Anyone who wants to unravel the mystery of the human brain encounters company

Werner Vogd
In its popular variants, brain research is competing with the goal of unraveling the last secrets of the human being. But couldn't the situation be exactly the other way around? Wouldn't it be possible and, in view of the current state of research, more likely that neuroscientific research, the more it advances, will encounter a new mystery - namely that brain, psyche and communication are inextricably intertwined? What unites brains and social systems is a common problem of reference: contingency and indeterminacy, and with it: transcendence in meaning. Both have to find an answer how to deal with a principally unpredictable world and need each other to build temporary stable states. Feelings, language, rationality, but also consciousness and freedom of will are thus not to be found in the brain, but to be understood relationally. They lie in between. This raises the question, what does this mean for the understanding of ourselves and our society?

Werner Vogd, Univ.-Prof. Dr. hum. biol. heads the Sociology Department at the University of Witten/Herdecke, where he is particularly concerned with the self- and world relations in treatment of the sick, psychotherapy and spiritual-religious training. Another field of research is the question of the significance of artificial intelligences for our future experience and actions. In addition to sociological systems theory, the work of cyberneticists Gregory Bateson, Heinz v. Foerster, and biologists Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco Varela are of importance to him. He has published numerous books, including "Brain and Society," "Worlds without Reason," "The Practice of Emptiness," "On the Sociology of Organized Treatment of the Sick," "Self and World Relations," "Therapeutic Arrangements in the Hospital for the Mentally Retarded," and "Decision-Making in Hospital Management."