Gerald Hüther - Individualisierte Gemeinschaften - Teil 4 #4

How do we get out of this dilemma when I look back at the business practice? For example, there are many people in the corporate learning professionals community who have recognized this, they also know your books and they would like to participate, they would like to support the company in order to inspire other people to bring themselves back to their potential. What can we give them? How can we support them? You just described the idea of learning in small communities. That would be an approach, that if there are individual people, and we experience this in certain areas, this working out loud, learning in small circles together and changing things together, is this a walkable way to change the data highways successively? Well, I say this a bit unthinkingly, but I think it's the only way. It's the only way. All other ways lead to the fact that super-organized institutions act as if they knew what is right and then pretend what is to be done. Sometimes it works, sometimes they are actually a bit smarter than the mass. But this is not a permanent solution. We have already worked out this at the example of the collapse of hierarchical orders, which then no longer meet the complexity of the world. And that's why the world can only be a world in which people learn responsibility for themselves and to do a lot for themselves and best share this with others who are in their immediate surroundings, who are not in Africa or elsewhere, where you can't experience this community at all, because it only exists virtually. It would still be to check whether virtual communities can also become communities. But I think it would first of all depend on a small department in a company where living people are on the move and not their screens, that they have to manage this first. If they can't do it, it won't work virtually. But if people have managed to form such communities in a living exchange with each other, then I can imagine that this can be maintained and continued on this virtual level. Then it's not so bad anymore. But the virtual level, the virtual meeting, is not a real meeting. It's a different kind of meeting, yes. I'm telling you now, I'm wearing my training pants down here, I'm wearing a nice sweater up here, I'm sitting here in house larches and we're doing something here. You've put some background there, I've got something there too. That's all we do. And you can fool yourself wonderfully with these pictures that you exchange. It's called cheating. And that's why it's not so easy to meet in this way, because you don't even know if you can rely on what you're doing. It's also often the case that I can't really rely on the smile of my colleague under my boss. But I can look from the side again, I can check something, I can challenge that even further. It's not going well on these screens. I think so too. Yes, good. But where we are on this topic right now, Gerald, many people are also afraid of artificial intelligence. We have more and more computing power at our disposal, and in the meantime, no great master in chess is able to defeat the best computer there. And some people now refer to their profession, which is understandable, and that their life and all these things change with it. And the question is, how can we encourage these people? And what is the real strength of human intelligence compared to artificial intelligence? It's always worthwhile to look back a little bit. And in the 60s, maybe even 70s, there were books that were called the naked monkey. We have been made clear that we actually distinguish ourselves from almost nothing of the animals, and that our great feature of expression, which we were so proud of, is best of all our cognitive performance. And then we said, okay, in all other aspects we are actually monkeys, but at least we can think. Better than them. And that was a bit ridiculous. And then we also tried this cognitive, these cognitive skills, because that was our feature of expression compared to the animals. Then we also emphasized that in particular. And at school and at home, in the parents' home and everywhere, we put great emphasis on developing these cognitive skills. And then we invented machines with the help of these cognitive skills, which are now suddenly smarter than we are. So here's my little smartphone, it can remember more than I do, it knows better where I am right now. And when I've lost my way, it leads me back again. So all wonderful things. Orientation in the room. Notability. In the meantime, it also learns how I speak. There's a dictaphone on it. You can translate it into written language, so to speak, what I'm saying here with my dialect. So everything we once believed was the feature of expression of humans, always in this environment of cognitive skills, is now actually such a big frustration again. Things can do it better than we can. And that's why it's so important that we, especially in view of this development of AI, take a look at what actually distinguishes us not only from the animals, but also from these devices. And there is a term that the AI researchers themselves have found, because they have noticed that they are failing at this point with the further development of their artificial intelligence. And this term means machines, i.e. digital devices, have no needs. That's interesting. A machine has no need. Yes, of course it doesn't. But what does that mean? Because if something has no need, it can't develop an idea how it can satisfy this need, which it doesn't have at all. So the whole creativity is impossible. I always have to be programmed, because I don't know what I actually want. And if I don't have a need and I don't even know what I want, then I can't develop the will, i.e. the intentionality, to implement it. And here we are at a point where I would say that those who realize this are not afraid of artificial intelligence. Because it can only go to the point where they perform calculations. It won't go any further. And they can learn to make calculations even more complex. They can also reproduce and simulate neural networks. But they never get to the point where the thing develops a need and from its own inner drive tries to find out how it could reduce its energy expenditure by building up new circuits. Or how it could solve a problem that only occurs on the way. All of this doesn't work. And then I always say, as long as this is the case, then you can pull out the plug at any time as a human being with the danger of artificial intelligence. But what you should actually learn from this is not that, but it would be appropriate for us humans that we put the characteristic of the device that distinguishes us from these machines in the center of our attention and try to raise our children so that they don't become machines and robots. And they can only do this by helping the children to get to know their own needs even better and also to offer them opportunities to learn how they can actually satisfy their living needs. So their joy of discovery, their desire for design, their need for belonging. How they can satisfy this instead of sending them to institutions where they have to suppress this. Where children and later adults are forced to suppress their living needs, these people become more and more similar to computers. In the end, they react like machines. Digital devices. And I'm much more afraid of this. I'm much more afraid of those, let's call them human robots, who no longer have empathy and no longer have feelings and who no longer feel a living need except to execute what they have set in mind as a cognitive idea. And we have come dangerously far on this topic. Yes, on this topic the state of powerlessness. Many people are actually already complaining about it. And in this respect, a question is, from the point of view of a brain researcher, if there is a complaint addiction. A what? A complaint addiction. I sometimes have the impression that we are in an environment where we are constantly complained about, no matter what it is. Now we can try what we said earlier, that human behavior, as long as it hits us, in whatever form, always expresses which solution the brain complains about. What kind of solution is that? If you are willing to think about it a little bit, you would say, he didn't come into the world with that. So he experienced something where it turned out to be advantageous for him when he complained. I don't think I need to say more. What does he want more of? Yes, and then he realized when he complains, he misses the connection. And he finds like-minded people who also complain. And then you have a whole community that all look at themselves as victims and are all in the complaint mode. And then they all feel very comfortable with each other in this complaint mode, because they reinforce each other, have a good sense of belonging. And complaining is their solution. And it's getting interesting how you help them to get out of this stupid solution number. This data highway, as you called it, doesn't dissolve so easily. Because complaining has now become their success strategy. They are now 50 and still complain. They've been doing that for 40 years now. That has become part of their identity. If they couldn't complain anymore, they wouldn't know how to solve the problems of this world for themselves. That's how they get into the complaint mode. And you can't take that away from them. If you come there and say, you're stupid, you always present yourself as a victim and complain, take life into your hands. Then they feel like you're taking away a healing idea from them. The idea they built into their brains that has helped them so far. And if you do that, it's as if you wanted to cut off the other person's arm. And that's how he defends himself. And he finds all kinds of reasons why it's the only right thing to complain. And for him that's a coherent state at the moment. Yes, of course. He has settled well into complaining. But everyone else as well. Even the people who are constantly upset about such complaints. Yes, yes. And think they're smart. That's also complaining. Justice and complaining are comparable. Gerhard, thank you very much. Can I ask you a personal question? Yes, it depends. Okay, we can cut you off as well. No, no. You've been committed for many years for change. And my question is why do you do what you do? What is your personal why? Yes, it takes quite a while until you realize it yourself. And I can say it so clearly now. And it's strange that what accompanies me all my life is that as a little boy I fell in love with the diversity of the living. And I don't think that a previously misguided species is ruining the diversity of the living on this planet in the shortest time. That's what touches me. But now I know that I can't change that. And I want to have at least the feeling that I did everything in my power and in my field of action to change it. And that's a very important sentence. Everything I can do. But I can only do something if I take care of myself and take good care of myself. And that also means that I step back from trying to take care of something and then bring up something. That's almost a state of calmness. Of cheerful calmness. And this cheerful calmness allows me to try out what I can playfully. And I really tried out a lot of things playfully in the last years. And always with the feeling that it doesn't necessarily have to work. But you can always see if it works. And that's a attitude that works extremely well for me. I can only recommend it to everyone else. Sometimes it's not that easy with the playful calmness. And then I always do a... I don't like to give tips, but you could think about it. If you don't have a playful calmness in this hamster wheel that you can find perfectly, it's always possible that a human being remembers that he has two legs. And he can use one leg as a standing leg. With it he earns his money. With it he feeds his family. He does it properly so that it's done. But it's fixed. But if he only uses it to go on a cruise or to explore the world, then he has forgotten what the playful leg is for. The playful leg is not there to kick around, but to try out what else is possible. And then you can stand on one leg and hold the foundation that you need for life. And the other is the beautiful leg with which you try out what else is possible. You have to use your talent and talent in this area. Because everywhere where people are playing, there is no external pressure anymore. But what comes out can come out of them. And that is always very authentic. That is actually true. And that is usually with such a swing that it also succeeds. Then you wonder. In two or three years it can happen that what used to be a playful leg has become a standing leg. And then you can lift the other and give it a new swing and assign this role of the playful leg to it. That is art. If you imagine it like that, it's almost like a dance. A wonderful picture. A playful lightness. And that is the prerequisite for us to finally learn in this state of the present world which is highly deplorable. Dear Gerhard, thank you very much for these inspiring impulses. I wish you good luck, playful lightness and I am looking forward to the further exchange with you. So again, thank you very much for this wonderful conversation. My pleasure, dear Volkmar. And all the best for everyone who belongs to us here.