Ego-- harmful delusion or pragmatic necessity?

[henryp]

I think evolution has done such a marvelous job at creating the illusions we live...

I find it odd that Father Darwin saw a need to create illusions in the first place. Why should the brain, as a computer, require that it think it is doing one thing when it is really doing another?

Interesting question.  Possibly, it's just a side effect.  Once you start the thinking bus, it's going to go willy-nilly.  Self-consciousness could be a mental appendix.   Perhaps a computer brain just doesn't work on it's own, and requires the illusion to properly function.  Perhaps the illusion serves as a carrot for the computer brain.  Quite honestly, I haven't gotten this far yet!