Duality solved?
Anil Ananthaswamy repeatedly suggests that “the brain” broadcasts information to a global workspace, but makes no attempt to define which area (or areas) of the brain are doing the broadcasting (20 March, p 38). Something is, he writes, resolving conflicts in the data before broadcasting it.
Surely we have here a potential solution to the “hard” philosophical problem of consciousness 鈥� the need for an integrated sensory landscape to be conscious of, and the need for something else to be conscious of it 鈥� the necessary duality that must comprise consciousness. Perhaps the filtering and broadcast functions alluded to produce the continuous “video” screen of our integrated landscape, while the global workspace (awareness) is doing the watching.
From Steve Wilson
The idea that consciousness is the product of interaction between different areas of the brain may have begun with Bernard Baars in 1983, but German philosopher J眉rgen Habermas (born in 1929) has long argued that knowledge arises from interaction between people. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) argued that mind itself arises from such interaction, rather than the other way around.
It is far from surprising that the social and individual processes of the mind would mimic, or perhaps mirror, each other, and comes as no surprise to those of us who question the assumption that each of us has, or is, a fundamental single self from which all else proceeds.
London, UK
Lies we tell ourselves
Ray Tallis implies that science will never be able to explain consciousness through objective observations and measurements because that is contrary to the subjective nature of the conscious experience (9 January, p 28).
That does not stand up. Conscious experiences can vary a great deal following changes to a person’s state of mind elicited by drugs, mental illness or brain injury, for example. This indicates that consciousness must be controlled by physical properties of the brain.
Some parts of the brain are used to interpret other people’s actions and calculate how that other person will act. When we do this we in effect create a simulation of someone else 鈥� a someone else who may or may not be real. But if our brain can simulate someone else, then surely it can try to simulate itself. It can then interpret the actions of the simulated self 鈥� and this may be just the first step in a “recursive” chain of simulation and interpretation.
Moving pictures
The idea that vivid motion can be portrayed by bodies in unstable positions rather than by blurring (20 March, p 15) is well known to us comic-book geeks. When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman in the late 1930s, they included a cape in his costume as a way of suggesting movement. Comic book artists have used a billowing cape ever since.
It is less a Japanese cultural issue than a comic book issue, although it may be no coincidence that comics are popular in Japan. If you go to a fine bookshop and look at the graphic novel section you’ll see outstanding examples of bodies in unstable positions, caught “in the moment” and conveying an unmistakeable sense of motion.
Missing methane
The greenhouse gas methane is getting the attention it deserves (20 February, p 38). Having worked for over 30 years in the oil industry, I am surprised how little attention is paid to flared and vented “associated gas”, which includes methane. This may be as little as 2 per cent of the energy leaving oil wells (28 June 2008, p 22) or as much as 10 per cent, as reported in Modern Power Systems. The lower figure may be correct in the US, where most of the associated gas is sent to natural gas pipelines. But methane emissions are, for obvious reasons, downplayed by all governments and operators; and unfortunately only the operators can supply real data.
About 20 per cent of this associated gas enters the atmosphere as methane due to incomplete combustion in flares and venting: 43 million tonnes per year, corresponding to 1300 million tonnes per year carbon dioxide equivalent.
Quake and doom
Helen Thomson reports on how earthquake engineers can learn from talking to other disciplines (UK edition, 6 March, p 46). They will find it useful to know which countries may have no quake-proof building regulations, or fail to enforce what they do have.
Recent interdisciplinary research into what determines the death toll from major earthquakes, undertaken jointly with Philipp Keefer, an economist with the World Bank, and Thomas Pl眉mper, a political scientist at the University of Essex, UK, finds that earthquake mortality is systematically higher in countries where quakes are rarer. The effect is stronger in richer than in poorer countries, which can expect to save many more lives by tackling undernourishment, infectious diseases and other problems than by preparing for earthquakes.
Countries with corrupt regimes, authoritarian regimes with non-institutionalised ruling parties and young, fragile democracies have fewer incentives to take action and are therefore less likely to enact and enforce appropriate regulations, even where earthquakes are frequent.
Myriad multiverses
Your 6 March cover bears the claim: “Touching the multiverse 鈥� first hint that it really exists”. But it is almost three years since you reported Anthony Aguirre’s work with his graduate student Matthew Johnson: they calculated that we might be able to observe the large-scale signature of other bubble universes in the cosmic microwave background radiation (12 May 2007, p 12). Such a signature, sometimes called the “axis of evil”, is in fact observed.
The editor writes:
鈥� The significance of Ralph Bousso’s work is in the conclusion that it may be used to make “real, testable predictions” which can then be confirmed, or falsified, by new observations (6 March, p 28). Aguirre showed that the multiverse is compatible with the already observed “axis of evil” 鈥� just as Laura Mersini-Houghton showed it is compatible with the already observed giant void (24 November 2007, p 34).
Jute what we need
I was pleased to see a discussion of green clothing (13 March, p 37). Is it time to revisit fibres such as sisal and jute? The jute plant grows remarkably well on marginal land. But traditional “retting” to free the fibres from the polysaccharide matrix they are bound to is terribly polluting and (for jute) binds metal ions to the fibres that make them darken.
Methods for mechanical removal of the fibre from the central “stick” have been developed but are not currently economic. Should we develop the technology to revitalise this fascinating and sustainable crop, perhaps to create better cultivars of the plant?
End is not nigh
I can assure Max Whisson that the Large Hadron Collider will not precipitate a catastrophe (13 March, p 27). How can I be so sure, when I have had nothing to do with the LHC?
My confidence is based upon the fact that every day the Earth is bombarded by cosmic rays, and some of these have energies many orders of magnitude greater than anything the LHC can produce. This has been going on for millions of years without anything catastrophic happening.
Immortal, invisible
As someone with a first degree in biochemistry and an MA in theology, I am always fascinated by debates about religion and science. I was dismayed, however, to read that belief in God is equated with belief in “supernatural beings” (6 March, p 3). In Christian theology God is not seen as an object of our consciousness, and therefore cannot be described as a “being” or as a “thing”. God is held to be both beyond being (transcendent) and being itself (immanent). As far as I am aware Judaism, Islam, and indeed Buddhism and Hinduism have similar doctrines.
It is human to constantly reify things which are abstract 鈥� as scientists do when talking about particles and black holes 鈥� or which are divine: but this should be resisted if we are to truly understand things.
Titanic survival
The matter of survival on the Titanic is considerably more complex than you suggested (6 March, p 5). Some years ago I let undergraduate students on a quantitative methods course loose on data from the survivors list, with the research hypothesis: “Women and Children First?”
Beyond doubt, women and children were preferentially treated. Perhaps surprisingly, male passengers in second class had a statistically significant lower survival rate than males in third class, even taking into account ages. Even more surprising was that fathers of families had an even lower survival rate than male crew. The group with the highest survival rate were female passengers travelling first class.
Massive multiples
I was interested to read of the 20,000 supporters for an extended prefix system, advocating the prefix “hella” for 1027 (6 March, p 5). A set of additional prefixes above “yotta” and below “yocto”, including nava (N) for 1027 and sansa (S) for 1030, was proposed as long ago as 1994 by Victor Mayes (Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 35, p 569).
From Simon Birnstingl
Can I anticipate demand for a 1030 prefix and suggest “valot”? This would allow 1057, if it becomes necessary, to be a “hellavalot”.
Upper Beeding, West Sussex, UK
The editor writes:
鈥� Feedback noted another competing proposal: harpi for 1027 and grouchi for 1030, leaving the other Marx brothers available for future use (4 December 2004).
For the record
鈥� The Carbon Reduction in Buildings consortium’s principal investigator is at Loughborough University (20 March, p 7).