The next decade in neuroscience

Wired asked some neural specialists, “What will transform our understanding of the brain in the next decade?”

They didn’t ask me. (Pout.)

If they had, I think this would have been my response – partly cheeky, partly serious. My answer to “What will transform our understanding of the brain in the next decade?”:

Nothing.

This won’t be due to lack of effort, but due to a lack of a coherent theory of mind. How brains make minds is what people want to understand. Understanding neural circuitry or synaptic transmission better won’t transform how most people think of brains if they don’t illuminate mental states. The next decade will see large accumulations of facts waiting for a theory to unify them. I don’t think that theory is going to come next decade.

Tangent: Of the answers Wired did get, I’m astonished that António Damásio thinks this decade, new information “will strike the last blow against the mind (brain)/body problem.” As far as I can see, “the mind/body problem” has been, is, and will continue to be, to neuroscience what creationism is to evolution: the zombie idea that nothing will kill.