What is it going to take for us to grow as a species? For us to begin to understand our brains, our bodies, our minds, our souls? I believe that we require a growth of understanding across traditional disciplinary lines the likes of which we cannot even begin to comprehend. The feeble advances made over the last 20 years in neurology and psychiatry are only just the beginning. When was the last time we had a true advance in the treatment of schizophrenia for example? Probably with the introduction of risperdal in the early 90s. Since then there have been no significant changes or advances in the treatment of this devastating disease, despite the frequent re-packagings and re-issuings that have certainly supported the coffers of corporate big pharma. I believe that to truly advance in the treatment of human emotional and mental suffering, we are going to need advances in the realms of statistical modeling, computer simulation, ethics and spirituality beyond anything we can currently imagine. Take the simplest unit of psychological analysis: stimulus and response. What do we really know about neuro-psychological stimulus and response? Not much. Probably someone some day someone will have to volunteer to have a nano-scopic neuron surfing telemetry unit injected into their brain to help us gather truly illuminating data about the stimulus response event. And I suspect the volume of data collected will be so massive as to fuse the circuits of the most sophisticated computer storage device currently in use and will require stochastic heuristics more advanced than the brainiest of our most academically nerdy nerds can even dream of. And of course this will challenge us ethically and spiritually in ways we cannot conceive. The human mind peering into itself in ways unimaginable: What will we find? How will we have to grow as a species, a community, a collectivity? Will we be ready for that?
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