Thank-you-note and PostScript for the Berkeley Brain Network Conference from Walter Freeman

In a postscript to the Berkeley Conference on Brain Network Dynamics on 26-27 January 2007, I write to thank Vinod, Robert, Steve and Sarah, for conceiving, organizing and carrying through this wonderful gathering, and all of you who participated in making this a most extraordinary event. In my 50-odd years of scientific meetings there has never been a program with such consistently high quality of presentations that all were focused on the topic at hand. Too many times I have heard speakers say in effect, "I don't know what this meeting is about, but here is what I do." In this event every speaker was aware of the central theme and spoke to that theme. Clearly there was a guiding thread provided by my own work and career, yet more to the point, there was manifested, as the reports came in, a convergence of understanding concerning the various parts of our elephant, so that the shape of the beast could emerge in discussions and comments.

In my view we are witnessing, no, creating and participating in a historic paradigm shift that will likely supplant the weakening and stagnating paradigms of the neural network, feature detector, and AI "logical calculus immanent in neural firings" with a new paradigm that centers on the operation of the whole brain as a starting point for investigation, not the distant end point that we have envisioned for the past half century. The harmony and mutual understanding that emerged in our deliberations is a testimony that this Conference is and will be seen as a turning point in the paradigm shift, marking for historians a watershed when the sea change developed the cohesion, breadth and momentum necessary for our modus operandi to shoulder its place into the world neuroscientific arena.

I am reminded of a poem by W. B. Yeats (The Second Coming):

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. …

.

Surely some revelation is at hand; …

And what rough beast,, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

The reminder is that a paradigm shift can loose a "blood-dimmed tide" in which "the ceremony of innocence is drowned". This tide in scientific circles takes the form of rejected manuscripts, grant applications 'approved but not funded', and acrimonious attacks in oral sessions. Scientists rightly hold to conflicting beliefs with passionate intensity. Now I speak to you young people, whose presence gave our Conference the feeling of a “neuroscientific Woodstock”, in Vitiello’s phrase. The tide is in our favor. In recognition of the historic nature of this event I invite you all to its tenth anniversary in 2017 on the occasion of my 90th birthday.

Walter