In music, intermezzi [singular: intermezzo] are pieces that are complete in themselves and that at the same time fit organically between the more substantive parts of a larger composition.
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Creating the book on Seeking Understanding: The Lifelong Pursuit to Build the Scientific Mind has been a five-year odyssey for me, which started in 2013 and will end when, in 2019, the book appears in print. I return from the journey enriched and enlightened, thanks to its authors, who accepted to meet the challenge and accompanied me on the journey. My travel log, which begins next, reflects on the journey. It consists of 17 intermezzi, placed between the various chapters. Taken together with this brief introduction, they should be considered a ‘distributed chapter.’
We all had to learn, Muriel and I perhaps the most, as she and I started out with preconceptions based on the outcome of five consecutive Building the Scientific Mind (BtSM) colloquia, held every second year since 2005. We would have made our task much easier had we invited only authors from among the key participants in those colloquia. But we didn’t. Of the 21 authors who contributed to this book, 11 were entirely new to the issues at hand. The diversity of the author team thus enhanced has been exciting and enriching.
I hope that my personal notes in this travel log help you to make yourself part of the voyage as you read the various chapters. I also hope that it helps you to get a feel for how this book is the product of complex growth and evolution, rather than linear planning. We kept adding authors to the book as we saw it gradually take shape, while opportunities arose to more fully represent the richness of the scientific mind. It’s the reason why it took five years for the book to come to fruition. This evolutionary process should not stop with the book. We sincerely hope that appropriation by our readers of the ideas presented in it—and in the accompanying series of video conversations—will lead to improving our work and enhanced recognition of the importance of caring for the scientific mind, its awakening in every newly born human being, and its growth along the lifespan and across the generations.
The collection of 17 intermezzi interspersed between the various chapters is conceived in such a way that, taken together, and read as a separate document, the thoughts expressed in them represent a picture that is more than the simple sum of its parts. As such it should underline the integral nature of the book. The book as a whole presents a vision that transcends the individual chapters.