Having begun this volume with an imaginary voyage back to
1900, I'd like to conclude by taking a speculative voyage for-
ward to the year 2013. That year will mark the thirtieth anni-
versary of the publication of Frames of mind, and, as it happens, the time
when I am scheduled to retire.Should work continue on the theory and
the practices of multiple intelligences, what might one expect to observe
on that occasion?

Without question, neuroscientists will have established far more firm
knowledge about the organization and development of the nervous
system. After years of observing mental processes as they actually occur
in the living brain, they will be able to describe the neural structures that
are entailed in the conduct of various intellectual activities; they will be
able to indicate the extent to which these activities are actually indepen-
dent of one another; and they will know to what extent individuals who
are exceptional performers in one or another intellectual realm actually
exhibit neural processes that differ from those exhibited by less extraor-
dinary individuals. Genetic studies are likely to reveal whether specific
intellectual strengths (such as musical or spatial intelligence) are under
the control of individual genes or gene complexes; and studies of
identical and fraternal twins reared together and apart will enhance our
knowledge of the extent to which different intellectual profiles are
heritable.

-249-