Experiencing a lifetime of epic dreams
I found Emma Young’s piece on epic dreaming very interesting because I’d never heard the term before, but feel I’ve probably experienced it most, if not all, of my life. I’ve experienced lucid dreams ever since I can remember, some more powerful than others. I’m now 75 and have broken sleep every night, but I feel I’ve adjusted to it over a lifetime. I had a sleep-lab test a few years back, and while I didn’t get a lot of sleep 鈥� I was awoken by “bumps-in-the-night” 鈥� I was told that my proportion of deep sleep was above average for my age (30 May, p 7).
Here’s the thing: I write fiction and I believe the language of stories is the language of dreams, otherwise they wouldn’t work. So, I spend a reasonable amount of my waking life in stories.
Both dreams and stories provide what-if scenarios that we don’t encounter in real life. In my dreams, I have faced a firing squad, been in sword fights and war zones 鈥� none of which I’ve experienced in real life.
On the history of human inventions (1)
In light of the piece, “Carrying the load” by Michael Marshall, I think Primo Levi’s essay “A bottle of sunshine” deserves a mention, in which he posits that the creation of vessels is the defining trait of human civilisation, representing our unique ability to isolate space and control nature (23 May, p 40).
On the history of human inventions (2)
I’ve long held the opinion that the very first human invention was the basket, probably made of large leaves or woven stalks. For the “gathering” part of “hunting and gathering” to be really useful to the tribe, as opposed to the individual, the person picking the fruit or digging the tubers would need to transport their bounty back to the gathering place to be shared by all.
More musings on the mystery of love
I enjoyed Carissa Wong’s article on the mystery of love. My three pillars necessary for love to bloom and last are different from those proposed by Robert Sternberg. My triad consists of desire, respect and trust (based on honesty in word and deed). As I don’t believe we have control over much of our neural activity, I exclude thought from the equation (23 May, p 10).
I believe these are the necessary conditions for a long-lasting relationship and would allow a couple to negotiate differences that may arise over the passage of time. For instance, my wife enjoys travelling. I don’t. I will agree to an occasional foray, but I am fine with her decision to take more frequent excursions with friends or relatives. We continue to share the desire we had when we wed over half a century ago. The respect and trust we have developed have cemented the relationship. Loss of any of these three elements portends a death knell for love.
The risks of sending messages to the past
Regarding sending messages back in time, I would be very wary of sending anything back to the 1930s or 40s because of the butterfly effect. A slight change in history and Hitler wins the war. Maybe the only safe message to send back is “Change Nothing Now” (Letters, 30 May).
Why heat therapy works for Alzheimer's
Alice Klein’s story about a man who was genetically destined to develop Alzheimer’s but didn’t after working for two decades in sauna-like, hot engine rooms makes perfect sense physiologically. The cardiovascular effects of such hot conditions are similar to those of exercise: greater total-body blood flow, faster heart rate, stronger heartbeat, a larger difference between maximal and minimal arterial pulse pressures, and consequent greater pulsatile expansion of brain arteries. This radial pulsation of arteries in the brain drives the glymphatic pump that flushes Alzheimer’s-causing tau proteins from brain tissue (9 May, p 4). If hot, arduous work is not for you, keep on running!
Tales of miniaturisation in science fiction
I thoroughly enjoyed Annalee Newitz’s piece on biohybrid microrobots and how they can be steered using blue light or magnetic fields. Annalee references the 1980s’ movie Innerspace as a science-fiction precursor, but older readers might remember the 1960s’ movie Fantastic Voyage, starring Rachel Welch, which involved the miniaturisation of a submarine and crew that were injected into the body of an injured scientist to repair his brain. The narrative of the film was turned into a novel of the same name (30 May, p 19).
AI may have the answers, but we ask the questions
Regarding the article “A revolution in maths”, I think the answers may come from AI, but the questions will come from humans (6 June, p 30).
What do we mean by 'survival of the fittest'?
Reading your leader about the origin story of life, I was reminded of how people conflate the idea that “survival of the fittest” means “ruthless”. It doesn’t. It means “survival of one who best fits the environment in which it finds itself”. In saying competition is what it’s all about, Charles Darwin did not suggest what the nature of that competition might be (Leader, 30 May).
Learning about DNA from Father Brown
The problems of DNA evidence discussed in Turi King’s The Secrets of Our DNA are foreshadowed in G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown story, The Mistake of the Machine. A person is arrested for the murder of Lord Falconroy on the evidence of a polygraph test, where the test had picked him out because he was Lord Falconroy. Father Brown’s comment is equally applicable to The Secrets of Our DNA: “You always forget that the reliable machine always has to be worked by an unreliable machine… I mean Man, the most unreliable machine I know of (30 May, p 24).”