Decade of the Mind
Encyclopedia
The Decade of the Mind Project is an international initiative to advance our scientific understanding of how the mind and complex behaviors are related to the activity of human brains. The problem of explaining the mind is so complex as to require "big science" to make real progress. The effort stemmed from concerns in the scientific community that mind
research (as opposed to simply brain research) had received inadequate support relative to its importance in human lives. The Project began with a conference of leading US scientists at George Mason University
in May 2007 which led to The Decade of the Mind Manifesto, published as a letter to the editor in Science Magazine
. The Manifesto called for a new $4B US investment in research across the many disciplines of mind research over the decade from 2012 to 2022. Since the May 2007 meeting, the Decade of the Mind Project has held several other conferences across the United States and is now being internationalized with a conference in Berlin, Germany in September 2009 and a conference planned for Singapore in October 2010.
. The resulting Decade of the Brain
was a well publicized inter-US agency initiative that responded to the declaration. The two lead federal agencies in that initiative were the Library of Congress
and the National Institute of Mental Health
(part of the larger National Institutes of Health
). Although the initiative did not receive the level of funding as the Human Genome Project
, it did serve to catalyze significant advances in our understanding of the brain particularly in the context of brain diseases. The Decade of the Brain project was followed in 2001 by a Decade of Behavior Project that also attempted to bring together scientists, this time to understand how human behavior emerges.
research, in combination with the scientific consensus
that mind
indeed emerges as a result of the activities of the brain, has led to the notion of a new "Decade" project, one dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of mind within the context of neuroscience and psychology. In May 2007, a group of leading scientists met at George Mason University
's Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
to map out a roadmap for the Initiative. The starting point was the earlier Decade of the Brain project http://krasnow.gmu.edu/decadehttp://www.gmu.edu/thinklearn/decade-mind-videos.html. The Decade of the Mind project seeks as much as $4 billion in federal support over the course of the ten year long initiative. The goal is to use the new federal support to jump start advances in our scientific understanding of mind as well as to use that same research to serve as an economic engine for the United States. From an international perspective, the Decade of the Mind project seeks to involve scientists from across the globe in this effort, not only to improve the public health
, but also to create new jobs from the new technologies developed under the Project.
The Decade of the Mind initiative, by necessity, should be trans-disciplinary and multi-agency in its approach. Success will require research that reaches across disparate fields such as cognitive science
, medicine
, neuroscience
, psychology
, mathematics
, engineering
, neurotechnology
and computer science
. Additional important insights will need to come from areas as diverse as systems biology
, cultural anthropology
, social science, robotics
, and automation technology. For these reasons, the Decade of the Mind initiative should focus on these four broad areas:
in Des Moines, Iowa
. The symposium, titled "Emergence of Mind" examined how mind emerges in animals, particularly the great apes
http://www.greatapetrust.org/decadeofthemind. This third symposium included 9 plenary sessions provided by luminaries from their respective fields. Each speaker addressed the general topic of "Consciousness and Mind in Nonhuman Primates", some from the perspective of their experimental work with primates in captivity and others, from their studies of primates conducted in the wild. Additionally, two sessions were devoted to philosophical perspectives on nonhuman consciousness and the evolution of consciousness and mind.
The fourth symposium was held at Santa Ana Reservation, New Mexico
on January 13-15, 2009. The conference was organized by the Sandia National Laboratory. It focused on the emergence of mind in machines. The meeting also focused on the ethical, legal and social implications of new neurotechnologies that might emerge from the Decade Project.
The Decade of the Mind Project became internationalized with a European initiative in Berlin, Germany at a meeting in September 2009, and an Asian Decade of the Mind Project Symposium will kick off in Singapore
in October 2010.
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
research (as opposed to simply brain research) had received inadequate support relative to its importance in human lives. The Project began with a conference of leading US scientists at George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
in May 2007 which led to The Decade of the Mind Manifesto, published as a letter to the editor in Science Magazine
Science Magazine
Science Magazine was a half-hour television show produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1975 to 1979.The show was hosted by geneticist David Suzuki, who previously hosted the daytime youth programme Suzuki On Science...
. The Manifesto called for a new $4B US investment in research across the many disciplines of mind research over the decade from 2012 to 2022. Since the May 2007 meeting, the Decade of the Mind Project has held several other conferences across the United States and is now being internationalized with a conference in Berlin, Germany in September 2009 and a conference planned for Singapore in October 2010.
Background
During the 1990s US President George Herbert Walker Bush declared a decade of research to center on neuroscienceNeuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
. The resulting Decade of the Brain
Decade of the Brain
The Decade of the Brain was a designation for 1990-1999 by U.S. president George H. W. Bush as part of a larger effort involving the Library of Congress and the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health "to enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from...
was a well publicized inter-US agency initiative that responded to the declaration. The two lead federal agencies in that initiative were the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
(part of the larger National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
). Although the initiative did not receive the level of funding as the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
, it did serve to catalyze significant advances in our understanding of the brain particularly in the context of brain diseases. The Decade of the Brain project was followed in 2001 by a Decade of Behavior Project that also attempted to bring together scientists, this time to understand how human behavior emerges.
A new Decade Project
More recent advances in brainBrain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
research, in combination with the scientific consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
that mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
indeed emerges as a result of the activities of the brain, has led to the notion of a new "Decade" project, one dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of mind within the context of neuroscience and psychology. In May 2007, a group of leading scientists met at George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
's Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study brings together researchers from many disciplines to study the phenomenon known as mind. An academic unit of George Mason University, the Institute for Advanced Study also serves as a center for doctoral education in such areas as neuroscience and...
to map out a roadmap for the Initiative. The starting point was the earlier Decade of the Brain project http://krasnow.gmu.edu/decadehttp://www.gmu.edu/thinklearn/decade-mind-videos.html. The Decade of the Mind project seeks as much as $4 billion in federal support over the course of the ten year long initiative. The goal is to use the new federal support to jump start advances in our scientific understanding of mind as well as to use that same research to serve as an economic engine for the United States. From an international perspective, the Decade of the Mind project seeks to involve scientists from across the globe in this effort, not only to improve the public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
, but also to create new jobs from the new technologies developed under the Project.
The Decade of the Mind initiative, by necessity, should be trans-disciplinary and multi-agency in its approach. Success will require research that reaches across disparate fields such as cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, neurotechnology
Neurotechnology
Neurotechnology is any technology that has a fundamental influence on how people understand the brain and various aspects of consciousness, thought, and higher order activities in the brain...
and computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
. Additional important insights will need to come from areas as diverse as systems biology
Systems biology
Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...
, cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
, social science, robotics
Robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...
, and automation technology. For these reasons, the Decade of the Mind initiative should focus on these four broad areas:
- Healing and protecting the mind: This is the notion of improving the public health by ameliorating or curing diseases of the brain that affect the mind. An example of such a disease is Alzheimer's DiseaseAlzheimer's diseaseAlzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. Reducing the burden of such diseases would be a major deliverable for the Project. - Understanding the mind: This aspect of the initiative seeks to understand how the mind actually emerges from brainBrainThe brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
functional activity. Some of the key characteristics of the mind which are still not understood include consciousnessConsciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
, memoryMemoryIn psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
and dreamsDreamDreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
. The mystery of the mind remains one of the biggest scientific challenges for this and future generations. - Enriching the mind: Improving learning outcomes in educationEducationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
is a key component of the initiative. Here the hope is that advances in neuroscience research can be applied to K-20 schooling to create a more educated future workforceWorkforceThe workforce is the labour pool in employment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, country, state, etc. The term generally excludes the employers or management, and implies those involved in...
better able to compete for quality jobs. - Modeling the mind: A key approach to understanding the mind is to model it either analytically or using computers. Such models of mind may facilitate the creation of new hypotheses which can then be tested in the laboratory or clinic. Modeling the mind may also allow for the creation of new applications, technologies and inventions.
The first Decade of the Mind symposium
The Decade of the Mind symposium was well-covered by the news media and led to a manifesto that was published in the journal Science authored by the symposium participants.Follow-on to the Decade of the Mind symposium
Following the symposium, decision-makers from multiple US agencies assembled to react to the Manifesto and to imagine how their agencies might participate in the proposed Decade of the Mind initiative (Decade of the Mind II). A further follow-on scientific conference was held May 7-9, 2008 at the Great Ape TrustGreat Ape Trust
The Great Ape Trust is a ape sanctuary and language study in Des Moines, Iowa, that houses orangutans and bonobos. The sanctuary opened to primates on September 28, 2004. The mission of the Great Ape Trust is studying language, culture, intelligence, and tool use in primates...
in Des Moines, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. The symposium, titled "Emergence of Mind" examined how mind emerges in animals, particularly the great apes
Great Apes
Great Apes may refer to*Great apes, species in the biological family Hominidae, including humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans*Great Apes , a 1997 novel by Will Self...
http://www.greatapetrust.org/decadeofthemind. This third symposium included 9 plenary sessions provided by luminaries from their respective fields. Each speaker addressed the general topic of "Consciousness and Mind in Nonhuman Primates", some from the perspective of their experimental work with primates in captivity and others, from their studies of primates conducted in the wild. Additionally, two sessions were devoted to philosophical perspectives on nonhuman consciousness and the evolution of consciousness and mind.
The fourth symposium was held at Santa Ana Reservation, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
on January 13-15, 2009. The conference was organized by the Sandia National Laboratory. It focused on the emergence of mind in machines. The meeting also focused on the ethical, legal and social implications of new neurotechnologies that might emerge from the Decade Project.
The Decade of the Mind Project became internationalized with a European initiative in Berlin, Germany at a meeting in September 2009, and an Asian Decade of the Mind Project Symposium will kick off in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
in October 2010.