All events and objects that we
encounter in real life—buildings, people, cities, cars,
places—in fact, everything we see, hold, touch, smell, taste and
hear—come into existence as visions and feelings in our brains.
We
are taught to think that these images and feelings are caused by a
solid world outside of our brains, where material things exist.
However, in reality we never see or touch real existing materials.
In other words, every material entity that we believe exists in
our lives is, in fact, only a vision that is created in our
brains.
This
is not a philosophical speculation. It is an empirical fact that
has been proven by modern science. Today, any scientist who is a
specialist in medicine, biology, neurology or any other field
related to brain research would say when asked how and where we
see the world, that we see the whole world in the vision center
located in our brains.
We
acknowledge that all the individual features of the world are
experienced through our sense organs. The information that reaches
us through those organs is converted into electrical signals, and
the individual parts of our brain analyze and process these
signals. After this interpreting process takes place inside our
brain, we will, for example, see a book, taste a strawberry, smell
a flower, feel the texture of a silk fabric or hear leaves shaking
in the wind.
The
World as a Pulse
At
this point we encounter another surprising fact; that there are,
in fact, no colors, voices or visions within our brain. All that
can be found in our brains are electrical signals. This is not a
philosophical speculation. This is simply a scientific description
of the functions of our perceptions. In her book, Mapping The
Mind, Rita Carter explains the way we perceive the world as
follows:
Each
one [of the sense organs] is intricately adapted to deal with its
own type of stimulus: molecules, waves or vibrations. But the
answer does not lie here, because despite their wonderful variety,
each organ does essentially the same job: it translates its
particular type of stimulus into electrical pulses. A pulse is a
pulse is a pulse. It is not the color red, or the first notes of
Beethoven's Fifth—it is a bit of electrical energy. Indeed,
rather than discriminating one type of sensory input from another,
the sense organs actually make them more alike.
All
sensory stimuli, then enter the brain in more or less
undifferentiated form as a stream of electrical pulses created by
neurons firing, domino-fashion, along a certain route. This is all
that happens. There is no reverse transformer that at some stage
turns this electrical activity back into light waves or molecules.
What makes one stream into vision and another into smell depends,
rather, on which neurons are stimulated.1
In
other words, all of our feelings and perceptions about the world
(smells, visions, tastes etc.) are comprised of the same material,
that is, electrical signals. Moreover, our brain is what makes
these signals meaningful to us, and interprets these signals as
senses of smell, taste, vision, sound or touch. It is a stunning
fact that the brain, which is made of wet meat, can know which
electrical signal should be interpreted as smell and which one as
vision, and can convert the same material into different senses
and feelings.
The
Brain as a Sensory Organ
Because
of the indoctrination that we receive throughout our lives, we
imagine that we see the whole world with our eyes. Eventually, we
usually conclude that our eyes are the windows that open up to the
world. However, science shows us that we do not see through our
eyes. The millions of nerve cells inside the eyes are responsible
for sending a message to the brain, as if down a cable, in order
to make "seeing" happen. If we analyze the information
we learned in high school, it becomes easier for us to understand
the reality of vision.
The light reflecting off an object passes through the lens of the
eye and causes an upside-down image on the retina at the back of
the eyeball. After some chemical operations carried out by retinal
rods and cones, this vision becomes an electrical impulse. This
impulse is then sent through connections in the nervous system to
the back of the brain. The brain converts this flow into a
meaningful, three-dimensional vision.
Although
this may sound simple, in reality the physiology of vision is an
extraordinary operation. Without failure, light is converted into
electrical signals, and subsequently, these electrical signals
reveal a colorful, shining, three-dimensional world. R. L.
Gregory, in his book Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing,
acknowledges this significant fact, and explains this incredible
structure:
We
are given tiny distorted upside-down images in the eyes, and we
see separate solid objects in surrounding space. From the patterns
of simulation on the retinas we perceive the world of objects, and
this is nothing short of a miracle.2
All
of these facts lead to the same conclusion. Throughout our lives,
we always assume that the world exists outside of us. However, the
world is within us. Although we believe that the world lies
outside us, it is in the smallest part of our brain.
What
this demonstrates is that every person throughout his or her life
witnesses everything inside their brain and cannot reach the
specific material objects that supposedly cause their experiences.
The images we see are copies in our brains of the objects that we
assume to exist outside of us. We can never know to what extent
these copies resemble the originals, or whether or not the
originals even exist.
Although
German psychiatry professor Hoimar Von Ditfurth is a materialist,
he acknowledges this fact about scientific reality:
No
matter how we put the argument, the result doesn't change. What
stands before us in full shape and what our eyes view is not the
"world". It is only its image, a resemblance, a
projection whose association with the original is open to
discussion.3
For
example, when you take a look at the room in which you are
sitting, what you see is not the room outside of you, but a copy
of the room that exists in your brain. You will never be able to
see the original room with your sense organs.
And
Then There Was Light
There
is another point that should not be neglected; light cannot pass
through the skull. The physical area in which the brain is located
is completely dark, and light cannot possibly penetrate it.
However, incredible as it may seem, it is possible to observe a
bright and colorful world in this total darkness. Colorful natural
beauty, bright sights, all the tones of the color green, the
colors of fruits, the designs of flowers, the brightness of
the sun, people walking on a busy road, fast cars in traffic,
clothes in a shopping mall—are all created in the dark brain.
Imagine a barbecue burning in front of you. You can sit and watch
the fire for a long time, but throughout this entire time, your
brain never deals with the original light, brightness or heat from
the fire. Even when you feel its heat and see its light, the
inside of your brain remains dark and maintains a constant
temperature. It is a profound mystery that, in the darkness, the
electrical signals turn into colorful, bright visions. Anyone who
thinks deeply will be amazed by this wondrous occurrence.
The
Origins of Light
While
discussing what science has discovered about vision, we mentioned
that the light we receive from the outside gives rise to some
movements of the eye cells, and these movements form a pattern
from which our visual experience emerges. However, there is
another point that we need to make: light, as we perceive it, does
not reside outside of our brain. The light we know and
understand is also formed within our brain. What we call
light in the outside world, which is supposedly outside our
brains, consists of electromagnetic waves and particles of energy
called photons. When these electromagnetic waves or photons reach
the retina, light as we experience it, begins to come into
existence. This is the way light is described in physical terms:
The
term "light" is used for electromagnetic waves and
photons. The same term is used in physiology, as the feeling
experienced by a person when electromagnetic waves and photons
strike the retina of the eye. In both objective and subjective
terms, "light" is a form of energy coming into existence
in the eye of a person, which a person becomes aware of through
the retina by the effects of vision.4
Consequently,
light comes into existence as a result of the effects that some
electromagnetic waves and particles cause in us. In other words,
there is no light outside our bodies that creates the light we see
in our brains. There is only energy. And when this energy reaches
us we see a colorful, bright, and light-filled world. We can
therefore conclude that everything we see merely exists in our
brains. This is a scientific truth, proven with scientific
evidence.
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
References:
1-
Rita Carter, Mapping The Mind, University of California Press, London, 1999, p. 107
2- R. L. Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 1990, p. 9
3- Hoimar von Ditfurth, Der Geist Fiel Nicht Vom Himmel (The Spirit Did Not Fall From The Sky), p. 256
4- M. Ali Yaz, Sait Aksoy, Fizik 3 (Physics 3), Surat Publishers, Istanbul, 1997, p. 3
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