Amsterdam 750
Dialogue on Amsterdam's future
On 27 October 2025, Amsterdam will be 750 years old. And the city is celebrating it big!
The goal: a city that buzzes like never before!
This is a great time to reflect together. We celebrate what we have achieved in 750 years and look ahead to the future. What will Amsterdam look like if we continue like this, and what will the major social and ecological challenges be like then? What will we celebrate when Amsterdam is 1000 years old?
The current problems have been created by our way of life, our thinking, beliefs and perception of life. And we cannot solve our current problems with the same thinking that created them. To change that, we need new stories of a desirable, hopeful and vibrant future.
We invite you to join us in a dialogue about the essence of life, 'what is a good life?' The City of Amsterdam facilitates Socratic Design Dialogues to explore this collectively, philosophically. Based on the collective wisdom emerging from the dialogues, participants design narrative and imaginative narratives. These new narratives will be presented during the Future Ten Days in June 2025. The Future Ten Days will take place during the anniversary year. Together, we will look ahead to the future of Amsterdam.
You can participate in this dialogue by registering for free by sending an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., with the subject 'Amsterdam 1000 years'.
Write in the email who you are and what your motivation is to join this dialogue. Space is limited, we will choose from the applications. Hopefully you will be included and you will automatically receive a confirmation from us. (Perhaps we can organise another meeting at a later date with the people who cannot attend this time). It promises to be a special evening with interesting changemakers & pioneers who want to contribute to a better world. Hope to see you then!
1. How is it that we can fly to the moon but not know who we are ourselves?
Is it that we know who we are? Do we even know who the other person is? We see three layers, three levels, in our being. And this stratification into three parts can be named in several ways. Body, personal and culture. Or body, mind and soul. Or head, heart and hands. We want harmony in this stratification. What is yourself? That which moves me, or zest for life. Or, that which wants to be born in you. You get to know yourself through the human experience, where there is harmony in the three levels. In today's West, this harmony is out of balance, there is much emphasis on the head, reason and knowledge. When you know who you are, you are closer to your intuition.
And when these three levels are in harmony then this harmony connects to something higher. A kind of inspiration, or spiritual, or even divine. God is a sphere, the centre is everywhere, but the circumference is nowhere. And so I am god. In other words, the drop is in the sea, the sea is in the drop. And in that aforementioned intuition, we find the connection with that higher, that divine.
But in today's age, it is mostly about reason. We are distracted and blocked and we experience discomfort when it is not rational. The challenge is to get other values and find space. Space to renew and spiritual spaces. Space to meet the other in you. Space for everyone. We are often egoists now, but we need to widen the circle, we need to de-bound. Unbounded from ourselves and unbounded from compartmentalised initiatives. Initiatives should not only be about economics but also about other domains. There are traditions and rituals where a lot comes together at the same time, de-bordered. Like the horse races in Siena, a tradition where many common values come together at the same time.
If we say that who you are yourself is what wants to be born in you, and if that were facilitated in Amsterdam, it would be unifying. That would be a beacon of light in these times. That Amsterdam is a place where people see each other and care about each other. Amsterdam has a heart in which the whole world can fit.
2. Who are we as human beings and what norms and values are universal?
As human beings, we strive to understand who we are and what norms and values are universal. We use our thinking to find answers, share information and clarify our thoughts to achieve heightened awareness. There is a collective consciousness where everything is connected, but sometimes we are so identified with our ego that we do not see this connection. People have different levels of consciousness, but who we are as individuals may not be so important because we identify too much with our ego. We can see ourselves from an observer's perspective that connects us to each other as humanity. Some collective values include giving life at child birth, acting instinctively, feeling together from sympathy and treating others as we want to be treated ourselves. Understanding each other's level of consciousness through information exchange is essential for empathy and connection. We are at a turning point where we move from survival to cohabitation, living through emotions such as pain and anger and bringing others closer to us. To love is to understand and to understand is to love.
3. How do you really connect with each other?
Contact is vital. To live a good life, you need people. It enriches having contact with people. We learn from it.
But we need to look carefully at the types of contact
- There is a sliding scale of yes-contact and no-contact.
- A lot of digital contact seems to be mostly no-contact.
What we look for in contact;
- Living: To live is to have contact. Having physical contact.
- Connection: recognising yourself in the other
- Searching together for the answer to a question.
- Being able to understand each other.
Conditions for good contact are:
- The physical environment: does it promote or prevent contact?
- A vulnerable and open attitude: being open to contact
- Attunement: being aware of the other person.
- Giving: the opportunity to share
But also no contact: moments of loneliness so that you get back in touch with yourself. Understanding your own person is a prerequisite for meaningful contact with the other.
There is also contact on a soul level: we are connected to each other, but we don't always want to let that sink in. That we are already one. But yes, it may be easier said than done.
4. What legacy do we collectively want to leave behind for Amsterdam and the world in 250 years?
Amsterdam has been attractive for centuries. Attractive because of it’s creativity, openness in thinking, progressiveness. What is that magic that created this? And can we bring back that magic?
For better and worse, Amsterdam went around the world and built up the city from what they found in other places and cultures. We showed the world how to live: stock exchange, LBTQ rights, drugs, but also free thinking that brought philosophers like Spinoza.
The incentives are messed up in a way that we're optimizing for individual gain in so many ways and not paying a lot of attention to magic and to spiritual development.
It should be possible to again be a fronteer in the world and show a good way of living for the coming centuries. This time not via colonialism, but in raising of consciousness.
Teach people that it is possible to live through some of this pain and reconnect with spiritual things that matter and that are much deeper than that which we're experiencing here physically.
Want to know more or read about the theory? That can be found on Openresearch. If you really want to go in depth, you can also read this book: Socratic Design: How We Self-Design Existence.
We would like to give concrete possibilities for a follow-up. A follow-up means having more Socratic Design dialogues together or forming new narratives based on the building blocks from the dialogues. Think of several sessions and also exploring personal and cultural presuppositions together. Are you interested and willing to make time for this? Then send us an email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
You can also contact us at this email address for any other questions or comments.
Thank you very much!
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)