He walked on, and they walked with him again, as if he had laid out a thread that one has to follow.
“We,” said Dr. AuDHS, “have two systems in our head. Not anatomically, not as two organs, but as two modes of operation. One is fast. Automatic. It switches on like light when you press the switch. It is the system that protects you when something bangs. It is the system that lets you breathe automatically. It is also the system that tells you immediately: that person over there doesn’t like me.”
Hans Castorp thought of the war, of noises, of flinching. Yes. System.
“And the other one?” asked Morgenstern.
“The other one is slow,” said Dr. AuDHS. “It is the system that only comes when you call it. It takes effort. It makes you tired. It is, if you will, the actual thinker.”
He stopped briefly, looked at them, and in his gaze there was now something that one could describe as pedagogical strictness.
“The fast system,” he said, “is a notoriously bad statistician.”
Hans Castorp had to smile involuntarily, because the sentence was so dry, so unexpectedly funny in the green.
“It can add,” Dr. AuDHS continued. “It can compare sums. It can say: more, less, danger, safe. But it can hardly form averages. It cannot multiply well. It cannot divide. And of roots or logarithms – forgive me – it has absolutely no idea. It is a monkey in a suit. And that is not an insult. That is a description.”
Morgenstern looked at him.
“And what does that have to do with the donkey?” he asked.
Dr. AuDHS smiled.
“Everything,” he said. “The donkey is system one. He thinks fast. He feels: I am being attacked. So I have to win. He doesn’t need truth. He needs security. And he gets security by renaming reality.”
Hans Castorp thought of the word “normally high”. Also a renaming. A reality that thereby seems less bad and at the same time becomes worse because it gives birth to tasks.
“The tiger,” said Dr. AuDHS, “has system two. He can think slowly. He can say: wait. I check. I stay with the green. But he lets himself be provoked. He lets system one take the wheel. He gets hot. He wants to be right. And suddenly he is no longer tiger, but…”
“…also donkey,” said Hans Castorp.
“Exactly,” said Dr. AuDHS. “He becomes a donkey with better arguments. And that is the tragic comedy of many debates.”
Morgenstern shook his head as if he were annoyed with himself.
“And the lion?” he asked.
“The lion,” said Dr. AuDHS, “is system two plus power. He sees: the truth is green. But he also sees: it is not worth it to play truth here. So he plays order. He says to the donkey: you may believe. And he says to the tiger: you will be quiet. Not because you are wrong, but because you are disturbing.”
They walked a while in silence, and the silence was not empty. It was the silence in which one tries to activate system two and notices how exhausting that is.
Hans Castorp suddenly felt – physically, not mentally – how much this slow thinking is related to training. The training too was not hard because it was complicated; it was hard because it went against the desire to stop. The body wanted to give in, the mind wanted to take a shortcut. And one had to say, with a kind of quiet strictness: two more.
“The problem,” said Dr. AuDHS finally, “is: we only switch on system two when we believe that it is worth it.”
“And when is it worth it?” asked Morgenstern.
Dr. AuDHS looked at him.
“That is the question,” he said. “And here, quite unromantically, life comes into play. You cannot do everything with system two. You would go crazy. You would get tired. You would have no joy anymore. For system one is also joy: immediate, impulsive, sensual. You need both. But…”
He paused briefly, and this pause was like a comma that one has to take seriously.
“…you have to recognize when you are letting a donkey pull you into an argument that eats up your time.”
Morgenstern exhaled.
“So: don’t argue,” he said.
“Not with donkeys,” corrected Dr. AuDHS. “And not when it’s not about something that really matters. And now, Mr. Morgenstern, we come to your leeches.”
