Only thinking exists
Michael Brooks, considering the question “How do I know I exist?” highlights the reductionist but irrefutable logic of philosopher Ren茅 Descartes’s famous statement in 1644 that “I think, therefore I am” (23 July, p 36). All existence may be a delusion except the conscious awareness that one is thinking, whether deluded or not.
Whether or not a person is deluded is simply the diagnosis of the majority of their peers, or of individuals such as psychiatrists or psychologists to whom society gives special authority in such matters. By their nature, the many hundreds of different types of delusion cannot be self-diagnosed. What is to one person objective reality the majority of others may call “delusions”.
But what psychiatry calls the Cotard delusion is unique, and of special relevance. People with this delusion hold a fixed, profound and unshakeable belief that they do not exist. Some are patients with schizophrenia who believe they have lost their internal organs or their blood.
If a person has Cotard delusion, has retained their intellect and is a Cartesian, they will of necessity have to self-diagnose 鈥� even on a desert island. In the taxonomy of delusions, there is thus a primary classification difference between the Cotard delusion and all others.
It is interesting that a later philosopher, , felt that even Descartes had gone too far. Lichtenstein said that it is logically possible to believe only that “thinking exists” and that any personal attribute, such as that implied by Descartes, is unjustified.
Altruism and others
I read with relish David Sloan Wilson’s article describing a revival of group selection (Instant Expert, 6 August). In my university days this went against the received wisdom: I am glad it has finally got its due appreciation.
Could the closing remarks, suggesting that the purpose of morality is to suppress intra-group selection, be developed a step further? It can be argued that altruism had to co-evolve with tribalism, as a promoter of inter-group selection. Tribalism manifests in such ugly ways as racism, nationalism and war; yet altruism could not exist without inter-group selection. Could this be proof that good and evil are two sides of the same coin?
Old Guinean gifts
Michael Rose would like to test his hypothesis about ageing and diet by studying people in Papua New Guinea (6 August, p 42). He believes they were first exposed to agricultural foods in the past hundred years or so.
In fact, excavations at the Kuk swamp in the western highlands suggest that this was one of the cradles of agriculture. Among other gifts to the world, we probably have Papua New Guineans to thank for the banana and sugar cane. Ten thousand years of remarkable horticulture should not be forgotten.
Not in fact free
Your report that “women in the US are to be offered free birth control” (6 August, p 4) was incomplete to the point of being completely misleading. Yes, a new mandate now means that contraception will be free… only for those with health insurance.
Unlike every other industrialised country, health insurance in the US remains tied to employment and marriage. The only women to benefit will be those who are employed in companies that offer health insurance benefits at an affordable cost, whose spouses are employed, or who can pay for private insurance, often starting at $400 per month for bare-bones coverage.
The approximately 50 million Americans, including myself, without insurance must continue to pay for contraception out of our own pockets.
Cool lighting
Why are you still printing letters repeating old falsehoods about incandescent bulbs (13 August, p 31)? In many buildings the heat generated from lighting is unwelcome, and expensive to remove if air conditioning is used.
Heat from outdoor lighting is entirely wasted.
From Robin Trow
The electricity consumed by a 100-watt incandescent light will result in the release of 57 grams of carbon dioxide per hour. The electricity consumed by the equivalent (25W) fluorescent lamp will release 14.5 g of CO2 per hour. I have yet to see anyone recommend a point source in the ceiling for heating a room.
Still, the additional heating required because the fluorescent lamp is more efficient will result in the release of about 18.5 g of CO2 per hour from a natural-gas-fired heating system with an efficiency of 75 per cent. Of course, this will only be produced in cold weather.
Snodland, Kent, UK
Foxes at heel
Dmitry Belyaev did not only work on aggression in rats (13 August, p 24). His experiments in Siberia also included foxes, which, in a mere 20 years of selective breeding became dog-like in temperament, actively seeking human company, in contrast to their wild ancestors (3 October 2009, p 40). Belyaev was effectively exiled to Siberia in the 1950s, because Joseph Stalin required humans to be malleable, not hard-wired by their genes.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was not just the defeat of a discredited political system, but a victory for genetics over the “blank slate” or behaviourism.
Bond blast
You report on the redefinition by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) of hydrogen bond participants to include hydrogen bonded to carbon (30 July, p 9). Such hydrogen bonds have been recognised since the early 1960s.
In 1974 Melvin Joesten and Lawrence Schaad over 100 examples of hydrogen bonds with carbon and various bases, and in the same year Robert Green wrote an entire book entitled Hydrogen Bonding by C-H Groups (Macmillan). IUPAC seems to have spent time and money attacking a problem that does not exist.
The suggestion that the new definition could improve computer models is ridiculous. Any serious researcher will already be aware of the extensive literature on hydrogen bonding by C-H groups, either as original articles or in reviews such as that by Caterina Bissantz and colleagues ().
Newt new under sun
Regeneration of the lens of the eye in newts (16 July, p 15) is biologically sensational. What happened to a gecko in Namibia during the second world war was less so, though more dramatic.
Two German geologists made off into the desert to avoid being imprisoned. They took their vehicle, as much petrol as they could manage, their dog, a gun and ammunition.
At one hideout there was a gecko, of which they grew fond. A large snake appeared, and consumed it. Very angry, they shot the head off the snake, opened it up, and to their relief discovered the gecko still alive.
Alas, the snake’s digestive juices had got to the gecko’s eyes, which were now clouded over. But after a few days, it moulted, shedding all its skin, including the top layer of the corneas. The gecko now had clear vision again. The tale is in Henno Martin’s (W. Kimber, 1957).
Quantum blight
Your fascinating article on the use of data mining, in particular to predict weekly New 杏吧原创 sales based on the cover design, missed an obvious trick (13 August, p 40). As Feedback has pointed out, it was well known in your office that sales would peak if the word “quantum” appeared on the cover, and fall if there were pictures of spiders or, apparently, mention of potatoes (23 January 2010).
Ever since reading that I have been waiting for the cover article on insect damage to quantum potatoes…
Mind your Ps
In reporting the discovery of the new satellite of Pluto (30 July, p 14), there is no need to state that it “has been dubbed P4”. It already has an official provisional designation from the International Astronomical Union: S/2011 P 1.
The use of nicknames is, unfortunately, common. Also, a name cannot be assigned to the satellite until it receives its permanent numerical designation: these are issued sequentially to such discoveries, and that won’t happen until a reliable orbit has been observed.
Body of your dreams
The discovery that people born paraplegic dream of walking, and the deaf of talking, as if these were ordinary everyday activities is not surprising (13 August, p 6). I have in the course of dreams done the usual flying, spoken languages I don’t know, and breathed under water; but also swum through the Earth’s crust, absorbed the energy of a nuclear explosion, gone spacefaring sans suit or ship, and once ate a supernova.
These activities seemed, in my dreams, perfectly normal and unremarkable. I doubt my brain is “laying the groundwork for real life”; rather, it has been laying the groundwork for my never-gonna-happen life as a superhero.
For the record
鈥� In “Autism in families” (20 August, p 5), we apologise if we gave the impression that favoured an environmental explanation for siblings sharing autistic behaviours. In fact, she believes that the study reported in the story strongly reinforces a genetic explanation for autism.
鈥� An editing error had us referring to Richard Nixon as a “peacetime” president of the US (30 July, p 47).