no joke WTF?? i want to know

I have been wondering this for a long time, and i hope that i am not the only one, but where exactly do the random parts of the book come from. These parts just appear in between major events and the actual story itself and just disrupts my whole pattern of reading. I can't help but be confused when there is a transition from a parade scene to deformed mollusks. Obviously the mollusks were being compared to people, but why is that part even there. It goes from a nice little story about a scythe wielding crazy and a candy chunking mob into a hardly connected ramblings on genetics and the rights of mollusks.
I know one of the big parts of this book is the whole "stream of consciousness" thing, but who's stream are we following. Is it of one of the authors just trying to fill up space in the book? Or is it used to show different parts and pieces of flatland that wouldn't fit easily or interestingly into the story? Or is it Square who is thinking all of these things? is he often lost in his own mind pretending to be thinking about his book ( or really thinking about the book) and we just get to see a conglomeration of his thoughts? Personally that is what i think. i believe these interruptions are just Square's thoughts about things. They are in places in some way connected to what he had been saying in his little side notes during the actual story. like on page 112, the side bar comments on how the language of the bankers is more important than the messages of previous civilizations. this correlates to the discussion of the randomness about the dying of languages.
Does that sound right at all??

PS if this sounds rushed or doesn't make sense it is because i have to run off to work and don't really have time to proof read. Sorry

Are we robots?

While reading Vas, I started thinking a lot about what is unique about Humans. Genetics and evolution keep showing up in the scientific snipits. There are so many philosophical questions that need to be asked. What makes us different from other animals? We experience things that other animals do not. We can have conversations like these (I would love to see a classroom of monkeys discuss the mathematical inconsistencies that were in We). Is it that we have a free will?

So I would love to start a discussion on this question:

If all reality is simply composed of matter and energy (materialism), then where does "free will" come from?

Assuming the anticedent (materialism), isn't the "will" just chemicals that fire in our brain, producing all consciousness and "choice" (really there is no choice; it is not in your control at all; it is not "free")? Aren't all of our actions determined by our genetic make up?

Even the emotion you feel now, while reading this, is determined by chemicals...your reaction, determined...your every action, determined.

I'm not talking about fate...

How does the rational (choice, reason, deduction...) come from simple material and energy?

If it turns out to be true that everything we do is determined by genes and neurons, then aren't we just a slightly more complex version of a robot?

These are just a few questions that I would love to discuss.