I Guess Introductions Are In Order

I suppose I should introduce myself. My Name is Jeremy Wain Hirschberg. I am currently one of two interns working for Michael Laine at the LiftPort Group. My fellow intern, Griffin Pontius, was gracious enough to make his first blog post an introduction of himself to the greater community of LiftPort followers. Me, on the other hand, got a little too excited about writing “content” for the blog that I posted a few before letting any of you know where they were coming form. Well, a little about me is that I spent my young childhood in the bay area of California before my family moved to New York City right before I was to start High School. I graduated High School in 2013 and came out to Tacoma Washington to attend the University of Puget Sound. For those of you who happened to read my first blog post know that I studied psychology, neuroscience and biology and just recently graduated this Spring.

I got involved with the LiftPort Group just shortly after I graduated and couldn’t be more excited to be working on such a monumental project and pushing the frontiers of science. That’s what really intrigues me; pushing the boundaries of what is known. That’s why I studied neuroscience and why I plan to pursue a career in understanding the human brain (if we don’t build an elevator on the moon, of course). The human brain is the last true frontier of the human body. I say this not because there are not things we still need to learn about other aspects of the human body, but because the brain is still so shrouded in mystery, so unknown to us, that it is consistently thought of as having a supernatural element to it; a mind or soul of some sort that has no physical basis. As a neuroscientist, I fundamentally disagree, however, it remains that countless individuals hold such a vast spectrum of beliefs about the brain that they characterize our ignorance about the brain as a collective. I truly do not mean to belittle or pronounce naivety on any belief contrary to my own, I fully believe that everyone has the right to live their life through whatever lens they deem best for themselves, but I cannot find examples within the human body that share the same variety and spiritual nature as the beliefs held throughout the world about the brain. Even the heart, which has historically been an organ that housed some form of spiritual entity such as a soul, or is often cited as being the location at which emotion is felt, has lost some of the physically transcending qualities once ascribed to it as more has been learned about how it actually functions within the body.

I tend to get a little carried away when I talk about the brain, but the same thing happens when I get into talking about any frontier of knowledge. Imagining the possibilities of discovery and uncovering the mysteries of physical are the cornerstones of science and the pinnacles of inquiry. Advancement happens exponentially, yet time moves so slowly relative to a human life scale, that we begin to feel comfortable within the environment around us and do not see the extent to which progression is taking place. It is taking place now. We are on a technological frontier that will make countless examples of science fiction into a reality. Drones will rule the skies, body parts and organs will be able to be printed, robotic body parts will be common, technology will be integrated into our neural networks, and we will have an elevator on the moon. The world is changing and I am going to be a part of that.
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​- Jeremy Wain Hirschberg