How to cope with darker side of daydreaming (1)
Eric Taipale’s report “The dark side of daydreaming” resonated with me (30 July, p 46). I spent a lot of my childhood in an inner world 鈥� I often drew and even wrote scripts and created my own superheroes. Decades later, I started writing fiction, which I would suggest is a healthy outlet. For me, it was a psychological necessity. I still write fiction and don’t care if no one reads it.
Alison Leonard, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK
As a lifelong daydreamer who has channelled those daydreams into therapeutic and sometimes lucrative creativity, I would like to discourage yet another rush towards medicalised labelling.
If “maladaptive” daydreaming is commonest in children who are traumatised, lonely, distressed or bored, as Taipale suggests, then surely the cure isn’t to discourage creative ways of coping, but to change the child-rearing practices that give rise to these problems.
How to cope with darker side of daydreaming (2)
Daydreaming is what writers routinely do. We dream up stories and put them into print. Perhaps those who think their daydreaming is maladaptive should take up writing.
Welcome to the corporate family
Jonathan R. Goodman’s article about corporate psychology really hit a nerve with me (23 July, p 27). I once had a brief stint working for a well-known, family-owned company. Almost the first thing I was told when I joined them was that it is a “family business” and that the staff are supposed to think of themselves as part of the family. This was reiterated on posters and in internal newsletters.
Ironically, it was one of the most corporate firms I have worked for, with very inflexible working practices and bureaucracy.
Little hope of backing for climate info campaign
Bill McGuire wants a public information campaign to trigger action on the climate emergency (6 August, p 29). In the absence of political concern, daily life continues unabated. So, people fly abroad on holidays, the government seeks to expand the economy and fossil fuel firms are able to behave as before.
With no leadership from our politicians, the reality of the climate catastrophe isn’t seen. What political support can those who share McGuire’s views expect?
Reasons why the Higgs field is no ether
David Werdegar asks whether the Higgs field is like the luminiferous ether (Letters, 30 July). The answer is no.
According to quantum field theory, fields, like the Higgs field and the electromagnetic field, are fundamental dynamical systems. The things we perceive as particles are excitations of these systems and couplings between fields correspond to interactions between particles. We exist at the level of the particles, and all we know of fields comes from our interactions with other particles.
When enough particles get together 鈥� in the air, for example 鈥� these systems can have their own excitations, sound waves in this case, that constitute a third level. The ether was meant to be a system at the same level as air, and light an excitation at the same level as sound. These were shown not to exist, but that doesn’t rule out an electromagnetic field at the first level. Indeed, all we know about elementary particles suggests they are field excitations. To conflate the Higgs field (level one) with the ether (level two) is a category error.
AI must try to crack another ancient script
I found the article “Cracking the code”, on the use of AI to read the ancient Mesopotamian script cuneiform, extremely interesting (6 August, p 40). It has got me wondering if such AI could be used, or perhaps is being used, to crack Linear A, the undeciphered ancient script of the Minoans of Crete? What a triumph it would be to finally translate that.
Will an engineered-protein revolution be good for us?
Your coverage of the AlphaFold AI and its ability to predict protein structures mentioned that it had been used to engineer enzymes that could break down plastic waste (6 August, p 10). I fear this application.
Presumably, such enzymes could be incorporated into microorganisms and released into the sea. Would they know the difference between a crisp packet and a plastic boat or the plastic covering of undersea cables? Can you imagine the effect of eating a hole in a naval minesweeper?
These organisms might evolve to enter soil and munch on gas pipes. And what if they were to enter a person’s bloodstream and gobble on stents or other inserted medical devices?
So true that BMI is a poor measure of bodily health
I was taken by the letters on diet, in particular the one from Greg Harris on the poor relationship between body mass index (BMI) and health (Letters, 30 July).
If we could list the BMI of all athletes at the Commonwealth Games in the UK, it would be very revealing on this point, showing what a poor measure of obesity BMI is when used without any consideration of other factors.
Ditch the lawn and grow other stuff instead
On Beronda L (30 July, p 28). Montgomery’s search for an eco-friendly lawn, the truth about lawns is that their environmental impact is neutral at best. As she says, better to grow trees or local native vegetation than to have a sterile-looking patch of grass.
For the record
Our story on woodpecker skulls was accompanied by a photo of a female pileated woodpecker (23 July, p 19).
In our look at deciphering cuneiform script, the Babylonian god we mentioned is Marduk (6 August, p 40).
The image on the first page of our take on mosquito-borne diseases in Rio de Janeiro was of the favela complex Rocinha (6 August, p 48).