 The Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse, he won the Nobel Prize in 1946. It is his very first book, and now it was published exactly 100 years ago, in 1990. Just after the end of World War I. It's about a boy growing up in a time when obeying the authority and doing what they're told to do is all that matters. So we're here at the TEDx conference here in Copenhagen, and who are you? I'm Axel Hoening. I work at the university teaching history of philosophy, history of science. I was invited to speak about forgotten knowledge of the inner voice of the diamond within. Did you start 400 years before Jesus? Yes, we started with Socrates, yes. Are we reinventing everything they already knew everything back then, or they already thought the same thoughts we have now? I think they thought some of the same thoughts, but they also have thoughts and feelings and expressions that we have forgotten. We have focused on the rational part of it, of rationality, but they have a deeper understanding of the deepness of human nature. They could express that so we can, in a way, rediscover what has been lost. And it's treasures to rediscover this, right? It's fascinating work that you do. Yes, it's precious, it's also hard work, but of course, many people today in history of philosophy, history of science, we have this area called rejected knowledge of forgotten history. Rejected? Rejected knowledge, forgotten history. Sometimes in history other people say, hey, what you talked about, that's not true, we have the truth. Listen to what we say. So, you know history is a battlefield. Does humanity sometimes self-destruct? Like, they reach an unbelievable beauty, and then somehow it goes back into, like, the Middle Ages, and it goes back into bad stuff? I'll just say, things changed all the time. And I think we're in a big change right now, because this new feeling of the globe that we're living in, the blue planet is alive, and we can feel that, identify that we are connected to it, and they knew that 2,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago. They had philosophies about the connection to the earth, to the ground. It was an underground movement in the Middle Ages, in Renaissance, up to early modern times, German romanticism. And this is a new area in academic studies, to realize that there's so many things we have forgotten. And of course you cannot go back, but the knowledge of this can help us to go forward, what we need from now on. I'm convinced of that. Would it be awesome to go back and talk with these guys from 2,000 years ago? What would you say? Or you don't have anything more to add? Who would win in the debates between you and the secretists? I think this is an ongoing dialogue. That's important. You can't say they were right, we are wrong. Or we are right or they were wrong. It's a dialogue with history. I mean history is a part of our presence now. History is not only what happened in the past. History is alive in ourselves. What has been forgotten has to be rediscovered. Because we only have been to space recently. We only know stuff like this before it was kind of mysterious. So does that make us very different? It gives us an opportunity to watch our world from another point of view. And that makes a difference. Many astronauts speak about this changing of their view of being at home in this world. That's the point of my speech. We have been looking to the sky. Imagine everything possible there. Now we can see from the space into this globe and we can see this is a magnificent hole we live in. One of my biggest passions is to see humanity go to Mars. I think we should have as a goal, we should go to Mars. I think it's important for science, but maybe it's also important for philosophy. I don't think so. Don't forget that going to Mars as scientists say today and astronauts speak about when we reach Mars and further on it will no longer be humans. We will be changed. We are humans because we are on this planet Earth. If we travel to other places it will not be humans like us. We were transformed during this journey. So we will be like Earthlings plus? We don't know. We simply don't know. But that just changes us just to go to Mars? It will change the individuals, yes. It will enlighten us in some way or is there any way to know that? I don't think so. This is a great discussion. And what's important about history is to have a better future, right? Is that what people study history? Is that a basic question? I think history is not only history. History is in a way a life in ourselves.