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Chapter I: Uniqueness of the Human Mind >> Preface

Preface

Dear Reader,

Just over 30 years ago in a small Crimean resort town on the Black Sea, I accidentally overheard a conversation between a few older kids. One of the boys was telling stories about the power of the mind that can move small objects and read other peoples’ thoughts. I was an imaginative nine year old, looking for a challenge. That serendipitous encounter has put me on a life-long journey in the field of human mind research. I still don’t know if or how people read other peoples’ thoughts, but I have learned a great deal about the mind.

As an undergraduate student, I was trained in Astrophysics at the Technical University of Saint Petersburg, Russia, under the Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Dr. Zhores Alferov. At that time I hypothesized that mental images have physical properties that can be studied with scientific methods. I was looking for a substrate where mental images could be represented and decided that the visual cortex in the brain was the most likely target. I proposed that the cortical activation pattern during mental visualization of an object may be similar to the cortical activation pattern generated by visual examination of the physical object. My first public lecture on the subject occurred in 1990. Despite warm reception of the theory, I did not follow up with a publication. Rather, I decided to continue my education in Neuroscience and Medicine. I moved to Boston and received two more degrees: MS in Biomedical Engineering and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Boston University. My doctoral thesis concerned synaptic transmission and short-term memory.

Through years of undergraduate and graduate training I was driven by a question of the physical representation of mental images. I kept researching the subject after graduate school when I co-founded several successful start-up companies. At every possibility I discussed the ideas of mental imagery with friends and acquaintances - both scientists and non-scientists. I learned that the subject of the human mind is of interest to many people. My listeners were fascinated by our discussions and encouraged me to compile the ideas in a book. I have done just that. I gave myself a sabbatical as a present for my 40^th birthday and compiled this book.

I have written the book in a language accessible to a wide audience. The book does not require any in-depth knowledge of neuroscience, psychology, physics or any other science. The goal of this book is to present an investigation of the human mind on a psychological, evolutionary, and neuronal level. I hope the book will further stimulate discussions about the most exciting questions in the world: How do we think? Who are we? What makes us so different from all the other animals on the planet Earth? What was the process that created the human mind? Is this process unique or can it be repeated on other planets?

I have to share my greatest appreciation for my teachers: Dr. Jen-Wei Lin who introduced me to Experimental Neurophysiology, Dr. Raymond Murphy, who mentored me in Medicine over a decade at Stethographics, Dr. Efim Levin, who mentored me in Physics, Dr. Sergei Pavlovich Preobrazensky, who trained me in Mathematics, and many others. I have to thank my friends and colleagues for numerous discussions of the subject and invaluable critique of the ideas. I’d like to especially notice the contributions of Mikhail Tselman, Dr. Maria K. Houtchens, Dr. Fred Wasserman, Rita Rozenblum, Dr. Ilya Pevzner, Dr. Maria Vilenchik, Edward Khokhlovich, Alex Ganelis, Gennadiy Vaysman, and my wife Olga Vyshedskaya.  I am indebted to Rita Rozenblum and Dr. Raymond Murphy for scrupulous editing of the book and I have to thank Yulia Dumov and Olga Vyshedskaya for illustrating and compiling this book.

What makes a human search for answers? I think it is the possibility to ask questions and to imagine the answers in one’s mind. This book is about the uniqueness of the human mind, its evolution and its underlying neuronal organization.

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Dedication:

To all the people who use their imagination to succeed…