There's more than one way to be creative
The article “A daily dose of creativity” by Daisy Fancourt has a very appropriate subtitle including the phrase “benefits of creative expression”. The article goes on to conflate creativity with art, at which I demur. As someone who has no artistic abilities at all (well, pretty much), in my youth, I wrote computer programs. These were a considerable intellectual challenge. The buzz I got out of this creativity was enormous, and the more technically demanding the task, the more stimulating it was (27 December 2025, p 36).
I therefore put it to you that creativity is indeed good news, but that need not imply anything arty. One may say exercising my skills was artistic, but I’d argue that since the buzz was all about technical complexity, I think not. However, it certainly was creative.
Who exactly is running this simulation? (1)
The question of whether we live in a simulation is of intellectual interest, but is ultimately irrelevant. Whether we live in the “real” universe or a simulation, we exist solely on account of its laws, and so we cannot ever leave. Communicating with any programmer, however (I imagine an acne-prone teenager with a universe simulator), might be possible, if we can show that information is more fundamental than matter. Just how, though, is an exercise left for the reader (13/20 December 2025, p 54).
Who exactly is running this simulation? (2)
One of the most common forms of simulation is a video game. The entities within that are bit patterns. What happens to the bit patterns has been programmed and all that can happen is only that which has been programmed. If we are in a simulation, remember that not only are we in it, but we are being simulated, too. We can do only what the creator of the simulation has put in it. And really fundamental is that, just as a games programmer is not inside the game, the creator of the simulation, of which we are a part, is not inside it with us 鈥� anywhere.
Who exactly is running this simulation? (3)
Your article made me wonder who would be running our simulation. If the advanced civilisation discovered how to do simulations when it was 1,000,000 years ahead of us, it is just as likely they’ve had this technology for 50 years or more, and the know-how and ability to create a simulation has spread widely throughout their society. In fact, we are in a simulation that is a third-grade girl’s science fair project. She’s bored with it and, after the science fair ends, she intends to turn us o鈥�.
Small changes can make a big climate difference
Wai Wong writes that painting roofs white is trivial in effect when it comes to reflecting the sun’s energy back into space. While it is trivial, it is not nothing and is easy to accomplish. Winning strategies in sports are about accumulating small margins and improvements (Letters, 27 December 2025).
It is true that photovoltaic panels are black and 75 per cent of the energy they absorb is lost as waste heat. But solar hot water panels on domestic roofs convert 95 per cent of solar insolation into useful hot water. Too many people look for the big win when, in reality, much of the climate crisis could be averted by all of us adopting small changes.
Why culture is what sets us apart from chimpanzees
Hans Jenks is certainly correct in identifying how remarkably successful we are as a species relative to chimpanzees, who are still “slinging poop at each other”. But Hans does not appear to recognise that 35,000 years ago, early modern humans 鈥� genetically indistinguishable from us today 鈥� had produced little of note after tens of thousands of years and were probably slinging poop at the Neanderthals who wanted access to the cave we were cowering in. What has allowed our modern advances was 35,000 years of culture, not genetics (Letters, 29 November 2025).
Making the correct car comparisons
Guy Cox isn’t comparing apples with apples when it comes to the fuel efficiency of his diesel SUV. Diesel engines are inherently more thermodynamically efficient than petrol engines because the compression ratio is much higher, plus his old, original Minis would have used inefficient carburettors rather than modern fuel injection. Thus it’s hardly surprising that his diesel SUV is more fuel efficient than an ancient Mini. Compare a modern SUV with a smaller, modern diesel hatchback, and the picture would look rather different (Letters, 27 December 2025).
Understanding a demonic thought experiment
The proper resolution of the conceptual puzzle raised by Loschmidt’s demon is instructive. Imagine a glass sphere floating in space shattered by a bullet. To an observer seeing the fragments flying apart, it would be evident that they had come from the same locality at more or less the same time, but it would take far more data and analysis to discover that reversing their motions would unite them into such a simple object. The positions and motions of the diverging fragments are vastly more special than would be realised by the observer (13/20 December 2025, p 46).
As the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann appreciated, in a fully deterministic universe, the gain in entropy consists of the configuration of the debris being effectively indistinguishable from billions of others that, on reversal, would not so neatly combine.
The importance of scepticism to science
In your leader article, you write that from “vaccine sceptics at the heart of the US government to the continued global paralysis when it comes to climate action, science has been under siege in 2025”, and that those “who believe in rationality and evidence must continue to fight back against the encroaching darkness” (13/20 December 2025, p 8).
I agree that evidence and reason matter deeply. However, true science advances not by insulating accepted views from challenge, but by subjecting them to it. By testing assumptions and welcoming scepticism, science corrects error, deepens understanding and avoids consensus ossifying into dogma.