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The spirit is a subject in which everyone is interested. Society too is now seeking an abundance of spirit. But what is this spirit? From the perspective of biohistory, I donÕt think spirit is something to be discovered by simplifying it as a function of the brain and studying only the brain, but its connection with Freud and Jung also presents difficulties. What we are drawn to is ecological psychology. DarwinÕs experiment with the earthworm as described by Hosoda means inevitably leads us to believe that the earthworm thinksÑan amusing and novel idea. Just what you would expect from Darwin. Dr. Kuratani summarized the meaning of the environment from his vast knowledge and deep thought about generation and evolution. The Dialogue with Dr. Sasaki, who brought ecological psychology to Japan and is a leader in the field, contains many hints about ways of thought from extremely commonplace examples such as "putting on socks". Dr. Asada's robot and Dr. Matsumura's bat have the same objective of using that which they obtain from the environment to create behavior. They give one the sense that they will become connected in the future. As of now, however, the children of the bat are winning. Continuing from the story of Dr. Hanafusa of the previous issue, we would like to learn a lot from the human drama of Dr. Ishizaka and his wife, who were long active in research overseas and who conducted outstanding research. (Keiko Nakamura) |
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