VOL.69/2024.04

Special Project

 

[Korean Scholars ①]

The Life of Dr. Park Moon-Ho and the Journey to Finding the Origin of Thought

The Fruits of humanity and the ongoing evolution of our brain that created them all

 

2022.01.03

 

Our brain gives humanity the most curious proposition and infinite task to be solved. Scientists have been taking on countless challenges and attempts to solve this tangled, complex problem, showing various results to humanity through hopeful explorations. Dr. Park Moon-Ho is one of the best brain scientists in Korea, and he has been focused on studying the brain through various attempts combining his rich scientific knowledge and liberal arts. The profound and in-depth stories about our brain narrated by Dr. Park, a natural scientist, provide an opportunity to boost understanding about brain science. The marvelous story of brain science takes an intellectual perspective to track the traits of humanity.

 

The intellectual leading the scientific development of the public spreads a message about our “brain”

 

What stance should the public take when approaching science? Even though parts of our daily life are already related to science, “science” as a subject is still a difficult and distant topic for the general public. Many scientists mull over ways for people to have easier access to it, but no one is sure what the answer is. In this situation, there is an author who is making an innovative contribution to the brain science genre by steadily publishing books about the brain based on research and from the perspective of a natural scientist. Dr. Park Moon-Ho says that the most urgent task is not translating science with soft, easy-to-understand language but is raising the public’s level of scientific knowledge through strict and accurate education. For this, Dr. Park has been leading a class, composed of the general public, with a motto of “scientific development of the public,” while writing popular books about brain science.

 

 

The sensation brought about by Dr. Park Moon-Ho, one of the best intellectuals in the science world, first hit society in 2008, when he published The Brain: The Emergence of Thoughts (Humanist). The book unravels the story about brain science, which was deemed a difficult and complex subject by the general public, through easy-to-understand sentences. It takes the readers on an intriguing exploration crossing 380 million years of time and space, from the birth of the universe and life to movement and senses, memory, feeling, consciousness, and creativity. It covers the thoughts of neurophilosophers, those of postmodern philosophy, and scientific thinking (biology, particle physics, quantum mechanics, relativity, etc.). It finds the origin of what made it possible for humans to “think.” Through this book, Dr. Park Moon-Ho unraveled the long journey of life, which he realized while studying the brain, and the history of the evolution of vertebrates to adapt to environmental changes from the perspective of life and cells.

 

The creation of a new dimension with the insights from a guru in the field of brain science

 

Dr. Park also published a book that helped more readers accumulate scientific knowledge by boosting the delivery and message through pictures. Brain Science in Pictures: A to Z (Humanist) features human consciousness and behavior based on functions and mechanisms of our brain through 600 pictures. A compact book of 5-years-worth of lectures on brain science, it talks about the broad scope of our brain from its structure and functions, to evolution, memory, dream, consciousness, language, and neurotheology, through pictures. The book offers a time for readers to have a deep exploration of our brain through various facts, such as “One neuron is connected to other neurons through thousands to tens of thousands of synapses, and the evolution of the central nervous system can be divided into the instinctive brain of reptiles, the emotional brain of mammals, and the rapidly evolving neocortical brain in humans.” It is a giant book with 784 pages, but with pictures, it lessens the burden of reading and guides the readers to utilize it as a chance to understand our brain.

 

 

Meanwhile, Dr. Park Moon-Ho’s Brain Science Class (Kimmyoung), which helps readers understand the structure and functions of the brain through 240 illustrations showing its mechanism, is also a high-quality book that offers an opportunity to study the brain more deeply. The writer, one of the top experts in brain science, explains the anatomical mechanism of brain functions in detail and introduces how the readers can have a good understanding of them. The book is composed of dense contents ranging from the brain science study methodology to the philosophical level discussion on consciousness and memory. It is not an exaggeration to say that all knowledge of brain science has been compiled into a book that allows you to dig up and understand the brain with a scientific perspective and approach step by step as if exploring the brain.
The brain is evidence of human survival. It talks about life. Dr. Park Moon-Ho also wrote Mechanism of Life (Kimmyoung), where he talks about life phenomenons, which are deeply related to the brain. This book also provides “decisive knowledge” with 236 pictures drawn, synthesized, transformed, or invented by the doctor. He describes important mechanisms of life events at the molecular level, from respiration and metabolism, breakdown and synthesis of glucose molecules, ATP synthesis, the mitochondrial TCA cycle, cytoplasmic glycolysis, and the emergence of life to growth, aging, death, and inheritance.

 

 

Dr. Park Moon-Ho, who is working hard on science education with the public, was a co-chair of the “Reading Community – 100 Books,” where the members read books together and communicate, while continuously publishing books. He is currently running “Park Moon-Ho’s World of Natural Science (www.mhpark.co.kr),” a community where he delivers broader knowledge on science and talks with the members. As an opinion leader expert in natural science, Dr. Park Moon-Ho contributes to making Korea a competitive country. The influential publications of Dr. Park, who is preparing a way for everyone to learn accurate knowledge and use it in society – not limiting science to academic research, are becoming the drivers that lead our society to make positive evolutions.

 

 

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Written by Kim Young-Ihm