Letters: Feb. 12, 2007

Finding Your Way Around Your Brain

Our series of reports charted the world of complex networks inside our heads, the intricate wiring that channels our senses, movements and self-perception. Readers valued the new scientific mappings but were circumspect about their contribution to theories of the soul and afterlife

New findings on the brain and its relation to the human mind may be scientifically sound but philosophically defective [Jan. 29]. Scientists like to break a rose, say, down to its atomic and subatomic particles. Likewise, they view consciousness as merely impulses within the brain. While this is sound science, it dismisses other routes to truth and meaning, such as philosophy and theology. The whole is greater than–or at least different from–the sum of its parts.

RICHARD W. METZ Sanibel, Fla.

A particularly intriguing aspect of consciousness is the pleasure of hearing a melody, reading Shakespeare, discovering an idea or appreciating a good joke. Moreover, most people are endowed with compassion toward others. Nothing in biological or physical science teaches us how to synthesize that kind of consciousness. How could those attributes arise unless they were already in nature? If assemblages of neurons cannot be viewed as the building blocks of consciousness, then consciousness must be a primary principle.

ROBERT G. TABOR Austin, Texas

Mapping the brain and tracing how its different parts interact can offer real hope for people with injuries and disabilities. But I do have one misgiving: I’m not sure I’ll ever have the same degree of self-respect now that I know I’m just an illusion created by 100 billion jabbering neurons.

GREGORY DOBBINS Columbia, S.C.

Whether or not Steven Pinker is correct that conscious and unconscious thoughts must be in the brain, the question remains: Where is an idea, an inspiration, an intention before it appears in the brain? It is in the collective consciousness, which our world calls by many names: God, Yahweh, Allah, Source.

(THE REV.) TIM O’CONNOR Cumming, Ga.

I came away from Pinker’s article doubting whether we have a soul. If consciousness is just a by-product of electrochemical reactions inside our brain, then where is our soul? Is our soul a separate entity from this collection of tissue and neurons that keeps our body running? Or when our brain dies, are we snuffed out like a candle, and that is the end? The more science discovers about the brain, the more I’m convinced that after our brain dies, we die with it.

BILL SIMON Lansing, Ill.

Concluding that neural firings are the only reality denies a more transcendent meaning. We all grow old, and like Woody Allen, we wish we would not. Our soul is an immortal, stationary bedrock, evidenced by our acute perception of time passing. We perceive time because it is separate from us. If we were caught up in it, we would not perceive it. Time takes bits and pieces of what lies on the bedrock–our health, our looks, our energy–but the bedrock of our soul, with its desire for life, joy, meaning and immortality, is only shaped and smoothed by time, never destroyed.

OTILIA E. HUSU Phoenix, Ariz.

I’m posting the article “How the Brain Rewires Itself” on my office wall. It’s further encouragement that you can stop your brain from rewiring itself into depression, anxiety and addiction. As a board-certified cognitive behavioral therapist, I’ve had great success training people to emerge from depression using simple exercises to switch their neural activity from the feeling part of the brain to the thinking part of the brain. Biology is not destiny. Will is destiny.

ARLINE B. CURTISS Escondido, Calif.

Operation Reboot

Re “The Battle for Control of the War” [Jan. 29]: How sad that President George W. Bush’s strategy in Iraq is so clearly political rather than military. The surge in troops presents the appearance of action while gambling American and Iraqi lives on the outcome. If stability in Iraq is restored, even short term, Bush can denounce his naysayers. If the surge fails to effect a long-term change, the conflict will probably last until Bush leaves office–and then he can blame failure on his successor. Bush is a canny politician but no leader. Our troops deserve far better.

ERIC SCOTT Bloomington, Calif.

There is no functioning national government in Iraq. A referendum should be held for Iraqis to vote on whether they want U.S. troops to leave Iraq. The people should decide whether they want a civil war in which they martyr one another 24/7, including on Muslim holy days, or whether they want to build a better tomorrow in this world. If they want us to leave, they don’t need to kill anyone. They can just vote!

PETER FEINMAN Port Chester, N.Y.

Maybe Congress has tools to rein in our willful President other than reducing war funding. Since we no longer have a draft, manpower is limited. But Congress should prohibit sending National Guard or Reserve units overseas. Another approach would be to reduce the size of the armed forces and prohibit the retention of personnel beyond the term of enlistment.

DONALD M. SEIB Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Hillary’s War

William Kristol flayed Senator Hillary Clinton for shuffling on issues with the war [Jan. 29]. It is disingenuous for Kristol to write about the faults of Democrats and the war. He should pay more attention to the Republican President and his allies. They have led this country into a bottomless pit, and Kristol has been a big cheerleader.

JOHN W. MASHEK Washington

Kristol is right that Hillary’s position on Iraq is going to be problematic and that Al Gore would be a huge threat to win the nomination if he ran. But I doubt Gore will run. There is a candidate in the field whom Hillary–and the Republicans–should fear. Kristol and others who doubt Senator Barack Obama can continue to talk about his lack of experience, but experience alone doesn’t prove anything about a candidate’s ability to serve as President. Consider a former President who, like Obama, hailed from Illinois, lacked a long career in national politics and wasn’t favored to win his party’s nomination. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

BO TUERK Golden, Colo.

Has China Got What It Takes?

As China emerges as an international power [Jan. 22], the West must be wary of a brain drain. To be a manufacturing giant, the Chinese must get the know-how. As capitalist businesses become more focused on quarterly profits through low-cost production, they lose sight of the long-term value of their intellectual resources and risk losing their markets.

ALAN BENSON Berlin

China faces many serious drawbacks. Â Its economy depends on trade with the U.S., even though the U.S. has an unmanageable trade deficit with China. China the new superpower? That is wishful thinking. It is only the beginning of the 21st century, and many challenges lie ahead.

WILLIAM F. VANGELDER Santa Maria, Calif.

No matter how many time I read predictions of China’s bright future, I still worry about my country of birth. My parents are both laid-off workers because of China’s economic reforms, so I am not so optimistic. China is developing fast, but it has a long way to go.

DI WU Singapore

Saving an Angel

I was appalled to learn from “Pillow Angel Ethics” [Jan. 22] that the parents of Ashley, a severely brain-damaged 9-year-old girl, mutilated her so that she would be less trouble to care for. Removing Ashley’s uterus and stunting her growth without knowing what potential she might have had through future medical breakthroughs was merely self-interest disguised as love and devotion. Ashley should be placed under protective services to prevent any more atrocious mistreatment.

DON MOSS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY OF ILLINOIS Springfield, Ill.

My sister had the mentality of a 9-month-old, although her body continued to mature. When the decision was made to place her in a facility, it was only because she was almost as tall as my mother and we were no longer able to lift her and provide her with the care she needed. If the options available to Ashley’s parents had been available to us in the early 1980s, we would have done the same thing. She might still be alive today, had we been able to care for her at home. Please do not condemn Ashley’s parents until you have walked in their shoes.

KIM CHILDRESS Evington, Va.

As a bioethicist, I have a question about the justification of infanticide by Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology on the grounds that “a very disabled child can mean a disabled family.” Why should the College apply this consideration only to disabled infants? Cheating husbands, alcoholic wives and nagging mothers-in-law are just a few of the many sorts of people who can mean a very disabled family. Why not kill them too?

FELICIA NIMUE ACKERMAN PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY BROWN UNIVERSITY Providence, R.I.

Another Apple Revolution?

I don’t think Steve Jobs designed the iPhone [Jan. 22]. I think he snapped his fingers and told his engineers to do it. And the iPhone sure isn’t revolutionary. It is not an innovation in technology, just in packaging. How can a company make more money? Combine more things into one product and charge more. And accessorize, accessorize, accessorize. If I bought all the stuff that Apple makes for the iPod, I would be broke. I guess Jobs is a genius–a marketing genius.

JEFF SIMON New Haven, Conn.

I disagree with Lev Grossman’s hesitation to call the iPhone revolutionary because “it won’t create a new market or change the entertainment industry the way the iPod did.” The iPod wasn’t the first portable MP3 player, and iTunes wasn’t the first MP3 computer jukebox program. They were simply the best. I didn’t buy an MP3 player until the iPod, and I didn’t use an MP3 jukebox before iTunes. Guess what? I don’t own a cell phone, but as soon as I can almost afford an iPhone, I’m going to buy one. It isn’t just a cell phone. Revolutionary? Check. Marketmaker? Double check. Will it change the communications industry? I think it already has.

GINO CARTER Seattle