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 [Feb. 12]. 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, history and theology. The whole is greater than — or at least different from — the sum of its parts.
Richard W. Metz
Sanibel, Florida, U.S.

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 are already in nature? If assemblages of neurons can't be viewed as the building blocks of consciousness, then consciousness must be a primary principle.
Robert G. Tabor
Austin, Texas, U.S.

Putting aside whether Steven Pinker is correct that conscious and unconscious thoughts must be in the brain, the most difficult question remains: Where is a thought, 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, Universe. And that is where the soul resides.
(The Rev.) Tim O'Connor
Cumming, Georgia, U.S.

Trying to understand consciousness by probing the workings of the brain is analogous to trying to find the source of pictures on your TV by analyzing the workings of the TV set. Until scientists recognize the transcendental nature of human existence, they will continue to wander blindly in a fog of ignorance.
Ranko Pinter
Cambridge, England

The cover diagram suggested that the brain is astonishingly complex, while the story inside as much as said God is dead. But how can consciousness be the gift of evolution? If there is no giver, there is no gift. The brain would be just one more piece of meat in a material world. The Word became flesh only because something more than flesh is needed to produce words.
(the Rev.) Joe Babendreier
Nairobi, Kenya

NATO 2.0
Re Walter Isaacson's "A NATO for the Middle East" [Feb. 5]: The U.S. never stops promoting democracy, but there have been times when it has distanced itself from elected governments. The U.S. tacitly approved of the Algerian army's canceling a 1992 election won by an Islamic party, and Washington continues to be reluctant to recognize Hamas as the representative of the Palestinian people. It seems that Uncle Sam wants democracy only on his own terms.
Max Desouza
Toronto

Premature Politicking
Re "The race is on" [Feb. 5], about the early start to the U.S. presidential campaign: I am a U.S. citizen, and I propose that there be no campaigning until May 2008. The parties should hold their primary elections in June and their conventions in August and September, leaving September and October to finish campaigning and debating. Ah, yes, and let's cap campaign spending.
Stephen C. Schulte
Hermée, Belgium

The race is composed of well-trained political athletes, and the winner will have to dispel the pains that Americans want to leave behind and deliver the triumphs they long for. American voters are asking for change, but just what kind of change is unclear to many people of the world. We'll have to wait, watch the model democratic institution at work and learn.
Mamora Olusegun Victor
Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria

Hotheaded Democrats?
In his Viewpoint "How the democrats have lost their cool" [Feb. 12], William Kristol questioned why Democrats feel frustrated with President George W. Bush's decision to escalate the war in Iraq. I would respectfully remind Kristol that the frustration in the air today is held by a solid majority of Americans, not just Democrats. Frustration is mounting because the President has decided to stick with what is primarily a military solution. The diplomacy recommended by the Iraq Study Group has been rejected by President Bush. Perhaps most startling, the neoconservative architects of the foreign-policy failures of the past six years still influence the President's thinking. Yet I would not expect Kristol to touch upon any of these points, since he is in the vanguard of the neoconservatives.
Steven R. Schels
Hamburg, New Jersey, U.S.

Kristol accused the democrats of hoping this war fails and more U.S. troops and Iraqis die so that Bush and the Republicans look bad. That is spin at its worst. Kristol also tried to perpetuate the tired notion that it's important to sustain this war as part of a larger war on terrorism. But we will not condone this lie of an occupation anymore.
Pam Bergren
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.

So obsessed is Kristol with marginal missteps by Democrats that he loses sight of the big picture. Kristol wrote that Bush "crossed up Democrats" by replacing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and rejecting the Iraq Study Group's change in strategy. The political maneuver might be nice sport, providing the Administration with a few moments of relief. But Kristol failed to point out that Bush continues to lose the only battle that counts — the one in Iraq.
Sanford Rubin
Rochester, New York, U.S.

Scooter's Secrets
I agree with Michael Kinsley that we need a strong free press and leaks to keep government honest [Feb. 12]. But he also argues that leaks are so central to democracy that it's O.K. to commit them even if one violates the law. I am an immigrant from a Third World country, and one thing I really appreciate about the U.S. is the ideal that nobody is above the law. The rule of law is a prerequisite for a civilized society and more central to democracy than leaks are.
Jay de los Reyes
Alameda, California, U.S.

The left hates Bush so much that it salivates at any hint of misdeed, whether warranted or not. There are plenty of reasons to criticize the Bush Administration, but special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is wasting hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on a case he made up because I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby cannot remember exactly how conversations went three years ago. I would be in real trouble if I were in Libby's spot, since I can't remember what I said last week.
Pat Schmitt
High Point, North Carolina, U.S.

The Human Swarm
As the debate on carbon emissions and climate change heats up [Jan. 29], I am amazed that a lot of discussions ignore one of the main causes of environmental degradation: overpopulation. We have been breeding like locusts, filling every available space and devouring all available resources. The planet simply cannot sustain such population growth, particularly when everyone understandably aspires to a First World lifestyle. Tackling this problem raises difficult moral, ethical and sociological issues. But if we ignore it, the consequences for humankind are unimaginable.
Dick Keane
Dublin

Death Squads of Sadr City
Re "Baghdad's Ground Zero" [Jan. 29]: Despite its best efforts to bring peace to Iraq, the U.S. has failed. Innocent Iraqis and U.S. troops are being killed in a useless war. It is high time that the world community ask the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq. America cannot bring peace to the country, so it should immediately stop interfering in Iraq's matters.
Shailesh Kumar
Bangalore, India

Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair were misguided in thinking they could impose democracy on a culture that doesn't have the prerequisites to make that form of government viable. It is a failing of many of our well-intentioned leaders to think that they have the power to change such a natural order, as the British and French believed when they ventured to remap the Middle East after World War I, leaving behind a host of problems that confront us today.
Harry Friedman
Milton Keynes, England