Gerald Wolf

The BrainGod Gerald Wolf

Gottwin Thomas Wisweh, a professor of history with an expiring employment contract, is annoyed with his institute director. Looking for revenge, he leafs through a news magazine. Page after page of party disputes, economic problems, religiously motivated terrorism and then: "God, a fantasy, a product of our brain?" The article is about the triumph of brain research, about new insights into our soul generator, about the God module. When Thomas Wisweh puts the booklet aside, he has no idea that fate is about to shuffle its cards. And Aileen shuffles. She's a bookseller, intelligent, attractive. She knows how to take her Tommy. There's a parallel story, that of Hilmar. He is convinced that the professor is controlled by Satan and is in charge of turning people away from God. Parallels only intersect at infinity, they say. In this story, they intersect even before that. Thomas and his colleagues stand for real science. In the reality of scientific life, some of the representatives seem to forget (or want to ignore) that they are committed to doubt in their search for truth. Neuroscientists may be particularly susceptible to this. Nevertheless, such "authorities" are often useful by challenging to contradiction and thus, rather unintentionally, in the end serve to gain knowledge. A novel from university life and the madness and irony of our own thinking.