Is this why machines will never have consciousness? (1)
Your special on consciousness was fascinating and thought-provoking (10 July, p 34). The section on whether machines could ever be “conscious” and “self-aware” seemed to ignore the role played by the fierce will to live and reproduce exhibited by living creatures. Where does this come from and where does it reside?
One might argue that this compulsion is the ultimate driver of evolution and, by extension, the development of consciousness.
Given our destructive impact on the planet, an all-consuming desire to live may not be totally logical. In what sense could machines have a parallel survival instinct? Might they decide that they were an unhealthy drain on resources and altruistically choose to self-destruct?
Is this why machines will never have consciousness? (2)
When discussing consciousness, I am surprised that concussion isn’t usually mentioned.
Some years ago, I was in a concussed state for around an hour. I have no memory of this hour, but I was apparently talking and arguing with those around me. I have no doubt that I could have been eating, sleeping, mating and defending my possessions in that state. Was I experiencing what it is like to be an animal?
A blow to any part of the head can induce this and this fact should be a prime clue in our search to understand the neurological basis of consciousness. This physical shock to the brain must somehow be disturbing delicate connections.
Is this why machines will never have consciousness? (3)
Emma Young writes that Christof Koch, in questioning the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in consciousness, points to people who have had large regions of their PFC surgically removed. Koch is quoted as saying: “They go on living, by and large, a normal life, never complaining that they have been turned into zombies.”
May I suggest that Koch needs to watch a few zombie movies, as one of the few positive traits of the undead is that they don’t complain about being turned into zombies.
Is this why machines will never have consciousness? (4)
Surely the answer to the “hard problem” of consciousness must depend on the answer to the even harder problem: “What is life?” Life seems to be more than just chemistry, but what is that “more”? Does it make any sense to talk about consciousness that doesn’t depend on life?
Net zero is the wrong way to solve climate change (1)
The only good climate change plan is zero fossil fuel use (Leader, 10 July). Net zero will see continued use of fossil fuels, compensating for this either by planting trees or removing the carbon produced in other ways.
Greenpeace has shown that , and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere would be difficult and expensive, perhaps requiring the movement of hundreds of millions of tonnes of material a year in the UK alone. Present schemes for this would need to remove hundreds of times more carbon to be useful, and that is after many years of development already.
There is also a philosophical problem with carbon absorption: the amount of carbon we need to capture from the air will increase indefinitely, as fossil fuels continue to be burned. But the places where it can be stored are finite and will, eventually, fill up.
Carbon absorption and storage can therefore only be a short-term solution. It would make sense to use this after we have completely stopped burning fossil fuels, and have enough excess renewable energy to start sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it, as a one-off operation.
Net zero is the wrong way to solve climate change (2)
You mentioned the apocalyptic bushfires in Australia in 2019, and questioned the lack of climate action there. However, the climate damage had already been done, but not by Australia, which is responsible for . Those chiefly responsible are Europe, the US, China and India.
Life's luxuries may have to be sacrificed
Mulling over Bryn Glover’s thoughts on a “phased reduction” approach to achieving climate targets, I was struck by just how much reversal of “improving lifestyles” might be needed (Letters, 10 July).
Things that were normal in my neighbourhood when I was young include heating just one room, water heater on once a week, washing not showering, half a bin of waste weekly from a family of four, two or three outfits per person, small home-cooked food portions, no car ownership, no flying and holidaying one week a year (maximum) in a caravan.
Persuading people back to such behaviours will be hard, but a ray of hope, perhaps indicating an area that could be focused on, is that, in the 1990s when I went vegan it was real graft, but now it is easy.
The hard problem: how to make safer pavements
You brought up valid points about problems caused by the materials used in sidewalks (10 July, p 46). However, the argument that “our ancestors evolved to walk on the savannah” has limits. Those ancestors didn’t wear shoes, which can cause their own problems. Also, the harms of walking on even hard surfaces may well be because of repetitive movement. Uneven hard surfaces avoid repetitive movement and cause fewer problems.
Evolution in reverse is nothing surprising
You report research suggesting that after land-dwelling tetrapods evolved from fish, some tetrapod species “surprisingly” evolved to live in the water again (19 June, p 21).
But is this surprising? We know that cetaceans made the same transition, even after becoming far more adapted to life on land than early tetrapods. More broadly, we know many flightless bird species had a flying ancestor, many aquatic insects descended from insects that evolved on land and many parasites have lost limbs or eyes, say, that are no longer needed.
The idea that evolution is unidirectional is a fallacy, as Stephen Jay Gould wrote. The reality is that where there is a niche, evolution often finds ways to fill it, regardless of the direction of previous evolution.
For the record 鈥� {31 July 2021}
The final line of the box on missing lithium in our feature on gold (24 July, p 46) also went missing. The sentence in full should have read: Gas from that star falls onto the white dwarf, causing an explosion that may produce large amounts of lithium.