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Wow. This was such an elegantly written post, and I couldn't agree more. I think that breaking down our minds/souls/whatever you want to call whatever it is that we are debating here into mere evolutionarily imprinted reactionary electrochemical impulses is a tad presumptuous and quite frankly I hate the idea.

I believe in the power and usefulness of science, and in fact I am borderline obsessed with evolution theory (Alfred Russel Wallace is my soul mate), but what is truly amazing to me is that from scratch the human mind can explore and discover and disembowel and put together and wonder and imagine and distort and manipulate and conclude and dream and a whole slue of other things to boot. I mean, honestly, that's pretty cool.

Nothing strengthens my belief in a deep and inexplicable human element more than the weird stuff that kids do. I love kids, and I think they are a great way to observe what our minds would be doing if we weren't so busy trying to get them to do something else. For instance, I'm leaving the house and my neighbor Xavier, a 2-year-old boy, looks up at me when I say hi to him and says:

"Actually, my name is Troy, and I'm a giraffe today."

I promise Xavy wasn't programmed my evolution to pretend he's a giraffe. Let's face it, it just wouldn't be favorable from a natural selection standpoint. And I don't think he even knows anyone named Troy. Like I said, I'm a sciencey-type gal, but sometimes I just have to shake my head and say, "Who knows?"