Gerald Hüther - wie uns Verwicklungen als Einzelne und als Gesellschaft krank machen

Today in the podcast, this time with us as a guest, Professor Gerhard Hütter, a neurobiologist and certainly one of the best-known brain researchers in the German-speaking area. He regularly writes textbooks that become best-sellers, holds lectures that are welcome to be heard, organizes congresses, advises regions and politicians. Have fun with today's podcast. Dear Professor Hütter, thank you very much for taking the time for this podcast. The last three, four, five days have been full of anticipation. And whenever I told you that we were recording the podcast, there was such a joyful atmosphere in the room, because many are simply happy that you are taking the time for this conversation. So thank you very much. My pleasure. I would like to focus on health and illness. You have of course already written a book on the subject and done many other things that many of us have read. I would like to start with the topic of health and illness and then just go a little further. I think the easiest questions are often the most difficult. So I'll start with a very easy and at the same time difficult question. Do you have a definition of illness and or health in mind that you could present so comfortably? Illness is an expression of a confusion. And health is when you free yourself from such confusions. That means we all run the risk of getting entangled in entangled patterns in the course of life. This also applies to physical processes. So if you sit in front of the computer all day, your back muscles constantly call up, that this is simply no longer so favorable and that you actually have to do something else, a little exercise and so on. And most people don't hear that anymore. Over the course of their lives, they have learned to overhear these signals coming from their own body. In other words, in terms of brain technology, this area is inhibited in which these messages arrive at the top. And then they continue, even though it always calls back there. And the poor back has to help itself because no one helps it. And then he does what he can. He tightens the fascia and tries to stabilize this posture, so to speak, with the result that after five hours they can no longer stand up. And if they do that for a few years, they can go to the doctor. And then he takes a X-ray and then they see what happened to their spine. And then the doctor says, look, now the spine is worn out. But it is not worn out, it has found its solution. And that's because they left it alone. So now they are sick and they are not sick at the spine, but they got sick because they got entangled. And here is the kind of entanglement in it. Namely, there are a lot of people who don't hear the signals from their own body anymore, because what they do and what they do is so important to them. And what is very important to most people is that they, this is a basic need of all of us, with which we already come to the world, that they are connected to other people. And if this need cannot be justified, if you are not really deep inside and know how to connect with others, so you could also say that if you are not sure that you are accepted by others as you are, then you have to make an effort and strive for this recognition. And then you have to accomplish important things and then you have to sit at the computer all day and then you don't hear the signals from your own body anymore. And this is the entanglement. And I think this is not only the case with back pain, but we could also go through this for many other bodily functions. And we are not yet in the area that is perhaps the worst, because you are also entangled mentally. So you are not only physically ill, but also mentally in a state in which you are not feeling well. And then you don't feel well, you don't like yourself anymore, and then you don't like other people anymore, and then the misery takes its course. And then you live in difficult relationships, you don't know how to get out of them, you have never learned how it can be when you really get together with other people so that you can finally be the way you are, without fear of being excluded from them. And the rest is then persistent for many people and hamster wheel. And then it comes from one entanglement to the next, and then people would actually have to free themselves from these entanglements. So develop. This is now a beautiful metaphor for what development actually means. That you find out how you have entangled yourself. And this applies to us, not only to every single person who has somehow experienced this. So we both don't have to assume anything. We also went through this socialization process in which one or the other entanglement arose in us. But this also applies to a whole society. A whole society can also entangle itself hopelessly. A nice example is our idea of health and illness. And that if someone is sick, he can be repaired again. This is a pretty stupid entanglement. It comes from the last century, when we still focused our thinking on the way the machines work. And then we believed that if something is closed, the part has to be replaced. The joint or the hip or the knee. Or if everything doesn't work properly anymore, it has to be lubricated better. And then the food supplements or whatever comes in. And if it can't be stopped at all, then you have to keep the machine running by making some silencers or something so that you don't hear the clatter anymore. And these are the many attempts to get through with sleeping pills, with sedatives and all these other unpleasant things. That's why a conversation about health and illness is always a conversation about the state of our current society. And there is no such thing as a society. There are always people who form this society. And in the end, it's a conversation about the way we deal with each other. And I think that's where we are at the core. And that's pretty complicated, how we deal with each other. Also how we guide our children into life, the criteria, what seems important to us. Very questionable. And it is also remarkable that a country like ours brings up infinitely high costs for the health system. And the people are not healthier than the people in other countries, where there is almost no money for health. If we now look away from such situations where malaria or any other infectious diseases cannot be treated because the drugs are not enough. These are not diseases that can be treated with the usual methods of medicine. I mean, in the Western world, especially all these chronic diseases that we see and that are infinitely expensive, where even the doctors don't know what to do. I deal a bit with Tibetan medicine. They have this premise that when we are born and have more or less luck, we will get old, get sick and die. So it is part of our system that the body is finite. And then there is this saying, health is not a state, but a mental attitude, by Thomas von Aquin. That's wonderful. That's a beautiful saying, isn't it? I love it very much. I heard it for the first time at a congress. And since then I have been telling it to everyone and I always listen to the reflections of the other person. But I think this saying is very fitting. And I think it has different levels. The individual, but also the society. But there is a perspective. And I keep seeing people. It's a bit different. They brought these nuns as examples of dementia. And you have images in your brain that show dementia, and yet the nuns are not demented. So there are people who are very sick and still don't suffer from it. From the point of view of brain research, there is certainly a lot to say about the saying, health is not a state, but a mental attitude. Yes, I believe that what convinces people who have not dealt with it so intensively, the fastest, is the contact with other people who are very sick in their eyes or have a severe disability in their life. And you have to talk to them. There is a lot where we would say, my God, this is no longer a real life, in this state. And when you talk to them, they are totally happy. They would also resist us saying, you are sick. And you can push that a little further and ask, does something that is part of a normal life actually belong in the field of illness? Or do we do something about an illness for reasons that you have to look at in more detail? It is also possible to make a lot of money with diseases and the treatment of diseases. So we also make certain conditions through which people usually go to illnesses. Yes, because we pursue a different intention with it. Namely, to make profits. A typical example is now a little longer lasting grief after the catalog of psychiatric diseases that is being created again and again in the USA is turned into an illness. So that goes in the direction of depression and needs treatment. And with that, many people who complain about the loss of a loved one and are also really sad that he is no longer there. And what is also completely justified to be sad about it, they are now treated as sick. Entrepreneurial pregnancy, that used to be quite normal that women get children today. As if they would have to be treated all the time so that it goes well. Difficult. We have arrived in another area which is also a great entanglement. And that is the possibility to make a lot of money with diseases or with people who are ill. I thought maybe I could ask you, although this is of course a complex topic, the huge range of psychopharmacists that many people in the West take with them from insomnia, panic attacks, depression, whatever. How is your access? Are there still people that you can support in the development of the disease? Can this still make sense? Are the symptoms only leveled and does it take away the potential for recovery? Where do you see this? I worked for years in a research laboratory for a psychiatric clinic. And there I also learned that there are certain psychological exceptions where you have to be happy that you have a medicine that brings this person back to peace. So in psychological exceptions it can be quite helpful if you don't get anywhere else. In any case, it may be I don't know exactly but maybe better than if you put it in a forced bag and tie it up and put it in a rubber cell. But in the long run everyone who prescribes such medicines would have to assume that the medicine changes something in the brain that leads to the symptom possibly if it's all right what's on the packaging that the symptom improves. So let's take a child who is very clumsy and can't control impulses. Of course, the medication of methylphenidate or ritalin leads to the child being still for a while and the father suddenly wonders that the son actually does it when he tells him to put on his jacket. And that's why people are often happy that the child works better again. I'll stay with the children now. Of course, you can do the same with the adults. Only with the children it becomes particularly clear that if the child gets this substance because it can't control its impulses and the substance leads to it controlling its impulses how should this child ever learn from his own strength to control his impulses if the medicine does it? And then you notice the whole range of psychopharmacological treatments that are in there. It may be that they help but they don't contribute to the human being returning to his own home. And that's what we wish that people are able with certain psychological conditions that may be uncomfortable for themselves and then also for other people that they learn how to control their emotions. This is called affect control in the broadest sense. And that's a special art that you don't let yourself get carried away by your feelings and your impulses and then become a victim of your own emotional states. But we also try with children that we create conditions under which the person the child can learn his impulses or what it brings to the surface to control or regulate so that the child suddenly realizes that it's not the victim of his own impulses but can step back and see what's going on can look for the causes and try to explain it to other people and that's how you learn how to do it so that you don't need Ritalin. But you can't learn it with Ritalin. That's the answer to your question. It's more difficult. I have less to do with children than with adults and I often ask them I think you can transfer it to the children who get Ritalin What can they do for themselves to get well again? The patients where I feel like I can't help them anymore say I don't know I'm sitting at the kitchen table and I'm afraid or I'm scared Now you said affect control maybe you have some tricks I think it's also a confusion that we think there are simple tricks or exercises that you can do you said or we worked it out it's a mental attitude and an inner attitude you can't achieve with tricks and that's why you have to and these attitudes these inner attitudes exist in the course of life through experience not through books or lessons or training programs but you have to have the opportunity to experience how nice it is to enjoy life or how great it is if you don't have to control everything and just let it go and how wonderful it is that you talk to your boss when you have a problem instead of going home and drinking these are all achievements that you could achieve but you don't need a tip but it's a question of inner attitude and the inner attitude towards yourself I don't care how you call it but I worked out one aspect in a book it's the question that you could also say it's beneath my dignity that I do such things like drinking and shouting at others and pulling others over the table and making others an object of my interest that's beneath my dignity and then you have to ask yourself what your dignity should be and I think most people know that but they don't feel like doing anything because in the moment when they would be aware of their own dignity they couldn't do much but what is being done by them in the moment so that they are liked by others or gain recognition or what other problems they deal with that means we hurt our own dignity so that in the world things don't work the way we wanted them to and what's even more beautiful than that with dignity because that has a lot to do with the head that you could also try to anchor another attitude in the brain that you make this experience how it is when I start to deal with myself more lovingly it can be enchanting it can be very good when I don't go to the bakery every time to get a sweet bun or a piece of cake and it can also be that I like it when I eat at places that I like and with people that I don't like instead of eating at a restaurant to fill my stomach it could also be for me an act of liberation and development when in the evening I turn off these devices with which I normally spend my evening and rather try it with my partner then we would have time for each other then we would have or I would have the feeling that I am the creator of my own life and that would help me a lot that I fill this second need with which we all walk around the need for autonomy and my own possibilities my god, if in the world I can't do everything as I would like then I can at least do it with myself and do everything that is good for me and in order to find out what is good for me I have to listen to myself and ask myself what needs I have deep inside that actually want to be lived and then I connect with myself and with my living needs and with that the second basic need is also filled and then I am no longer a needy person who always wants something from others but then the Tibetans would say then I live in abundance and out of abundance and then I am someone and that is probably the most beautiful experience then I am someone who can give something to others and not always have something from others that is an act of self-liberation that most people haven't experienced and that is highly attractive but you have to at least try to start with that and the beginning is banal no trick, but simply these two basic needs that we brought into the world if they are not to be filled with the others in real life then at least with myself so to ask myself again and again if what I am doing now could be more loving to myself then I would automatically be more loving to others then I would get completely different feedback from others also from my own children or from my life partners and it could be that living together suddenly becomes much easier and much more pleasant and above all that I am no longer sick so often because I keep getting angry that it is not all the way I imagine it to be and that also applies to the fear when I am sitting at the table and I have this fear again and again of course I can take anxiolytics and then I have the feeling that the fear is gone but it is only due to the chemicals and their effect in the brain temporarily stopped and then of course it comes back and probably even worse than before then I need more and more of that stuff and that is certainly not the right solution maybe this is a way to help people to go just to be a bit more loving to deal with yourself I believe that this would have a pretty dramatic effect not only on each individual but also on the whole society we have learned a lot because you have to in order to understand the state you have to see the world in the context of this present society and this is a performance and consumption society and in order to sell all these products to the people who are produced here you need to go through the city you see that nobody needs all of this but in order for people to think about what they need you have to make people as unhappy as possible and the unhappier they are the less comfortable they feel the more they are ready to compensate this negative feeling by going shopping as they call it and unhappy would be if they didn't exist in these two basic needs so if they feel that in a community with others they belong and are accepted and if they at work and in everything they do don't have the feeling that they are the creator but that they are the victim of instructions and guidelines this makes people sick and then it is difficult to deal with yourself if you don't get out of these social constraints as an individual this healing process or this development process starts with each individual this is a decision that you can make that you don't want to go on like this I just wanted to say that I am regularly in the tibetan cultural circle mostly in north india because the tibetans can move freely in exile I was there again last month and I think one of the reasons is that the tibetan people have less in the outside world but in the end they deal more lovingly with themselves and with their family and with their bigger structure and this is almost contagious if you are in this culture with people who don't even try but just live then you can't help being contagious can also be being contagious in this case like a snowball effect it is contagious I think that learning joy is an important factor and they have been saying this for a long time but probably even more if the teachers make it joyful but it is not even joyful it is a deep knowledge that some people have and this is beautiful but these are also teachers or adults who like themselves this is the core most people don't like themselves they don't like themselves because they do something that they believe they have to do and then they identify with it and then there is an incoherence an inner contradiction that needs a lot of energy and you get sick and this would be much more pleasant if people could like themselves and I assume that the Tibetans don't have a big problem with liking themselves because they are not forced in such a culture to bend in this way so that they are fair to others so you can bring a human culture to where people treat each other more lovingly because this tradition goes on from one generation to the next but you can bring a human culture to where the incoherence spreads more and more and people are less and less careful with themselves and of course also with others and with nature and if you bring this to the point and ask what does it have to do with what some people do and others do then you quickly get to the realization that our western system is so successful because we have very strict and organized working processes that are organized by hierarchies so at the top there is one who says where it goes and at the bottom they do it all and this is an incredible engine that sits in a society that constantly ensures that the members of such a society don't work terribly hard because it's always crap if you sit at the bottom and work hard but you want to go up and up it's only about performance and even more about discoveries and inventions that you make that others can use and then you have a society in which infinitely much is discovered and invented and in which you can wage wars but also difficult projects like the irrigation of the desert through the Nile or the construction of the pyramids or whatever, you get everything the Tibetans didn't get all of it but it wasn't important to them to do something like that and in the end a culture emerges that is technologically recognized and that others also in efficiency and impact think of others without salvation they don't stand a chance so loving is something that connects people that helps them to develop their potential but this loving relationship doesn't lead to a culture that emerges that technology, science and thus also power and influence of this society can secure and that at the moment in the West everything collapses that is the sign of this big transformation that everyone is talking about it is obvious that we have the hierarchy since the 6th century here in the West and it is obvious that if 10.000 years people invent something new and bring it into the world and change the world in the end you have a volatile world as they call it in the economy a constantly changing world that can't be controlled by a hierarchical system of order with all these changes that happen constantly and faster a time in which we have to learn that what helped us 10.000 years in the West to be influential and powerful that it doesn't work anymore and it is clear what happens that some people like to have their old hierarchical structures we want our Kaiser Wilhelm or Mr. Trump or Mr. Orban or whatever but it doesn't work they can take over the power but they can't control this complex structure and then this strange situation that we are experiencing that you experience that the economy would have liked to if the leadership does what it has to do to take over and withdraw so that the employees take over then they realize that the employees are not willing and often not able to take over it is too exhausting it is much better to be told what to do what we are experiencing worldwide in our western culture probably only if we manage people in school growing up and later living together to have the experience that they are obedient citizens this obedience as the Kanz says the self-blaming is the suffering of our western world and many people suffer from this like objects and look for a niche where they can satisfy something and then in today's world it is very successful and then they identify with the nonsense they do and still think they are happy in this somewhat crazy world you do not become obedient you only get into a state of increasing stupidity and I have the impression that we are entering a development in which what the Tibetans call the worst cliche there can be namely ignorance that it spreads like a disease people apparently have no interest to look behind the facade and to think what kind of strife is going on and what kind of world they are in ignorance is really in Tibetan medicine there are 84.000 diseases with 84.000 mentalities working against us and if you condense the main cause for all these diseases the Tibetans call it daktsin marikpa marikpa is the knowledge marikpa is the negation and daktsin is the self-grasping you think you are too important and the most exciting all this in our language is characterized by the term stupidity yes, that would be that is the translation and if you ask what stupidity is the opposite of stupidity is the wisdom for the Tibetans there is relative and absolute knowledge the relative knowledge is the capital of Austria is Vienna and 3 plus 3 is a bit less than 7 and then there is the absolute knowledge and those are the more essential things and depending on that is always exciting if you ask a teacher what wisdom means there are different answers but one is the principle of recognition of cause and effect and the other is they call it the divine potential but it comes quite close to self-love to know how to deal with yourself the Tibetans have but exciting this distinction between relative and absolute knowledge where our schools propagate the relative knowledge and teach the absolute knowledge in my world of thought there is the one knowledge that is used by us to describe the phenomena of this world that is the relative knowledge and then there is that focuses on understanding that there are hidden mechanisms and principles behind the phenomena for example at some point I realized that the brain is regulated in its activity in its way of working because it has to meet the second principle of thermodynamics and no Tibetan would come to that but that is absolute knowledge it is simply not possible that a living system shapes the relationships of its components so unfavorably that too much energy is used because that leads after the second principle of thermodynamics that for the maintenance of the system the necessary energy is no longer available because you consume more than you have we are now talking about the collapse of our western society and then the system flies apart and then the second principle of thermodynamics says nothing more than that all structures strive to distribute the energy contained in them equally in the world and for the brain that means that if it still wants to function to some extent it has to be focused on to maintain the energy consumption of functions and structures as little as possible that is background knowledge and you don't see that but you see that people for example don't like to think or that they like to sit in front of the TV and that they always want to make themselves comfortable that is the expression of the second principle of thermodynamics and the way in which the brain manages that the energy consumption short-term solutions for the brain it doesn't matter the high energy consumption that you still had when you had this terrible argument with your partner that has to go now and it would be nice if you could solve it in a different way but some people take the bottle and drink it empty and then there is coherence in the brain and then they don't know anymore that they had an argument and they don't know anymore that they have a partner because they are so drunk and that is also true for the brain so the main cause of the energy consumption is limited long-term it is of course stupid long-term you become a drunkard I developed this theory for myself but my thoughts are that we are always thinking we are always busy to think and of course you can watch TV but I have the feeling that you can decide what you think what and how you think it is a good possibility to think good things to think constructive things to prepare for a podcast to write a book to think lovingly of others so that you can decide freely what we do I don't know how to say it in the second sentence in the end it is also energy-saving if you say if I drink the schnapps I have peace but tomorrow it will be much worse that is where I say to myself I don't take the short-term solution but I take the long-term better energy-saving solution so that I don't fall into this short-term solution you can do that but only someone will do that who in the course of his life was allowed to experience that this is possible in a society where constant immediate satisfaction of needs is put in the center hardly anyone has the opportunity to say no, not now I will wait or I won't buy it I will wait until I get to the point to learn if I need it this all contradicts the growth thought and the consumption thought the system the system built on growth performance and consumption would collapse immediately if people would start to have such experiences and basically the system ensures that they don't have such experiences but if a couple knows such an idea they are actually enemies of the system and they question everything and they don't participate everywhere and they don't let themselves be pulled over the table and they don't let themselves be manipulated they have their own opinion and they can't use such a system, they are then excluded whether they are then excluded as a corona denier or as a Putin supporter or climate denier there is at the moment a wonderful movement in this society that immediately if you don't see it like everyone else you are then excluded this leads to a great incoherence with the one who is suddenly put in the corner and then he has to think about how he wants to do it and how he wants to deal with it so that it becomes energy-saving again one possibility is that you pull in the tail and return to the herd and say, excuse me, mea culpa I didn't want that and the other possibility is that you fight the herd and both are not healthy so it's difficult but it suddenly explains what we are experiencing at the moment and the solution? the solution can as we discussed earlier is that I don't try to change other people but I try to shape my own life so that I am the designer of my life and that this doesn't work in some areas doesn't matter but if I am aware that I am the subordinate of my boss then I can accept it for this time I go there let myself be commanded but I don't try to act senselessly it just costs a lot of energy but I think about how I can become an entrepreneur so that I don't have to work for it so I look for a solution which is cheaper but you can only do that if you feel comfortable but if you let's take a terrible example if you as a brain researcher and as a professor at a university started to feel comfortable even though you had to hurt some of your deepest ideals and sometimes even your own dignity in order to get into this position then you identified yourself that it was right that you won't allow it anymore that it is questioned you don't question it yourself and if someone comes and says actually you have a lot of wonderful talents and in this brain researcher job you can't even develop them then the person who became a professor for neurobiology will deny it because he will claim that he would have developed better than everyone else he is identified with what he became with his solution which he found and which means in this system I find recognition when I excel and when in some area I bring it to special performances that's all I have Do these trios think, act, feel which are sort of identical only at the time of death? No, I think it was wrongly thought because we with this unity of thinking, feeling and acting already come to the world and when you look at small children then you have to say they also have it with them it is all one thinking, feeling, acting when you see how they are happy or how they are taken care of when something doesn't work then you know that it is all one and it is actually a very questionable cultural performance when we bring each other to separate it again and again so that you don't have it together anymore and that happens to us in this culture in which we live inevitably so that we can only hope that with age when we increasingly leave these processes we succeed again as a child I was able to restore a unity in me and sometimes you see that it is called age-wisdom it is no longer about having the right and it is no longer about claiming your position and keeping your possessions and working hard and recognizing others but they slowly come back to themselves find themselves as they are and are also totally fine and can say to themselves ok, I have worked hard in life and some things I managed and some things I didn't and the most beautiful thing is that these older people as grandparents can deal with their children in a completely different way they are their grandchildren than the parents and when they were able to do it as parents themselves they have to be able to find their way into this society the grandmothers and the grandpas well, not all of them but some grandpas and grandmas don't need that anymore and they are loved by the children because the children realize that they are not the object of their intentions goals, wishes, regulations and measures of these grandparents and their own parents still feel that and that they go to the right education institutions where they are constantly made the object it's good when they meet someone who doesn't do that but it's more of an exception because for that this, as the Tibetans call it this ability to see things a little more relaxed and to recognize the hidden behind the phenomena that for example in every person even in every child there is something that you can like, that you can love in everyone there is something and before I get excited about what he does wrong I could also focus on what I like about him because then I would know then this other person would also feel that I like her I don't like everything she does but I do like her because she has this part of her that I like so much and so you could also try to approach other people by not looking for what doesn't suit them but by looking for what you may be so stupid about them may like you are already three times grandfather if I'm correct are there still goals, wishes that you have set in your role as grandfather? no not at all maybe one of these very relieving moments that I would have wished at the age of 18 that I stop chasing my own vision because then you can't live your life anymore but then you are a victim of your own vision and your goal vision and with that you are entangled in your goal vision and some don't come out but then we have now drawn a very nice arc absolutely, exactly thank you very much for such an extensive, beautiful and inspiring conversation thank you for sharing your wisdom with us it's not wisdom it's just yes, it's true I wouldn't have been able to put it like that at the age of 50 but I believe that if we could help each other and show each other that young people are able to develop this ability and to anchor it in themselves namely that they ask themselves is what I am doing here also loving towards me and is what I am doing here suitable to carry on my own vision of what makes up my dignity and to implement this vision in practice and then on all levels something completely different would come out I thank you I wish you all the best for listening to us also thank you very much and if you can start something with it I would be happy and otherwise you have the button to turn it off all the best