The Future of the Brain

by Evander Lomke on July 16, 2009 2:40 pm

Will there be an Einstein for the workings of the brain in our century?

The 21st century may become known as “The Century of the Brain.” The American Mental Health Foundation holds out hope that our century will do for “the psyche” what the 20th century did for physics. How counterintuitive and strange the world described by Einstein in the early part of the previous century seems, even to this day. Space is not a container. Light bends. Mass changes with speed. Will our times yield such scientific insights with respect to the brain (and mind)? If an Einstein comes along every several hundred years, we have quite a wait. But perhaps in our time some genius, perhaps only at the beginning of her or his life right now, will find that elegant explanation for all that is counter-intuitive, yet true, in the internal, emotional life of us all; the strange landscape that is undoubtedly filled with all the wonders we might only guess at but as yet cannot imagine. Or, dare I say, “wrap our heads around”?

“Three basic factors in daily existence are utterly incomprehensible to us: time, because it is eternal; space, because it is infinite; and our consciousness, because it defies all explanation.” (Stefan de Schill)