Zack Lynch is author of The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World (St. Martin's Press, July 2009).
If you are interested in why I became interested in neurotechnology and how I think it will impact our future, then you should read this 13-page interview that appears in this month's Neofiles. For me, it all began on a trip to India when I was 13...
The NeuroAge: Zack Lynch In Conversation With R.U. Sirius
NEOFILES: How did you get involved in brain research and brain science?
ZACK LYNCH: Well, my background is in evolutionary biology and economics and my wife is a neuroscientist. My brother, who is six years older than I am, was a major influence on me. He is a genetist and has recently starting a company called Sound Pharmaceuticals to restore hearing to the deaf. I did my graduate work in economic geography, which is the historical study of global political economy. Economic geographers try to understand why economies rise and fall where they do.
My passion for the future started when I was thirteen and my mother took me to India. The six weeks I spent at an ashram there changed my life. We were getting in a cab in New Delhi going home. I looked up to my right and I saw this sixty-story building being built. And there was all this scaffolding build out of random wood tied together with random rope and ties of every nature you could possibly think of. And these guys were up 100 feet (plus or minus 35 feet in either direction). And I’m going “Gosh … man along with all the Zebu (cows) … that is a tough way to make a living. Here were these glorious buildings being built along unpaved streets with people living in cardboard boxes with their Zebu (cows). I felt very fortunate to be in the world that I’d been born into.
Well, we got on the 747 flying back to San Francisco and stopped off in Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the airport there, but it’s all marble with Rolex clocks on the walls with diamonds …. And that’s when I realized that I’m already dead. I thought, when those people find out what these people have … the level of disparity, no matter whether or not it’s fair, those people are going to kill these people. So I’ve spent my entire life trying to figure out how, in my own particular way, I could accelerate the project of the peaceful coexistence of humanity.
Here is the link to the full interview:
(http://www.life-enhancement.com/neofiles/default.asp?id=34)
R.U. Sirius has also interviewed many other individuals that I greatly respect, including:
Steven Johnson in "Hey, Look at My Brain"
Mark Pesce in "Chaos as a Creative Space"
Robert Anton Wilson in "Hang the Tsar"
Wrye Sententia in "Is It Your Brain?"
Cory Doctorow in "Digital Utopia and its Flaws"
David Pearce in "Feeling Groovy, Forever"
Susan Blakemore in "I Mine Meme"
David Pescovitz in "Tools for Brains"
Blogging will be light over the next week as I am off to the 2004 Gruter Institute conference. If it is anything like the 2003 meeting (and it will be) then get ready for some very interesting topics over the following months. Thank you for your continued interest in Brain Waves.
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