What
a human being would refer to as "my life" is a
collection of all perceptions put together in a meaningful way and
watched from a screen in the brain, and one can never come out of
one's brain.
The Voices in Your Head
The
hearing process operates in a similar manner to the visual
process. In other words, we hear sounds in our brains in the same
way that we see the view of the outside world in our brains. The
ear captures the sounds around us and delivers them to the middle
ear. The middle ear amplifies the sound vibrations and delivers
them to the inner ear. The inner ear transforms these sound
vibrations into electric signals, on the basis of their frequency
and intensity, and then transmits them to the brain. These
messages in the brain are then sent to the hearing center where
the sounds are interpreted. Therefore, the hearing process takes
place in the hearing center in essentially the same way that the
seeing process takes place in the seeing center.
Actual
sounds, therefore, do not exist outside our brains, even though
there are physical vibrations we call sound waves. These sound
waves are not transformed into sounds outside or inside our ears,
but rather inside our brains. As our eyes do not perform the
visual process, neither do our ears perform the hearing process.
For example, when you are having a chat with a friend, you observe
the perception of your friend in your brain, and hear his or her
voice in your brain. As the view in your brain is formed, you will
have a deep feeling of three dimensions, and your friend's voice
is also heard with a similar feeling of depth. For example, you
could see your friend as being far away from you, or sitting
behind you; accordingly you feel his voice from a place near you
or from behind you. Your friend's voice, however, is not far away
or behind you. It is in your brain.
The
extraordinary nature of sound is not limited to this. The brain is
actually both lightproof and soundproof. Sound never in fact
reaches the brain. Therefore, despite the volume of the sounds you
hear, the interior of your brain is actually very quiet.
Nevertheless, noises are very clearly heard in your brain. This is
an extraordinary fact. The electrical signals that reach the brain
are heard in your brain as sound.
Where’s
That Smell Coming From?
If
someone were asked how he senses the smells around him, he would
probably say "with my nose". This answer, however, is
incorrect, even though most people would instantly conclude that
it was the truth. Gordon Shepherd, a professor of neurology from
Yale University, explains why this is incorrect: "We think
that we smell with our noses, [but] this is a little like saying
that we hear with our ear lobes."1
Our
sense of smell works similarly to our other sense organs. In fact,
the only function of the nose is its ability to act as an intake
channel for smell molecules. Volatile molecules such as vanilla,
or the scent of a rose, come to receptors located on hairs in a
part of the nose called the epithelium and interact with them. The
result of the interaction of the smell molecules with the
epithelium reaches the brain as an electric signal. These electric
signals are then perceived as a scent by the brain. All
smells that we interpret as good or bad are thus perceptions
generated in the brain after the interaction with volatile
molecules has been transduced into electric signals.
The
fragrance of perfume, of a flower, of a food which you like, of
the sea—in short all smells you may or may not like—are
perceived in the brain. However, the smell molecules never
actually reach the brain. In our sense of smell, it is only
electrical signals which reach the brain, as happens with sound
and sight.
George
Berkeley, a philosopher who has realized the importance of this
truth says, "At the beginning, it was believed that colors,
odors, etc., 'really exist,' but subsequently such views were
renounced, and it was seen that they only exist in dependence on
our sensations."
Michael
Posner, a psychologist and Marcus Raichle, a neurologist from
Washington University comment on the issue of how sight and other
senses occur, even in the absence of an external stimulus:
“Open
your eyes, and a scene fills your view effortlessly; close your
eyes and think of that scene, and you can summon an image of it,
certainly not as vivid, solid, or complete as a scene you see with
your eyes, but still one that captures the scene's essential
characteristics. In both cases, an image of the scene is formed in
the mind. The image formed from actual visual experiences is
called a ‘percept’ to distinguish it from an imagined image.
The percept is formed as the result of light hitting the retina
and sending signals that are further processed in the brain. But
how are we able to create an image when no light is hitting the
retina to send such signals?”2
There
is no need for an external source to form an image in your mind.
This same situation holds true for the sense of smell. In the same
way as you are aware of a smell which does not really exist in
your dreams or imagination, you cannot be sure whether or not
those objects, which you smell in real life, exist outside you.
Even if you assume that these objects exist outside of you, you
can never deal with the original objects.
Taste Occurs In The Brain
The
sense of taste can be explained in a manner similar to those of
the other sense organs. Taste is caused by little buds in the
tongue and throat. The tongue can detect four different tastes:
bitter, sour, sweet and salty. Taste buds, after a chain of
processes, transform sensory information into electrical signals
and then transfer them to the brain. Subsequently, the brain
perceives those signals as tastes. The taste that you experience
when you eat a cake, yogurt, a lemon or a fruit is in reality a
process that interprets electrical signals in the brain.
An
image of a cake will be linked with the taste of the sugar, all of
which occurs in the brain and everything sensed is related to the
cake that you like so much. The taste that you are conscious of
after you have eaten your cake with a full appetite is nothing
other than an effect generated in your brain caused by electrical
signals. You are only aware of what your brain interprets from the
external stimuli. You can never reach the original object; for
example you cannot see, smell or taste the actual chocolate
itself. If the taste nerves in your brain were cut off, it would
be impossible for the taste of anything you eat to reach your
brain, and you would entirely lose your sense of taste. The fact
that the tastes you are aware of seem extraordinarily real should
certainly not deceive you.
The Sense of Touch
The
sense of touch is one of the factors that prevent people from
being convinced of the aforementioned truth that the senses
of sight, hearing and taste occur within the brain. For example,
if you told someone that he sees a book within his brain, he might
reply without a moment’s thought that, "I can't be seeing
the book in my brain—look, I'm touching it with my hand."
If we comment by saying that, "we cannot know whether this
book actually exists as a material object," again the same
superficially minded person might answer, "No. Look. I'm
holding it with my hand and I feel the hardness of it – that
isn't a perception but an existence which has material
reality."
There
is a fact, however, that such people cannot understand, or perhaps
just ignore. The sense of touch occurs in the brain as much as the
other senses. That is to say, when you touch a material object,
you sense whether it is hard, soft, wet, sticky or silky in the
brain. The effects that come from your fingertips are transmitted
to the brain as an electrical signal and these signals are
perceived in the brain as the sense of touch. For instance, if you
touch a rough surface, you can never know whether the surface is
in reality indeed a rough surface, or how a rough surface actually
feels. That is because you can never touch the original rough
surface. The knowledge that you have about touching a surface is
your brain's interpretation of certain stimuli. This important
truth, which needs careful consideration, is expressed by
twentieth century philosopher Bertrand Russell:
“As
to the sense of touch when we press the table with our fingers,
that is an electric disturbance on the electrons and protons of
our fingertips produced according to modern physics by the
proximity of the electrons and protons in the table. If the same
disturbance in our fingertips arose in any other way, we should
have the sensations, in spite of there being no table.”3
The
point that Russell makes here is extremely important. In fact, if
our fingertips are given a stimulus in a different manner, we can
sense entirely different feelings. Today this can be done by
mechanical simulators. With the help of a special glove, a person
can feel the sensation of stroking a cat, shaking hands with
someone, washing his hands, or touching a hard material, even
though none of these things may be present. In reality, of course,
none of these sensations represent occurrences in the real world.
This is further evidence that all the sensations felt by a human
being are formed within the mind.
The
author, who writes under the pen name of Harun
Yahya, has published many books on political,
faith-related and scientific issues. Some of the books of the
author have been translated into English, German, French, Spanish,
Italian, Portuguese, Albanian, Arabic, Polish, Russian, Bosnian,
Indonesian, Turkish, Tatar, Urdu and Malay and have been published
in the countries concerned. www.harunyahya.com
info@harunyahya.com
-
www.hhmi.org/senses/a/a110.htm
-
Michael I. Posner, Marcus E. Raichle, Images of Mind, Scientific American Library, New York, 1999, p. 88
-
Bertrand Russell, ABC of Relativity, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1964, pp. 161-162
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