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Letter: Letters : . . .

Published 12 April 1997

From Bob Wills

by e-mail

You state that: “Neuroscientists have a hard enough time working out how the
brain creates the mental illusion of visual perception, let alone the illusion
of moral judgment and free will.” I don’t want to be unfair to neuroscientists,
who must on average have as much common sense as anyone else, but it is about
time that your magazine abandoned this kind of ultra-materialism.

Visual perception is not an illusion: it enables me to read your magazine,
and I am in fact so convinced of its reality that I am prepared to spend good
money on a pair of glasses to enhance it. Likewise, I will not accept that my
abilities to reason and make choices (including moral judgments) are an
illusion. To anyone who says they are, I reply: “Speak for yourself. I think,
therefore I am.”

Issue no. 2077 published 12 April 1997

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