Editor's pick: Fusion funding depends on a bold statement
You quote physicist Thomas Klinger saying that lack of progress on nuclear fusion for power generation is simply down to a lack of funding (13 May, p 38). The current of €18 billion (£16 billion) for ITER, the 35-nation tokamak fusion experiment at Cadarache, France, is paltry compared, for example, with the £56 billion for the High Speed 2 railway north from London or the current estimated lifetime cost of a replacement for the UK's Trident nuclear missile submarines of £167 billion.
But the main reason that fusion remains trapped in the lab is politics. Officials at the UK's have told me that they view fusion in the same light as perpetual motion and brief ministers accordingly. Fusion needs a political endorsement like that given to the Apollo moon programme by US president John F. Kennedy on 25 May 1961, . Without that, NASA would merely have pursued more rocket experiments.
What's the point of consciousness?
Neuroscientists vying to find credible consciousness indicators in simpler organisms may be overlooking the most direct way to do so (13 May, p 28). Our brains are massively parallel information processing systems, largely organised in discrete modules. The most salient information from these is somehow selected and integrated into a stream that controls most of our behaviour. We experience this stream as “consciousness”. So to find consciousness in other species, we must seek sufficiently modular brain organisation.
The brain calculates optimum behaviour by tagging information as positive or negative for reproductive success. So philosopher Jesse Prinz and evolutionary biologist Bjørn Grinde are correct to regard this “hedonic valuation” as crucial. But such valuation has to be more fundamental and hence older than consciousness – which is advantageous when the valuation process becomes distributed and hence needs to be summed across the entire brain.
The other proposed indicator that clearly fits this structural conception of consciousness is selective attention. Once a brain starts ignoring some information, it's headed down the path towards consciousness. Once it is doing so in multiple brain modules, it has almost certainly arrived there.
What's the point of consciousness?
Neurologist Benjamin Libet showed that our conscious awareness usually lags around half a second behind reality. Try this: glance at your watch and note how long it takes for the seconds count to change. It will seem to take from half to one-and-a-half seconds, not the nought to one second we know it should. When we switch our gaze, the half-second delay is overridden, then the perceived “frame” freezes while it is re-established.
It follows that it is possible to play tennis or have a conversation only because most of what we do is preconscious. When I run into friends, I do not see them stare at me for half a second before showing recognition.
Might the delay be the time it takes for all our sensory inputs to be synchronised into a consistent narrative? But why is that useful? How can we detect whether other animals do it? And is it necessary for any of the consciousness-related behaviour the article lists?
What's the point of consciousness?
Philosopher Jesse Prinz says “consciousness looks like it's largely about perception and emotion.” One view of emotions is that they have two key functions: to select from a pool of potential behaviours and to sequence those behaviours in a way that aids survival. Behaviours are obviously modified by learning, but are still set in an emotional context. A conflict between emotions could be disastrous for survival: it is better for the animal to behave decisively. That is only possible if one emotion is dominant at any one time. I believe consciousness has evolved to ensure that this normally happens.
There is clear experimental evidence that remembering is more efficient and successful if the recall task is set in similar emotional circumstances to the original experience. If dreams do involve the consolidation of memory, it seems logical that this consolidation has to happen in an emotional context and is only possible in a conscious-like state.
First class post
We found the Higgs? We can take its picture off milk cartons and telephone poles now?
Jane Jorgensen about the famous boson and its role in the first moments of the universe (10 June, p 30)
Do game theorists not have any friends?
I was intrigued by the suggestion that society as a whole would be more efficient if we never lent our friends tools or other things they need (3 June, p 7). We should, apparently, hire out these goods instead, charging our friends a fee.
The problem with the idea is made clear in the caveat that it assumes “this choice solely comes down to cost”. The authors of the study neglected to allow for the fact that charging our friends a fee would soon mean we have no friends, so we would all end up buying things we rarely need because no one would lend us anything. This is not the economic optimum for society as a whole, because our choices in interacting with our friends are not based solely on cost.
If space-time is granular then it is 'stiff'
Joshua Sokol reports the idea that the granularity of space-time acts as a form of friction, shedding energy into the stitching of space (27 May, p 28). I suggest it has another effect: to make space-time “stiff”.
It limits how curved space-time can become: a radius of curvature less than the grain size is not possible. In other words, at very small scales, the gravitational field cannot be stronger than a maximum value. This would mean that if you put more and more mass into a small volume, there comes a point when this mass is not “visible” through its effect on gravity.
Athenian 'democracy' was nothing of the sort
Campbell Wallace proposes the “sortition” solution adopted to pick legislators by lot in ancient Athens (Letters, 20 May). But this didn't pick from “the whole community”. It women, most people not born in Athens, people with disabilities and, at times, others who lacked property or wealth.
But sortition of some sort still sounds better than our current system, in which big money and poor information or the insulting of opponents can influence voters. Brexit is an ideal example.
I have long advocated a lottery for the UK's House of Lords, with people having to commit to five years' regular attendance with no other employment. The same for the Commons would surely be no worse than the deal we have now.
The right to bear arms in full and unabridged
Carrie Arnold describes the scale of gun-related deaths in the US (6 May, p 22). Not only is it horrific, it is ridiculous and unnecessary.
The finger of blame usually points at the Second Amendment to the , which, according to gun defenders, enshrines the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. But this is at best a misunderstanding, at worst a deliberate misrepresentation that ignores the full wording of that amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
That right is clearly not absolute; it is conditional. Indeed, John Paul Stevens, an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010, suggested the addition of five words to the amendment: “when serving in the militia”. Until a sufficient body of concerned US citizens and politicians come to accept this conditional interpretation, the senseless slaughter will continue.
Beware non-nuclear electromagnetic arms
Jeffrey Lewis dismisses the use of atomic bombs in space for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack (13 May, p 24). It is possible, though, to use conventional explosives to create intense EMPs for localised attacks. These “” have existed since the 1940s. Placed close to critical installations, they could have catastrophic effects.
First do no harm; and last do no harm
Anna Nowogrodzki suggests that the choice of drugs used for executions should be made by seeking “medical advice” (6 May, p 24). Someone who advises others on how best to kill people without their consent is not offering medical advice. Any medical professional who does so should be stripped of their status.
An economic upside for Donald Trump's Wall
Your review of Borderwall As Architecture (13 May, p 44) failed to note that the building of Trump's Wall may well lead to a boom in shipbuilding in Mexico.
Winning words
The gongs keep on coming. Our longest-serving reporter, Andy Coghlan, was honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the Association of British Science Writers; our newest reporter, Tim Revell, was named as one of “30 to watch” by MHP's Young Journalist Awards; freelancer Josh Sokol won the American Astronomical Society's Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award for his feature “Hidden Depths”, published on 13 August last year; congratulations are also due to Daniel Cossins who commissioned and edited that article.
For the record
• Dark energy researcher works at Aix-Marseille University in France (27 May, p 28).
• In fact, 9 per cent of candidates in the UK's recent parliamentary election had a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics; and automation was mentioned in 31 parliamentary debates in the past year (27 May, p 23).