In the Preface to his book, Dr. Gislason states:

"Human nature is a giant puzzle. During the past thirty years I have been assembling descriptions of key pieces to this puzzle. As a physician- philosopher, I have many vantage points. I allow my vantage point to shift from a detached observer viewing planet earth from the safety of distant space to an intimate and personal discussion of what life is like for me on a daily basis. Often, I am describing a physician’s point of view since I have spent more than 30 years serving in that role. Physicians tend to be practical. To be a good physician you have to focus on immediate problems and seek solutions to health problems that are safe, effective and immediately available. Medical science is vast and eclectic enterprise that changes rapidly. A philosopher is wary of such an unstable, fickle playing field and will avoid getting involved in describing the details of specific problems and their solution, since such specification is likely to change.

A philosopher prefers to work at a Meta level, developing an overview of human events and considering the principles that underlie the specifics, seeking descriptions that are likely to have a more enduring validity. At the same time, contemporary philosophers have to be interested in promoting a more grounded, realistic understanding of human behavior. A human tendency is to hide unpleasant truths and, in their place, tell fanciful stories that distract and mislead. 

Sometimes I am a visiting anthropologist making notes in an urban café. Often, I am a scholar and scientist reviewing the latest findings in biology, medicine and neuroscience. Sometimes, I am concerned about the confusions and misunderstandings so common among my friends, family and patients. At other times, I am a paleontologist and an evolutionary psychologist imagining what life was like on planet earth 100 million years ago or what humans were like 50,000 years ago. Sometimes I am free spirit, a mystic, wandering this planet without profession or social status, an animal among animals, in love with nature and the primal feel of existence.

Human experience follows paths or tendencies that are more or less predictable in their overall form. There are many different kinds of explanations for why we are the way we are and how we manifest the kinds of behavior that we do. As the twenty first century began, we realized that children are born with a rich repertoire of innate programs and tendencies; that human behavior follows basic patterns over the entire planet, regardless of race, nationality, education and social status.

We also recognized that small differences among humans are often more important than similarities; that men’s psyches are innately different from women's psyches; that psychic gender does not always match the gender of the physical body and that, no matter what else is true, both men and women tend to be intolerant, aggressive and are often destructive to each other and to the environments in which they live.

We can count among our important insights that all people are strongly shaped by their genetic inheritance and that the brain is the organ of the mind. Increasingly, some of the smartest and nicest humans understand their relationship to other creatures on planet earth and their dependence on a healthy ecosystem and each other. "

Some basic questions for philosophers are:

What is the Mind ?

How does the Mind work?

What is consciousness?

What is human nature?

What is intelligence?

Where did we come from?

Why are we the way we are?

What is good and what is evil?

Where are we going?

What goals are worthwhile?

Can we re-direct our course?

How do we re-direct our course?