Editor's pick: Reasons why we do and don't live in a simulation (1)
In Daniel Cossins’s piece “Do we make reality?”, philosopher Kelvin McQueen says consciousness may not be exclusive to humans or other complex organisms, but may exist, in a rudimentary form, in inanimate objects (1 February, p 34). How does that differ from proposing that the wave function collapse, which produces a “real” event, occurs whenever quantum objects interact?
Although ascribing consciousness exclusively to humans seems very out of date, ascribing it to inanimate matter would need some philosophical and semantic gymnastics. But if Einstein was wrong, and reality does depend on our absurd, pre-Darwinian sense of superiority 鈥� by only existing when our species is looking 鈥� wouldn’t that constitute sufficient evidence that we all must be in a simulation? Simulating only features seen by a “conscious observer” would save a vast amount of computing power.
Editor's pick: Reasons why we do and don't live in a simulation (2)
In “Can we create reality?”, Donna Lu reports the claim by philosopher Nick Bostrom that if there are any simulated universes at all they will vastly outnumber any real ones. So, he says, we probably live in a simulated universe.
This argument is fatally self-contradicting. The universe that we live in is enormously more complicated than it needs to be to simulate intelligent beings like ourselves. For example, you could discard the other 100 billion visible galaxies in our universe without significantly affecting the experiment. So simpler universes should vastly outnumber those as complex as ours. My conclusion 鈥� at least as logical as Bostrom’s 鈥� is that if we lived in a simulated universe, it wouldn’t look like this one.
Bostrom is making the same mistake as many other philosophers and physicists who propose any kind of multiverse. Without a compelling reason to believe from first principles that we are one of many universes, we cannot say anything about the likelihood of ours being one thing or another. Technically speaking, we don’t have a measure for the underlying population of universes, and so can say nothing about any distribution.
Editor's pick: Reasons why we do and don't live in a simulation (3)
Lu suggests that if we live in a simulation it would be switched off if the overlords realised that we knew about it. But it is most likely that the overlords are kids playing in their bedrooms. Our discovery would merely add excitement.
The risk arises when they discover girls, boys or whatever, at which point they lose interest.
In praise of diverse and productive forests (1)
Sandy Henderson, arguing for meat production, says that this is the only practical way to farm much of the north and west of the UK and Ireland (Letters, 1 February). He omits the original and best land use for much of that region: forest.
We shouldn’t plant short-lived industrial conifer plantations 鈥� though there is a place for these 鈥� but diverse, well-managed forests producing high-quality logs for buildings and furniture, as well as wildlife habitats, which attract visitors.
In many parts of Europe, abandonment of hill grazing has led to restoration of forests by natural regeneration, which has cost taxpayers nothing and has fixed significant amounts of carbon and expanded wildlife habitat. We will soon come to see uncontrolled goat and sheep grazing for the environmental disaster that it is, with extreme examples in Australia, , , Greece and Scotland.
In praise of diverse and productive forests (2)
In the past, forests were considered part of the farming economy. Their resources could still be used to cut down carbon pollution in other ways.
If we fed pigs on the dropped nuts and undergrowth, maybe we could have occasional pork chops, as pigs are very good at turning food waste into crackling.
We should make use of every scrap of land
The UK's Committee on Climate Change proposes that airlines and oil companies should pay for a colossal tree-planting drive (1 February, p 15). How much would this reduce the area of land dedicated to producing food in the UK?
I wonder whether this is a good idea in a world that has a growing population and in which we expect farmland to be lost because of rising sea levels.
The will continue to import 47 per cent of the food it consumes and export 18 per cent of what it grows. It does advocate things that we should do for other reasons, such as restoring peatlands and hedgerows. Perhaps we should make use of every scrap of land. Perhaps solar panels should be on the roofs of buildings rather than occupying cultivable land.
Thoughts on highways being byways safe for kids (1)
Readers discuss making towns more pedestrian-friendly (Letters, 25 January). One thing that my 40 years of highway engineering work has taught me is that some drivers believe themselves to be expert highway design engineers.
I agree with Rob Wheway that play space should be part of development, including on-street play space that allows shared use between vehicles and players. But my colleagues in local authorities tend to be conservative and prefer wider carriageways. Robert Hale notes that this means all drivers tend to travel too fast.
Unfortunately, the narrow footpaths that Graham Jones mentions aren’t attractive to pedestrians, who want to see ahead and around to be confident that they will not be accosted.
Thoughts on highways being byways safe for kids (2)
Wheway rightly points out the importance of children being able to play safely in our streets. But cul-de-sacs are socially isolating and make direct pedestrian movement difficult, encouraging higher vehicle use.
The solution is to build and rebuild roads on the shared space principle, with constant priority given to pedestrians and vehicles able to move only slowly. There is something seriously wrong with a society if the only place children can play safely is a park to which they need to be escorted.
Attainment is the best predictor of attainment
Geneticist Robert Plomin believes genetic testing can help to identify pupils who would benefit from educational interventions, and says a study that found a correlation of 0.4 between polygenic scores and GCSE results supports his stance (18 January, p 9). Others claim that socio-economic status is a better predictor, though such a strong link isn't often found.
Both measures are trumped by good educational assessments of children. The Performance Indicators in Primary Schools baseline assessment is carried out at the age of 4, at the start of school in the UK. I am an author of a study that found a correlation of 0.5 between these and results in maths and English exams taken at ages 14 to 16 (). Including other factors, such as socio-economic status, improves the prediction a little.
A gaping lacuna in your coverage of fear of holes
You report on trypophobia, a fear of holes (18 January, p 38). I am puzzled that you didn't link this to the image a few pages earlier of rather unpleasant spotty bacterial patterns on agar gels (p 28). Isn't it likely that some people's disgust at spots is related to a reaction to decomposing food with bacterial and fungal colonies on it?
In praise of the bravery of Neanderthal scientists
You report that Neanderthals may have climbed an active volcano soon after it erupted (1 February, p 14). I suspect that there were Neanderthals who were protoscientists. They would, by observation, experiment and deduction, make startling discoveries. One might have been that a person who walked up a live volcano with a dry piece of wood could walk back with fire.
You have previously reported that kites in Australia have been observed transporting fire with burning sticks to set fires to expose prey (13 January 2018, p 4). I wonder whether Neanderthals observed this behaviour by birds.
Face recognition may already be regulated
Donna Lu says face recognition needs to be regulated (1 February, p 23). It may already be. The EU , which wears a Union Jack hat as the UK , covers cases in which it is possible to identify an individual directly from processed data.
Why does recycling always lag behind innovation?
Your article about recycling electric car batteries was necessary but depressing (16 November 2019, p 12). I remember the car industry being very keen 10 years ago to tell us that it was designing cars for the whole life cycle, including recycling. It is ironic that the greenest cars now seem to have drifted from this.
This is always a problem with new technology. Recycling develops only to treat current technology. Aluminium planes, for example, were eminently recyclable – but what happens with composite planes? Has anyone thought it through?
The frog is cold, but it definitely isn't dead
Michael Vandeman, asking whether we can draw a line between life and death, questions whether frozen Canadian frogs are dead or alive (Letters, 11 January). They are very definitely alive, as they aren’t entirely frozen. For example, Rana sylvatica, the North American wood frog, has biochemical adaptations that prevent more than about 75 per cent of its water from freezing, including antifreeze proteins and sugars like sorbitol and betaine. Yes, they are very cold. Yes, their metabolism is extremely slow. One could even view them as crunchy frogs, but, no, they have yet to croak.
You think you're so clever with your eight legs
Rowan Hooper's report on the discovery of social species of octopus reminds me of stories about their supposed intelligence (21/28 December 2019, p 52).
My marine biology baccalaureate professor was . He told us of a research project in which the investigator would regularly head to the lab fridge for a fresh crab to feed his prized octopus. The octopus gradually approached closer and closer to the edge of the aquarium. On entering the lab one day, the scientist found his animal friend dried out on the lab floor, halfway to the fridge, as if it had sought a midnight snack.
For the record 鈥� 22 February 2020
鈥� Research into adding human genes to pigs to try to prevent donor organs being rejected could solve the problem of the shortage of human donor organs, as organs from normal pigs trigger a very strong attack from the immune system (1 February, p 10).
鈥� It was December 2019 that was the warmest month on record in Europe, not the whole year (8 February, p 15).
鈥� When something has a heritability of 55 per cent, genetic differences explain about 30 per cent of the variation in it (25 January, p 34).