Knowing thyself is like a third-party observation
Daniel Cossins seemed surprised at the agreement between his own self-perception and the perception of others of his nature. At heart, though, both can be regarded as observers’ perceptions(10 December, p 36).
None of us consciously listens for a fire alarm, but our non-conscious mind continuously monitors our environment. When it hears the alarm, it recognises it as a potential threat to our survival, which takes highest priority for our conscious attention, and so switches our conscious attention to the alarm.
Our non-conscious mind determines that which we pay attention to, but we can’t directly know the values it uses to do so. We infer from our restricted conscious awareness what those values are, and hence who we are. In that sense, we are just as much observers of ourselves as others.
For politics that takes the long view, look at Wales (1)
Lloyd Timberlake takes aim at the inability and unwillingness of politicians to take account of the impact on future generations of current policy decisions(Letters, 3 December).
In 2015, the government of Wales introduced the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which requires public bodies there to take the long-term impact of their decisions into account. The act is attracting interest from countries around the world.
This measure attempts to address the concerns raised by Timberlake. It affects all policy decisions taken in Wales and isn’t always popular. Some high-profile road-building projects, for example, have been scrapped when the “long view” has overridden “short-term” traffic difficulties.
For politics that takes the long view, look at Wales (2)
If I lived in the US, I might be as pessimistic as Timberlake regarding climate change. However, I find solace in the ability of technological progress to reduce the sacrifices that need to be made. We should also remember the strategic vulnerability of societies dependent on fossil fuels and not assume that action must come from governments 鈥� most revolutions come from the people.
For politics that takes the long view, look at Wales (3)
Timberlake highlights the inertia and total absence of will of some governments to lead on climate change. Most governments know only too well that their shelf life is only about five years and therefore have no real incentive to act truly long term.
However, individual politicians and governments aren’t the same thing. Many politicians are deeply concerned about climate change and do valuable work to push the agenda. Firms, charities, pressure groups and individuals too are doing more than their bit to ensure that governments at least do something rather than their preferred option of doing nothing.
We may not be around to see Y chromosome vanish
You report claims that the human Y chromosome will eventually be lost, in around 10 million years. It sounds very optimistic to imagine that humans will still be around so many years into the future(3 December, p 10).
With green hydrogen you get green oxygen for free
Christopher Jessop’s advocacy of green hydrogen is spot on. Furthermore, hydrogen generated by renewables-powered electrolysis comes with an immensely valuable buy one, get one free bonus at no extra energy cost: green oxygen(Letters, 26 November).
Oxygen is the world’s second most important industrial gas, with a market size of more than $30 billion a year. All current production methods are fuel and power intensive. Not only can adopting green oxygen slash carbon emissions, but where used to replace air in key industrial processes, they will run far hotter and thus at higher efficiency, while also eliminating pollution by nitrogen oxides.
This begs the question: as adopting green oxygen seems to be a no-brainer, where is the global push to jointly promote and exploit green hydrogen and green oxygen?
In pursuit of the health impacts of sweeteners
Your interview with Allison Sylvetsky about the current state of research on the metabolic effects of sugar-free sweeteners was interesting, if rather inconclusive. Clearly more research needs to be done with many more subjects(29 October, p 43).
I was heartened a bit to see the positive, if sparse, data about the natural sweetener stevia, although absence of evidence is not, of course, evidence of absence.
However, I didn’t see any discussion of how the taste sensation of sweetness that these sweeteners offer might be acting through the brain’s reward systems neurologically. What might be happening when the subsequent hit of sugar to the blood fails to turn up, I wonder?
It could never have been anything but like this
Nigel Tuersley writes about “the sheer improbability of [the fundamental constants of nature] being so finely tuned for life”(Letters, 3 December).
The word “improbability” implies the constants are being drawn from some probability distribution, but there is no evidence that the constants can be anything other than what they are.
There is also no evidence that the relatively tiny constants (compared with other constants) or the relatively large constants, or the small or large or “near 1.0” ratio of constants, are outliers of any kind; there is no evidence of any distributions, which means there is no evidence that any of these fundamental constants are members of the same distribution.
For the record
Astronomer Tycho Brahe wasDanish (26 November, p 44).
Karl Flessa is a geologist(26 November, p 40 in the UK,p 36 in the US).
In the answers to “A poopicture puzzle” (17/24December, p 77), the final lineof the snow leopard box wascut short. Apologies! It shouldhave read: “This showed theanimals’ population densitywas about one leopard per100 square kilometres 鈥� lowerthan previous estimates,which had probably countedthe same animals twice.”