Do we live in a world dominated by logical thinking and acting? Are our decisions and our behaviour always independent and of brilliant logic? Why not, actually?
According to the basic world view of physics, all atoms (including those that make up our bodies, including our brains) follow the laws of nature and thus the present moment is the natural consequence of the previous moment. The previous moment is the consequence of the moment before and so on, all the way back to the Big Bang. One remark about Big Bang, Evolution und Belief
The observations of astrophysics, such as the expansion of the universe in all directions or the cosmic background radiation, are hard to ignore. The conclusion that the universe must have begun with a special and explosive event is therefore understandable. Whether this event came about by chance out of nothing, or whether it was an act of creation by a higher power, is an entirely different question - less a question of physics than of personal belief, which is of course up to you.
The same applies to the question of whether the origin of life and the evolution of species were already predetermined by the properties of the universe, or whether they are the expression of guiding intervention by a higher power. However, the mechanisms of evolution and the descent of species from each other have been demonstrated in so many ways that there is little doubt about the way evolution has taken place and is taking place.
For most of the nearly 14 billion years that the universe has existed, according to current doctrine, there has been little doubt about this thesis. It is only since evolution One remark about Big Bang, Evolution und Belief
The observations of astrophysics, such as the expansion of the universe in all directions or the cosmic background radiation, are hard to ignore. The conclusion that the universe must have begun with a special and explosive event is therefore understandable. Whether this event came about by chance out of nothing, or whether it was an act of creation by a higher power, is an entirely different question - less a question of physics than of personal belief, which is of course up to you.
The same applies to the question of whether the origin of life and the evolution of species were already predetermined by the properties of the universe, or whether they are the expression of guiding intervention by a higher power. However, the mechanisms of evolution and the descent of species from each other have been demonstrated in so many ways that there is little doubt about the way evolution has taken place and is taking place.
has produced the ancestors of man from the apes in the last few million years, and from them modern man in the last few hundred thousand years, that the question of the influence of the free will of each human being on further development on Earth has arisen.
If we take a brief look at the lives of our ancestors 20,000 years ago, we see wandering hunter-gatherers living in hordes of about 20 people. The challenge for them was to catch enough food to survive and not to be preyed upon by large wild animals. Danger to live was commonplace and surviving alone was very difficult. So they had to get along with the other members of the horde.
Today, of course, we live on a completely different cultural and technological level. But what has changed in human biology since then? The answer is clear: Not much - because evolution takes much longer.
What does that mean for our modern live today?
- Even though many of us today have an abundance of food, our brains are biologically trained to use the body's resources sparingly. For example, unused muscle mass is quickly broken down and recycled - even if we don't want it to. Even the connections between individual nerve cells in the brain are constantly being strengthened or weakened, depending on what we do more or less often.
For the same reason, our brains work largely unconsciously and as automatically as possible, because conscious thinking takes much more energy. Conscious thinking only seems to be the main part because - as the name suggests - it is the part we are consciously aware of. How the resulting effects such as primingPriming
This is the effect that external stimuli (words, images, smells) have an impact on our thoughts and actions by triggering unconscious associations that push our thoughts and emotions in a particular direction. This happens all the time and by chance, but it can also be used deliberately for manipulation, for example in advertising - but not only there. You can avoid this through critical reflection on your own thoughts and actions.
You can also - for example, in the context of coaching - deliberately prime yourself to support your own success (some even claim to be able to create success in this way. I would not go that far. Priming helps, but it takes more than that 😉).
, the availability heuristicAvailability heuristic
This is about overestimating the likelihood of events that we often hear about or that are particularly memorable to us.
An example: In a study by Fischhoff, Slovic and Lichtenstein, test persons were asked whether they thought strokes or accidents were the more frequent cause of death. 80% of the test persons rated accidental death as more likely, although statistically strokes cause twice as many deaths as all accidents combined.
or the halo effectHalo effect
This cognitive distortion concerns our view of others. For example, we often quickly judge a person we find nice and likeable to be more trustworthy and competent than another person we don't like - even though we don't really have any information about either person's trustworthiness or competence. Our brain simply saves energy by intuitively adding missing information to existing information or simplifying the complexity of the observation.
First impressions also have a strong halo effect, which is nicely illustrated by the following experiment by Solomon Asch: he asked his test subjects to judge two people on the basis of a description of six characteristics:
Imagine Alan: he is intelligent and hard-working, as well as impulsive and critical but also stubborn and envious.
Now imagine Ben: he is envious and stubborn, as well as critical and impulsive but also hard-working and intelligent.
Most of the test persons then had a better opinion of Alan than of Ben - even though the six characteristics are identical except for the order in which they are mentioned.
affect our economic actions can be read, for example, in the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. (no link, no commission, just a tip 😉)
- Our brains tend to focus more on potential dangers and negative experiences than on what we can be happy about. This is not the ideal condition for feeling happy in life. But this is because for our ancestors, danger usually meant real danger to life, and those who paid more attention to it had a better chance of survival and therefore produced more offspring. That is why we are descended from them and not from the others.
Although many of us are rarely exposed to real danger to life these days, our brains still react in the same way. Unfortunately, the media have also realised this and are exploiting this effect for their own economic interests. Thus, more negative or disturbing stories are often chosen for the news and presented as drastically as possible, because they (unconsciously) make the viewer/listener/reader more likely to continue with the topic - i.e. to consume the next issue again. This focus on the negative in daily reporting, together with the inherited overweighting of the negative, can really drag down our spirits. So even when we are objectively doing well, it takes a conscious effort to keep focusing our attention on the positive so that we also feel good.
- The risk of being cast out of the horde was also an acute life-threatening danger for our ancestors. At the same time, a higher social status in the horde led to more offspring. Therefore, the needs for belonging and for recognition are deeply anchored in our brain. These (and other) basic needs often unconsciously influence our motivation, hormone levels and emotions, which in turn influence our behaviour. In retrospect, we often rationalise our behaviour to ourselves and others - "We behaved this way because..." - but quite often these justifications are only part of the truth.
For the same reason, our brains work largely unconsciously and as automatically as possible, because conscious thinking takes much more energy. Conscious thinking only seems to be the main part because - as the name suggests - it is the part we are consciously aware of. How the resulting effects such as primingPriming
This is the effect that external stimuli (words, images, smells) have an impact on our thoughts and actions by triggering unconscious associations that push our thoughts and emotions in a particular direction. This happens all the time and by chance, but it can also be used deliberately for manipulation, for example in advertising - but not only there. You can avoid this through critical reflection on your own thoughts and actions.
You can also - for example, in the context of coaching - deliberately prime yourself to support your own success (some even claim to be able to create success in this way. I would not go that far. Priming helps, but it takes more than that 😉). , the availability heuristicAvailability heuristic
This is about overestimating the likelihood of events that we often hear about or that are particularly memorable to us.
An example: In a study by Fischhoff, Slovic and Lichtenstein, test persons were asked whether they thought strokes or accidents were the more frequent cause of death. 80% of the test persons rated accidental death as more likely, although statistically strokes cause twice as many deaths as all accidents combined. or the halo effectHalo effect
This cognitive distortion concerns our view of others. For example, we often quickly judge a person we find nice and likeable to be more trustworthy and competent than another person we don't like - even though we don't really have any information about either person's trustworthiness or competence. Our brain simply saves energy by intuitively adding missing information to existing information or simplifying the complexity of the observation.
First impressions also have a strong halo effect, which is nicely illustrated by the following experiment by Solomon Asch: he asked his test subjects to judge two people on the basis of a description of six characteristics:
Imagine Alan: he is intelligent and hard-working, as well as impulsive and critical but also stubborn and envious.
Now imagine Ben: he is envious and stubborn, as well as critical and impulsive but also hard-working and intelligent.
Most of the test persons then had a better opinion of Alan than of Ben - even though the six characteristics are identical except for the order in which they are mentioned. affect our economic actions can be read, for example, in the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. (no link, no commission, just a tip 😉)
Although many of us are rarely exposed to real danger to life these days, our brains still react in the same way. Unfortunately, the media have also realised this and are exploiting this effect for their own economic interests. Thus, more negative or disturbing stories are often chosen for the news and presented as drastically as possible, because they (unconsciously) make the viewer/listener/reader more likely to continue with the topic - i.e. to consume the next issue again. This focus on the negative in daily reporting, together with the inherited overweighting of the negative, can really drag down our spirits. So even when we are objectively doing well, it takes a conscious effort to keep focusing our attention on the positive so that we also feel good.