Hi Rich, Yes, I think disease and aging research is also near right up there in importance. Solving hunger, better economics and social systems around the world... all that - we should be spending much more money on all this, also, before many of the other temporary things we spend lots and lots of money on. Thanks for mentioning this! But, it is my opinion that our scientific mastery of the brain, and the discovery of the phenomenal natures of the universe it utilizes, will enable us to do a much quicker end run around social ills, poverty, disease and aging - in that our 'spirits' (as defined and predicted by [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 Representational Qualia Theory] will finally be able to escape from these finite, mortal and spiritually isolated prison walls that are our skulls, into a shared phenomenal world that us surely much more than just cause and effect behavior. In other words the world will finally spiritually 'wake up' in a phenomenally shared immortal heavenly way. Simply curing disease and aging is only one small thing and won't get us anywhere near all this (i.e. it won't make us trillions of times smarter and more spiritual...) , in my opinion. As usual, if anyone feels different, I'd love to know this and why, concisely and quantitatively. Brent Allsop

"We believe that the pursuit of a scientific explanation for the existence of mind and consciousness in the physical universe, is by far the most important endeavor of today." is a very strong claim. Tackling disease and ageing is more important. Our lack of understanding of consciousness doesn't cause mass suffering and immense expense. What do you think?