manner resembling that of the brain, although the com- 

 puters operate much faster than the brain does and have 

 far less separate elementary parts than the brain pos- 

 sesses. Future study of the computers may well teach 

 us a good deal more about cognitive processes. But today 

 there does not appear to be any provable reason to 

 doubt that the mind is simply the brain in function, 

 which implies that the death of the brain, which occurs 

 about 10 minutes after its blood supply ceases, results in 

 the final extinction of the mind. This of course discredits 

 the whole idea of an immortal mind or "soul" — the basic 

 tenet of religion. As Man is always a hopeful animal, to 

 death, it seems quite probable that he invented the con- 

 cept of a "soul" to satisfy his own wishes. 



One of the primary problems facing Mankind today 

 is the rapid growth of his numbers, at an ever increasing 

 rate, which if it continues unchecked, without a com- 

 plementary rise in agricultural production, will lead to 

 serious food shortage in less than 100 years from now 

 (1962). The actual limiting population which the Earth 

 could support has been estimated at about 50,000 million 

 people, which would mean about 1000 people per square 

 mile of land surface, assuming that 85% of the Earth's 

 57.5 million square miles of land could be made available 

 to Man (which appears unlikely). That is there would 

 be roughly two people per acre of land, or, uniformly 

 spaced, people would be only about 50 feet apart! 



The latest available data on population give the follow- 

 ing figures for total world population: 



50-year 



Year Population percentage increase 



1650 520 millions 



1700 610 " 17% 



62 



