The Riddle: Where Ideas Come From and How to Have Better Ones

Chapter 8. DISTANTLY RELATED Connections

Albert Einstein lost his mind. Actually, he didn't lose it; we did—like a sock in a dryer. Well, it wasn't technically lost; it simply went missing for several years following his death. In 1955, Princeton Hospital pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey performed an autopsy on Einstein's remains and, without Einstein's prior permission, removed his brain and kept it. He claimed to have taken the specimen in order to perform medical research on it. Subsequently Harvey lost his job and his medical license and became an operator of a plastics extruding machine. Although he took Einstein's brain, he didn't keep it to himself. He shared pieces of it with a few scientists: neuronauts interested in the biology of genius.

I refer to as neuronauts all those who are trained to pilot, navigate, or participate as crew members in the exploration of crevasses of the brain. Over the coming decades, adventures in neuronautical engineering will undoubtedly unlock many of the intractable mysteries of the mind, among them, the moment of creative insight (in fact, to some degree, it already has been unlocked). The increasing relevance of neuroscience to life's mysteries is evident in the considerable growth in membership of the Society for Neuroscience, a nonprofit organization whose membership includes basic scientists and physicians who study the brain and nervous system. The organization has grown from 500 members in 1969 to over 37,500 members today and is now ...