Epilogue

Abstract

The outside is always an inside. —LE CORBUSIER1 It’s what’s inside that counts. —CUBESMART (SUBWAY AD) All enquiry and all learning is but recollection. —SOCRATES IN PLATO’S MENO 1. Le Corbusier (1923). I did not aim to write a perfect book—just a story good enough that the reader can understand my views and challenge them. My goal was not so much to convince but to expose the problems and highlight my offered solutions. Perfection and precise solutions will have to wait for numerous experiments to be performed and reported in detail in scientific journals. I analyzed how an undefined and unagreed-upon terminology, which we inherited from our pre-neuroscience ancestors and never questioned, has become a roadblock to progress. The neuronal mechanisms of invented terms with ill-defined content are hard to discover. Such conceptual confusion is perhaps the primary reason why “my scientist” could not explain to me my pig friend’s cognitive abilities (see the Preface). This message is especially important today, when newly invented terms are again popping up like mushrooms after a rain. I do not insist that my inside-out framework is right or the only way to go, but I hope I presented enough evidence in this book to convince the attentive reader that the outside-in strategy has reached its limits in neuroscience research....