and found, well, first there was a lot of platitude. Yes, we must, may, and should. And then I said, put the climate glue-activists or the energy prices for businesses into this triangle. And consider, whose advantage gets strengthened here, and who falls behind? Or who has a disadvantage from that? And then the students got into such a fascinating discussion that we even had history, politics, and philosophy on board, and made cross-connections here, and the students actually wanted to keep discussing further, but unfortunately, in the end, the preparation for the assessment was still on the agenda, and I still wanted to do a few other things so the students would know roughly what would come up in the assessment. But that was such a really interesting class, and the students were so delighted in discussing, since they now had, let’s say, like bumpers on the left and right, within which they could train their thinking, but then at the same time also jumped over the bumpers and took examples and connections from these other areas, where I say, wow, here you suddenly recognize that drawer-thinking on the first line, let’s say, is necessary, that you can put certain things into drawers, but that the drawers should please stay open. And whenever you see connections, so, in the brain I’d say the connection between the clusters, something new and meaningful actually comes out of it, this thinking outside the box. And this thinking outside the box is then, for me, also innovation. So thinking and innovation are connected again too. And now let me stop, so others can also say something. But I think I’ve already put a few impulses into the room.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. And that maybe also triggered something with Sabine too. That’s why I’d like to bring in Sabine at this point too. A very good morning, dear Sabine. What do you say to that?
A very good morning. I think I haven’t thought at all today, and we’re not even aware that we’re thinking. But I also just quickly googled, and there were 15 types of thinking, and the first was reflective thinking. Then there were things like belieflessness, I don’t know, a lot of them, but I got stuck on reflective thinking. That sounded like reflection is a subtype of thinking. So we actually can’t reflect if we can’t think, if we don’t think. I found that really interesting. And what I also noticed, I think, is that you need the right atmosphere to think. That’s also the case, if I work all day and then think out in nature, at some point I can’t think anymore, and then I just have to take my break from thinking. Whether that’s just going for coffee or emptying the dishwasher or something. So in that sense I also need a precondition to think meaningfully. That also brings to mind things like exercising regularly, drinking a lot of water, good healthy nutrition. I think we’re not that aware of it, but that’s a basis for thinking properly. So, now I’ve thought enough and I’ll hand it back.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Then let’s gladly use the opportunity to make cross-connections too. I’m sure one person or another here would also like to add something. Sonja, go ahead.
Yes, Ria said something really great that’s swirling around in my head, namely that thinking needs a system. And that’s exactly it, that the moment we can establish connections, have a frame, it becomes noticeably easier for us to think in a certain direction. And especially the example with the sustainability triangle, that shows really clearly that the first systemic frame was too big, and that’s why no concrete thoughts arose. But the moment the frame became a bit smaller and more concrete, it established completely different connections. The system was more manageable and steered thinking in a completely different direction, namely a direction that’s — what’s the German word — tangible, graspable, that we can feel, that we can connect with a physical experience. And the moment that happens, that we can connect our thinking with physical experience too, because it becomes really concrete, then it really flows. And I’m convinced that we don’t have a single moment in our lives where we’re not thinking. And by that I also mean unconscious thinking. Because if I didn’t establish connections at all, not even unconsciously, then I couldn’t, well I can’t even imagine it, then we couldn’t move in the world. We couldn’t control our limbs, we couldn’t walk, we couldn’t look, couldn’t hear. Well, hearing might still work, but a lot of things would not be possible at all for us in perceiving the world, and that’s why this thought, that thinking needs a system, and connections, is not possible without connections, is essential for me when we talk about the topic of thinking. And I also found Sabine’s suggestion interesting, this claim that thinking can and should also have a certain quality, meaningful thinking. We think the whole time anyway, but if we also want to give it a certain quality, then that’s the moment where it has to become conscious for us, and we then put it into targeted systems with guardrails we follow along. I just saw a microphone ringing, so let me withdraw briefly and listen to you. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so much. And here two questions also arise for me, or two impulses I had, that we can pick up again too. On one hand, if we say thinking needs a system, so to look at this system more closely too. Marc had brought in the aspect of experiences earlier, and if, for example, Ria says, we’re allowed to look outside the box here too, or something, and establish connections, then I can basically only establish connections, first of all, where I also have some reference points to. That means, where I don’t have any experiences stored yet, I can’t look outside the box in that direction. So that’s maybe also something we can pick up too. Second, Sonja, what you addressed with this “we also move our limbs, for example,” and so on. Here the question arises for me whether that’s not actually a different process too, so also to look at that more closely. Because if we understand thinking as a cognitive process, so to speak, one we also apply quite, quite consciously, of course, though also unconsciously we certainly think, but especially motor aspects like, for example, walking, going, maybe drinking something, so also certain things we’ve routinized over time, where we basically don’t think about it anymore, what that then is instead, so to speak, what influences that, that it then works, in quotation marks. But none of us is actually thinking about how a child does that at the beginning, this how do I put my feet next to each other, or how do I stand up, and actually perceiving this trying-out, what’s happening there, and accordingly maybe thinking processes really are underway. Whereas once that’s transitioned into a routine, we don’t, so the question is, do we then still unconsciously think about it, so to speak, or is that then a different process taking place here? That might also be really exciting to shed light on. Ria, I think you wanted to build on this too.
Yes, a few more thoughts came to me in connection with Sabine. Let me just throw that into the room, because in the mathematical field it became really interesting for me when I recognized that these possibilities exist. Namely, on one hand there’s inductive thinking and deductive thinking. That’s been set up in mathematics as a form of proof. Namely, you say inductive thinking, or inductive proving, means you start from really small elements and think about how that continues into ever larger areas. You can see that really nicely in the laws, for example, two addends can be swapped, and then you can suddenly, once you can connect subtraction and addition and recognize they’re actually inverse operations, and that you actually only need to change the sign, you can even extend that to subtraction, if you use it correctly. Reductive thinking goes from the large to the small, so for example from the universe. In the universe there are these and those laws, and can you apply those to Earth, or in what form, and then there are always, let’s say, increasingly modified laws that apply quite specifically in the interior, in ever smaller areas. That’s highly interesting for me, this way of thinking. But there’s often this inductive thinking, meaning from small to large. That’s always this story about thinking outside the box. That’s one thing, and the other thing, I also stumbled a bit over that, with this walking and going that Sabine talked about. I then thought, is that maybe more perception, or are those reflexes? But at the first moment you have to learn it, and learning is a thinking process, and you need thinking for these processes, and recognize, and then suddenly it’s in the subconscious. And if you then, as an adult, become conscious of a situation, for example when walking, or have to learn walking again, then those are again really complex, highly intensive thinking processes happening again. And then you sometimes wonder why, even though you know how you’re supposed to walk, your body doesn’t cooperate. Those are also things where I then say, how does thinking connect with physicality? And I keep making my thoughts and my ideas about that. Sometimes you can’t really understand things properly until you’ve experienced them. And a third thing, the story with concentration. It’s always said, especially with children, that children can only concentrate for twice their age. That means a 15-year-old can concentrate for at most 30 minutes. And then it’s important that this thinking process, like sport or like other behaviors, functions really systematically with relaxation and tension, and that you can’t do that constantly. Those are things I just want to throw into the room now. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Jürgen has joined too. A very good morning, dear Jürgen. What do you say to what’s been said so far?
Good morning, dear friends. Great contributions on a wonderful topic, I find. And bear with me, I’ll go from the process view again, because thinking, the term, doesn’t stand for the end result, the thought, but thinking, for me, is a processual sequence that has a trigger, quite bluntly defined now, and at some point has to, should, should lead to a result. And specifically the resultant quantity, thoughts. And I’ll pick that up, Sonja set this, I think, this initial trigger for me too, that I spoke of a system. And I found that really, really good in connection to my process-thinking, dear Sonja, because a process needs a system, a connection of system elements that stand in certain relationships to each other, and also dependencies. And if I now look at this process from the beginning, then of course I ask myself, what’s actually the trigger? And there, I unfortunately can’t personify anymore who addressed that, or maybe you too, I think, in the introduction, dear Yasemin, that you actually can’t stop, we always think, you can’t stop thinking. That of course stands in contradiction to a system, because a system has to be able to switch itself off, otherwise I’m the servant of a system. And okay, that’s where my trigger was, to say, if I can’t switch it off, let me set that as a thesis. A lot speaks for it, just think, I think, therefore I am, in reverse, I am not, if I don’t think, do we actually always have to think? Then I asked myself, what actually happens in a dream? I’ve never in my life met anyone who said, last night I thought, but rather, I dreamed. And now, bear with me, I’m so triggered with regard to this logical sequence of a process, and the essential process of our thinking, that I need a clear trigger. A trigger to answer the question, when do I think, and why. And then this process runs, possibly also in a dream. I think that’d be worth discussing. And then this process runs. And the result of thinking is thoughts. And there too, for me, there’s a big question mark, in that I say, so, thoughts. Our topic, our overarching topic leads to acting. But it’s often not possible to directly, directly convert generated thoughts immediately into acting, so I have to store them somewhere in the system. And there the question is for me, how do I then recognize, afterward, a situation I’ve thought through and brought to a result, to retrieve it adequately. The point, to make that clear again for my contribution, is that for my logic and my understanding I really like to define this process sequence between input, processing, and resultant quantity, and the big question marks at the beginning, why do you think and what for, and at the end, what did you think for. That’s the big bracket for me right now. Thanks to your contributions, dear friends. Thank you for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, gladly, Sonja, I also wanted to ask if we want to make cross-connections.
Gladly. Yes, I really liked the thought that thinking basically stands in contradiction to a system, with the conclusion that we’d then be servants
of a system. A great thought, I find, Jürgen, and I’ll even go further, and I’ll say, yes, we are servants of this system, of a system. Absolutely, we can’t establish connections, evaluate, orient ourselves without a system, and this, if you come to speak of logic, that’s what a lot of people like to claim for themselves, that we can derive everything consciously and logically, and it would maybe be nice if that were really so, if we only thought purely from logic, but the implicit memory has exactly all this information that has nothing to do with logic, where we include cross-connections that influence us without us even being aware of it at all. And even if we were asked about it afterward, we’d deny it. Things like, judges hand down different sentences depending on their hunger state. If it’s closer to lunch break, they hand down harsher sentences. Certainly every judge would deny that, deny it far from themselves, because it would speak against their professional honor, against their self-image, against every morality if they allowed that for themselves. And I personally, with my neuro background that I’ve built up so far, can’t help but be convinced that we’re constantly thinking, constantly establishing connections, and constantly evaluating. And the more connections we build up over the course of a life, the more flexible we become in thinking. And Jürgen said something nice there, namely that we have to store these thoughts somewhere to be able to retrieve them adequately when we need them. And that’s also again this thought, that we think meaningfully, think logically, that we only consult the thoughts when we need them. It also happens that these thoughts get stored, and then they’re somewhere in this library. And maybe the librarian who can tell us where this thought got stored has gotten lost. But he still has a few cross-connections to the thoughts settled to the left and right. And the moment these thoughts also get triggered, they draw attention to this one lost thought. That’s a bit abstract now, but in that moment it becomes active again too, and then it comes from somewhere, and then we think of something and ask ourselves, how did I get to that just now? And that’s incredibly complex, because we have 86 billion nerve cells trying to organize themselves somehow. And really a lot of them are thoughts and information. And yes, that makes it unmanageable to trace where which thoughts are related to each other, where they come from. And it’s just also a bit of magic.
Yes, thank you so much, Sabine, go ahead.
I have another question for the round, which I could probably answer myself. If I now think about routines, am I thinking then, or do I have a system and I’m not thinking anymore?
Yes, Sonja, what do you say to that?
For me that’s clearly thinking. It’s not conscious thinking, but the connections still have to be established. It’s just not necessary to include consciousness, because the brain knows all these connections so well that we don’t need to include this energetically costly process of conscious thinking. That works without it too. So clearly thinking, but not moving.
Then the question arises though, and it’s what I think Ria picked up earlier, with that, if an adult has to relearn walking, for example, due to an accident or something, and no damage has taken place in the brain, why is it then so hard to start over from the beginning, so to speak, are then any connections between the brain and the corresponding muscles and similar involved? So what exactly happened there, that has to be relearned, because basically, if it’s already been learned once, so to speak, why is it then so exhausting to learn it again, even though there’s no damage to the brain in that sense at all? Maybe you have an answer to that too, Sonja?
Of course I have an answer to that. I don’t know if it’s correct, but I have an answer. And it’s exactly that these are the connections from the brain to the body. Because our nervous system serves us just so we can establish these connections. If, somewhere at some point, this connection gets interrupted, then new connections have to be built. And some new connections are possible, and other connections are no longer possible to reconstruct. And when it’s specifically about motor things, or about connections to the body, then it’s often, unfortunately, irreversible. Whereas when it’s about thinking in the brain, there’s an incredible neuroplasticity present, which enables us, enables the brain, that even areas of the brain can be entrusted with tasks they would normally, under healthy circumstances, never carry out. And yes, so that answers, I think, the question, at least for my soul.
Yes, exciting in this context is that, in quotation marks, at this point, at least in this context, the mere storing of this experience isn’t sufficient to then, per se, be able to directly retrieve it again, but especially with these motor aspects this connection plays an essential role in this context too. Jürgen, did I see correctly that you also wanted to build on this?
Yes, thank you that I can right away. Thumbs up, dear Sonja, for your remarks. Really always an absolute enrichment, and with regard to your accentuation with neuroplasticity, that would have been a point for me too anyway. Let me now put my starting connection into question, with regard to and also what you addressed. We have a system. Let me now question this system understanding, that normally triggers us, as I also laid out, that there’s a trigger, then a process runs, and then at some point there’s a result, and a system has to be able to switch itself off. I’m questioning that myself now. And let me venture to expand the dimension here too. And specifically, not just to our brain, but our body, because I’ll remind us of that note we still have from reflection. The body thinks along. And then we basically have the question, to what extent do these two parallel systems stand in a relationship with regard to the resultant quantity “I thought”? And do they maybe even mutually influence each other, by being able to develop detached from our consciousness, absolutely independently? And there I’m back at the dream, and at the result of a dream, where many say, or where you can keep reading, that you’ve processed emotions, experiences, events in a dream. And this processing result, that’s such a resultant quantity, provided with big resultant quantities for me, which, in most cases, at least for me, is certainly not conscious, but I’ll assume that this dream, with this result, has basically already changed me, if it took place. But that’s a thesis of mine, and I think there are so many connecting points to go into discussions there. I already admire and envy you now, dear Yasemin, streamlining this topic accordingly. And we’re not even at the, for me, really decisive question, which I think Marc addressed. How does that relate to reflection? Is that a subarea of thinking, or is maybe the overarching topic reflection and thinking a subfunction, or the same more or less? So, I think it’ll be really exciting.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. I think it’ll be really, really exciting too. A lot of points have come together, and it’ll be a challenge, on one hand to steer that, and on the other hand also to keep breaking it down into small bites, so to speak, so we can also go into a certain depth. Today, quite consciously, in many places, there are already really, really many connecting points, also from neuroscience, where we could basically already provide answers. But quite consciously left open at those points now, so we can really pick that up in depth too. I think the keyword already came up earlier, namely the keyword learning already came up. That means, in this context it’s also a really, really essential aspect to look at these learning processes again too. What actually happens? How does the whole thing run? And with that, a lot of aspects we picked up today can already, in many places, at least first reduce the complexity, to derive certain answers or answer possibilities from that too. And I’m already looking forward to that. Sonja, I think you wanted to build on this again, and then we’ll go directly into the closing round for today. That means, you can gladly attach your closing word to that too.
Okay, yes, thank you for the opportunity. I definitely wanted to say something more about being able to switch off the system, namely that’s exactly what our brain does too. Just that it doesn’t completely switch off, but that it powers down into more energy-saving states. And there I find it quite interesting to take a look into the animal world. I think with ducks it’s like this, that when they sleep, only one brain hemisphere sleeps and the other is awake. The brain recovers by letting only one brain hemisphere rest while the other keeps watch, so the animal survives. I find that a brilliant strategy of nature. And with humans too, even if it’s not so explicitly left, right brain hemisphere, it’s still quite similar, that when we’re exhausted, we switch into significantly more routine and less energy-costly processes. But whatever, I’m missing the verb now. And the second thing I wanted to say, about the dream. For me, a dream is something like passive thinking, where we get to watch, like at an open kitchen, the thoughts being tidied up. That’s basically a tidying-up process. We have no possibility to influence it, while in the waking state thinking is always active, because it’s stimulated by new impulses, and not by things being processed. And that was another thought I wanted to bring in. And I find this room mega, mega exciting. I actually only wanted to listen, but I just didn’t manage to, because there were such fantastic impulses, and I’m, just as you said at the beginning, Yasemin, highly energized by the room, and I was tired before, and I thank you and everyone for this energizing.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, then let’s continue directly with Jürgen, because Jürgen also raised his hand again, so gladly the same, a contribution, and then directly attach the closing word for today.
Yes, thanks again, Sonja, for your, this time last, contribution, and with the connection of dream, where I’d possibly positioned that as, under certain circumstances, the trigger to switch off our thinking. You put it, in my view, right on point. But another question came up for me there. If you assume we’re looking, so to speak, from a bird’s-eye view at what the dream offers us, which either doesn’t get processed, or gets processed in a different form, by our brain. Then the question for me is, can you also reflect in a dream? So if the dream is used by the system, really by our system up there in the brain, which I assume, since I assume an essential aspect of thinking also takes place there, namely that cross-connections get established, that synapses get established. But Yasemin can certainly make more profound statements on that. Then the question for me is, though, after how we’ve defined reflection, this conscious, also unconscious, but specifically the conscious inward view, whether that’s switched off in this phase, not possible? I’ll formulate it as a question. Heartfelt thanks again, as I said, as you’ve already established, so much has come together, and I’ll repeat myself, I’m curious, dear Yasemin, how you tie one package after another together, and I’m already looking forward to the coming days, and wish you a nice day still. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. So I’ve definitely taken a lot of notes, and that’ll need some processing time accordingly too. I’d like to continue now with Marc, because Marc also hasn’t said anything for a while. Maybe you also have another addition you’d like to make, Marc, to then speak your closing word, and then gladly Sabine and Ria in that order. Marc.
Yes, I’d gladly like to respond to Jürgen again, specifically on the topic of reflection. For me, just personally, reflection is a component of thinking that’s more conscious and deeper, and when I think something over, then I’m still thinking, so I’m not necessarily reflecting, we shoot thousands of thoughts through our heads like in a dream, which are ordered, disordered, conscious, unconscious, and reflection is what makes the whole thing deeper. And 90 percent, I think, you know this much better than me, dear Yasemin, happens unconsciously, and one more small task for all of you, that we were all together in the room today, and we don’t perceive a lot of things at all. And if you now consider what we’ve been sitting on today, everyone of you, sitting or standing, and think about it, then you suddenly perceive that. That means, if we’re mindful, if our thoughts deliberately pay attention, steer toward that, then we consciously perceive things that otherwise happen in the subconscious. And it just occurred to me earlier, dear Yasemin, because you said unconscious processes, if really 90 percent of unconscious processes take place, then, once acting comes up later, we also act unconsciously, and maybe that’s one reason why people don’t leave their tracks, their worn-in tracks, because in relationships as well as in their profession, as well as in politics, they act unconsciously and do what they’ve always done. Thank you so much for the great room. I’m starting into this room with full energy, with full joy, and I’m totally thrilled that it’s not 33 degrees in my office today.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And yes, the aspect you just addressed, we don’t perceive a lot of things, at least not consciously, maybe let me underline that here again, because we do perceive them, but not consciously, but unconsciously. And they still get perceived, and processed accordingly if needed, so to speak. And that’s ultimately decided by the system brain in the background, what’s relevant from that or not, and in what form it gets stored, and so on. That’s also a really, really exciting aspect too. So here we have really a lot of connecting points we can pick up accordingly in the coming days too, at this point. Sabine.
Super interesting. I’m on my way to the train to Dortmund right now, and have time to think, to reflect, and above all to perceive, and maybe also to act. I wish you a really great day. See you then. Bye.
Thank you so much to you too. Ria.
Yes, I unfortunately stepped outside briefly, came back in, and heard Jürgen, and then immediately thought, how is it with thinking and intuition? What kind of thinking is that? And in that context we also came, I think that’s called the murphy law or something, that what we think about more intensely, that also happens. What does thinking have to do with what actually happens in reality? And those are two more things I just wanted to throw into the room. I also thank you very heartily. I feel similarly to Sabine, I’m delighted, or like Sonja, I’m delighted to have found you again and to be able to listen to you, because really a lot pops up, and you start thinking about what you just experienced, or what you experienced recently, and how you can connect all of that together, and what experience and what knowledge you can draw from it, and I’m really, really grateful to you for that. I wish you a wonderful day.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And then you brought in another aspect too. That means, we’ll look at all the topics again, correspondingly interweavings, and so on, pick up further room topics again too, and look at bringing a structure into it here too. So, no announcement for the first room tomorrow today. Let’s finalize the room planning, so to speak, and then the rooms will get set up sometime today, over the course of the day. What’s definitely clear is that tomorrow it really starts with the individual deepenings, one by one, so we follow along together, in exchange reflecting together, and see what comes up from that too, and what insights, intermediate insights, we can derive from that. So, in that sense I’m totally looking forward to tomorrow, once we’ve laid the start of the first approach today, so to speak, tomorrow slowly, successively getting into the deepenings, to then, after a while, once we’ve wrapped everything up, see what the intermediate insights are, before we then, so to speak, move on to the third overarching topic, namely acting. So, in that sense, I think it’ll be pretty exciting, we’ve opened up some really great aspects today. And I’m totally curious how the whole thing develops, and how the bridges, so to speak, to the various topics already discussed in the past, get established again too, to weave the neural networks accordingly at this point too, and on one hand let them keep growing, and on the other hand also establish interweavings again. In this sense, I wish you well, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning at 8am at Deep Talk. Ciao!
