|
THE WORLD IN OUR BRAINS
When you look out of the window,
you think that you see an image with your eyes, as this is the
way that you have been taught to think. However, in reality this
is not how it works, because you do not see the world with your
eyes. You see the image created in your brains. This is not a
prediction, nor a philosophical speculation, but the scientific
truth.
This concept can be better understood
when we realize how the visual system operates. The eye is responsible
for transforming light into an electric signal by means of the
cells in the retina. This electrical signal reaches the sight
center in the brain. The signals create the vision you see when
you look out of the window. In other words, the sights you see
are created in your brain.
You see the image
in your brain, not the view outside the window. For example, in
the picture shown on the right hand side, the light reaches the
eyes of the person from outside. This light passes to the small
sight center located at the back of the brain after the cells
in the eyes transform it into electrical signals. It is these
electrical signals which form the picture in the brain. In reality
when we open the brain, we wouldn't be able to see any image.
However, some kind of consciousness in the mind receives electrical
signals in the form of an image. The brain perceives electrical
signals in the form of an image, yet it has no eye, eye cells,
or retina. So, to whom does the consciousness in the brain belong?
The same question can be asked about the book you are reading
now. The light coming to your eyes is converted into electrical
signals and reaches your brain, where the view of the book is
created. In other words, the book you are reading right now is
not outside you, it is actually inside you, in the sight center
in the back of your brain. Since you feel the hardness of the
book with your hands, you might think that the book is outside
you. However, this feeling of hardness also originates in the
brain. The nerves on your fingertips transmit electrical information
to the touch center in your brain. And when you touch the book,
you feel the hardness and intensity of it, the slipperiness of
the pages, the texture of the cover and the sharpness of the edge
of the pages, all within your brain.
In reality however,
you can never touch the real nature of the book. Even though you
think that you're touching the book, it is your brain that perceives
the tactile sensations. This book exists as a material thing outside of your brain, but you merely confront the image of the book within your brain. However, you should not be tricked by the fact that a writer wrote this book, the pages were designed by a computer and printed by a publisher. The things that will be explained in due course will show you that you will never know the originals of the people, computers and the publishers in every stages of the production of this book.
 We
can therefore conclude that everything we see, touch and hear
merely exists in our brains. This is a scientific truth, proven
with scientific evidence. The significant point is the answer
to the question asked above, which this scientific truth has led
us to ask;
Who is it that
has no eye, but watches sights through a window in our brains
and enjoys or becomes anxious from these sights? This will be
explained in the following sites.
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.
We have been taught that we are
touching the cloth outside of our body, reading a book that is
30 cm (1 ft) away from us, smelling the trees that are far away
from us, or hearing the shaking of the leaves that are far above
us. However, this is all in our imagination. All of these things
are happening within our brains.
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 colour 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
for 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.
Let us now consider our sense organs,
and how each one perceives the world.
It's
Not Our Eyes That See,
It
Is Our Brain
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.
For example, when you
watch children playing in a park, you are not seeing the children
and the park with your eyes, because the image of this view forms
not before your eyes, but at the back of your brain.
Even though we have given a simple
explanation, in reality the physiology of vision is an extraordinary
operation. Without fail, 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:
1- Rita Carter, Mapping
The Mind, University of California Press, London, 1999, p. 107
Home Page
|
