What we must accept if we accept evolution

Independent of what?If you're saying that in order to accept that someone has the ability to choose, then there must be some agent separate from the physical body that does the choosing, aren't you begging the question? Why can't the ability to make choices be a property of an entirely physical body?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

I hope you're being deliberately provocative here - otherwise I fear for your sanity!Honestly, your mental world isn't an illusion. It's about the realest thing there is. There's only a problem here if you need to think of your 'mental world' as something that exists independently of your physical body. And why would you need to think that?

I have 3 questions about your illusory logic:1. Does the same reasoning apply to mathematical processing? If I multiply 5 by 7 in my head, is the answer invalid because the processing was performed by physical events? If not, how is logical processing different?2. As far as I'm aware there are only two kinds of things that do logic processing: humans (and possibly some other higher mammals); and computers. In both cases the actual processing is performed by physical events. Does that mean that the conclusions arrived at by computers are also invalid or illusory?3. As you can see I'm having difficulty understanding what kind of logic processing thing could possibly meet your exacting standards. Could you give me an example?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

What makes you think that the entirely physical things that invented the abstract set of symbols and rules that make up what we call Logic (i.e. us) aren't capable of carrying out operations using those symbols and rules? And conversely, what makes you think that only an abstract, incorporeal entity is capable of using that system?An entirely physical calculator can do mathematical operations. An entirely physical computer can do logic operations. So what's the problem with us?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

I think I've got to the bottom of why your argument seems so strange.Generally there are two opposing arguments on this issue; let's call them the Materialist and the Immaterialist arguments (I'm sure they have technical names, but I'm not a logician). Both sides accept the observed fact that human beings are capable of carrying out logical operations. Where they differ is in how they interpret this fact.The Materialist position has an argument (let's call it the Materialist Hypothesis of Mental Causation) that states that all our empirical evidence suggests that mental events have purely physical causes. The Immaterialist argues that logical operations can only proceed from logical, rather than physical, grounds, and therefore can only be performed by a non-material entity.Th Immaterialist combines his hypothesis with the observation that human beings do logic and concludes that the Materialist hypothesis must be wrong. The Materialist does likewise and concludes that the Immaterialist hypothesis must be wrong. Impressively, you have managed to take a third position, i.e. you accept both the Materialist and the Immaterialist hypotheses, but reject the observable fact!This message has been edited by JavaMan, 01-26-2006 03:46 AM

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

A process can only be described a deterministic if you can say that for a given set of conditions a given outcome will arise. It doesn't make any sense to call a process deterministic just because the outcome had a set of physical causes. If we accepted this latter definition then all physical processes would be defined as deterministic - and that isn't the case.Evolution is a good example of a non-deterministic process. If evolution were deterministic, then given current conditions I could determine the exact range of animals that would evolve from my pet dog over the next 100,000 years. I can't do that because there are at least two things I can never predict: the random mutations that will occur within her descendants' genes ; and the precise environmental conditions they will encounter over the years.Similarly, the process by which you acquired your beliefs is non-deterministic. Given a complete knowledge of your physical state at age 20, I couldn't predict your beliefs at age 35 because I can't know what experiences you will have in the intervening years, and I can't know what choices you'll make.A previous poster gave the movement of a quantum particle as an example of a non-deterministic process. You dismissed this example with the argument that the final condition of the quantum particle must have had physical causes, therefore the process must have been deterministic. I hope you can now see the problem with your argument.(Just in case you can't!). The movement of a quantum particle is non-deterministic because, given an initial set of conditions, we can only give a probability of certain outcomes arising - we can never predict with certainty what the final outcome will be.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible