Moving from Training/Taming to Independent Creative Learning: Based on Research of the Brain

Learning is the ability to cope with changes and to understand their interaction with the dynamic body. Animal brains, and specifically the human brain, are developed in such a way to make learning possible. Based on findings from brain research, we can show that this is the primary function of the brain. For survival and energy-saving purposes, the brain is developed in such a way that the learning process is as short as possible, while most energy is devoted to converting the results of learning into automatic activity. The move to automation of learning outcomes is based on mechanisms, which can be used to tame animals, including man. Humans yield most of the time to the processes of self-taming/training of the brain, even empowering them through the Western concept of learning, which idolizes focused narrow-specialization. I will present here findings from brain research and describe the characteristics of Western culture on which these claims are founded, as an expression of the threat to the continuing development of modern human culture due to characteristics which demonstrate a process similar to the cultural degeneration of past civilizations, which at their peak, could not have imagined such a fall to be possible.