Zwischen Algorithmus und Seele

Patrick Becker and Winfried Schmidt
Zwischen Algorithmus und Seele. Ein neues Denken für Mensch, Kultur und Gesellschaft
Herder publishing house (Freiburg), 2025
ISBN: 978-3-451-02520-4
312 pages (hardcover)
35 EUR

Theologian Patrick Becker and physicist Winfried Schmidt offer a profound analysis of contemporary society by focussing on long-term effective paradigms and putting a functional view of the world and humanity to the test: Their core thesis is that our modern world view is characterised by the 19th century's classical understanding of physics, which has not only led to a loss of religious belief in the afterlife, but also to a one-sided, truncated understanding of rationality and a functional view of humanity. This is how the authors explain, among other things, the optimism about progress that dominates in the West and is currently evident in expectations of salvation from AI. However, the point of the book is that by referring back to the findings of modern natural sciences, a different world view can be established that overcomes functional narrow-mindedness, ascribes a qualitative intrinsic value to the human mind and culture in general and opens up deeper perspectives on meaning.

The authors
Patrick Becker is Professor of Fundamental Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt. He deals with the worldview of modern societies, in particular analysing the influence of the natural sciences.

Dr Winfried Schmidt works as an independent software developer in the fields of machine control, robotics and AI and deals with philosophical questions arising from the explanatory gap between classical physics and quantum physics.