Miguel Nicolelis elected member of the French Academy of Sciences - Dr. Nicolelis’ speech

Ladies and gentlemen, distinct colleagues of the French Academy of Science,

It is with great pleasure and a profound sense of humility and gratefulness that I address you today, during this very special occasion for me and my fellow newly elected foreign members of the French Academy of Science, trying as best as I can to avoid sounding like an American tourist from North Carolina lost in Paris.
As a medical and graduate student at the University of Sao Paulo, the most prestigious Brazilian University, established almost 80 years ago by the enduring work of a series of French missions to Brazil, led by the legendary French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, I can assure you that I had never ever imagined that one day I would stand before you. For a Brazilian kid who one day decided to become a scientist and give up his not so promising footballer career, this is the fulfillment of an almost impossible dream. Thus, speaking at this dream-like moment, surrounded by the very walls that one day embraced men and women who changed our understanding of the origins of the universe and its most capricious creation, the human mind, through their lifetimes dedicated to patiently inquiring nature for bits and pieces of its miracles, I feel obliged to express my profound gratitude for your generosity in awarding to me what amounts to be the greatest honor of my career as a scientist.
Many people during the past three decades are responsible for the honor that you today bestow upon me. My teachers, mentors, students, colleagues, friends, and family altogether deserve the lion share for the vote of confidence I am receiving from you today. Since there is not enough time to name them all, I would like to express my gratitude to their collective efforts, sacrifices, and labor of love on behalf of my growth as a scientist and as a human being by symbolically thanking a single person, my good friend Dr. Henri Korn, emeritus professor of the Institute Pasteur. Without Dr. Korn stamina, determination, and support I certainly would not be able to be here today to savor this unforgettable moment among you.
My dear friend, it is with great pleasure that I join this most honorable house of knowledge through your hands.
I was told that in these brief four minutes, I should also say something about my own scientific achievements. I am afraid, however, that I have little to say because my work has barely started, despite my quarter of a century of listening to the inebriant symphonies produced by vast ensembles of brain cells in freely behaving animals.
Not to disappoint you too much, I may point out that the little I have learned so far tells me that, far from being the Cartesian computer heralded in most prestigious neuroscience textbooks of our time, I have found the brain to be an awesome modeler, a tireless probabilistic simulator, one that is capable of sculpturing, every millisecond of our lives, a seamless and concrete sense of reality and, at the same time, our very own sense of self. As a byproduct of these observations, my colleagues and I have found a way to offer to the primate brain a voice of its own, a way through which it can express itself freely, way beyond the annoying physical constraints imposed by our bodies made of mortal flesh. It was by interfacing brains to machines that we discovered how vast is the range of the brain’s own voice, and how far it can expand our reach and sense of being in the universe. I sincerely hope to live to see the stunning future that such a liberation of the brain from the body may bring to our species.
In addition to these humble first steps, I have devoted a great deal of my life to disseminate the thesis that science can become a powerful agent of social transformation all over the world, but primarily in my beloved Brazil. As of now, close to 2,500 Brazilian children, from one of the poorest regions of Brazil, have joined our efforts to transform science education into a lifetime of adventure, full of joy and lore, and in the process build a new country; their country. Allow me, therefore, to dedicate the honor you today bestow upon me to these courageous Brazilian children, their teachers, and the man who inspired us all to pursue this project, the greatest of all Brazilian scientists, Alberto Santos Dumont, the man who on October 19th, 1901, made all of Paris stop to witness the day man conquered the skies by taking off from the Parc Saint Cloud, circumnavigating the Eiffel Tower and returning to its departure point, flying like any other free Parisian bird.
Thank you very much.