Max Planck's discovery shows that light exhibits the properties of both a wave and a particle. Since Planck's day, countless experiments and observations have revealed this as an incontrovertible fact. That being so, in order to better comprehend this definition we can refer to another kind of waves, those that occur in water. Those waves are not made up of water, but are made up of the energy transmitted through the water. If a wave moves from one end of a swimming pool to another, this does not mean that the water in one side of the pool passes to the other. The water remains where it was. Only the wave itself moves, transmitting energy. When you move your hand in a bathtub filled with water you produce a small wave in the form of ripples, because you are imparting energy to the water. That energy manifests in the water in the form of a wave.
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| This is the true account: there is no other god besides Allah. Allah-He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surah Al 'Imran, 62) |
All waves are energy travelling and generally are trasmitted by the use of a medium-water, in this example.
Light waves, understandably, are rather more complicated than waves in water and do not require a medium in order to travel. They can travel through an empty vacuum. 31 Light is dependent on matter only at the initial stage. Once light has been emitted, it can move independently with no material element. Light energy can be found even where there is no matter at all.
Light and heat are different forms of the energy known as electromagnetic radiation. All the various forms of electromagnetic radiation act in the form of energy waves in space. Again, this can be compared-albeit simplistically-to ripples created when a stone is thrown into a lake. In the same way that those ripples may be of different width and amplitude, so electromagnetic radiation can have different wavelengths.
There are very great differences between the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. While some may be kilometers long, other wavelengths are smaller than a trillionth of a centimeter. Scientists divide these different wavelengths into named categories, which seem to imply that they are different forms of energy entirely. For example, rays with a wavelength as short as a trillionth of a centimeter are known as "gamma rays." These transmit very high energy. Rays with wavelengths kilometers long are known as "radio waves" and transmit very weak energy. For that reason, while gamma rays are lethal to us, radio ways have no effect at all as they pass through your body.
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| Light is an energy that behaves in the form of a wave. Light waves resemble waves in water. But unlike the energy in water, this energy here has no need of a medium to travel through. It can move within a total vacuum. Thus light energy can be found where there is no matter. |
The spectrum of wavelengths is extraordinary wide. The shortest length is 1025 times smaller than the longest. Numerically, this is expressed by the figure 1 followed by 25 zeroes. In order to better comprehend this number-which may be written as 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000-let's provide some comparisons. For example, the number of seconds that have passed during the 4 billion years of the Earth's existence is only 1017. If we wanted to count to 1025, day and night and non-stop, it would take us 100 million times longer than the age of the Earth! If we tried to place 1025 playing cards on top of one another, we would find ourselves far beyond the Milky Way and we would need to travel half the length of the observable universe.
Though the different wavelengths in the universe have been distributed in such a broad spectrum, it is interesting that our Sun's light should have been confined to a very narrow range within that spectrum. Seventy percent of the different wavelengths emitted by the Sun fall within a very narrow range between 0.3 and 1.5 microns (1 micron is one thousandth of a millimeter.)
In that range, there are three kinds of light: visible light, near infrared rays and ultraviolet rays.But these three types of light represent just one unit in the electromagnetic spectrum! In other terms, all the Sun's light, when put together, represents just one out of the 1025 playing cards. That the Sun's rays are restricted to such a narrow range is important, since only these rays can support life on Earth.
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| A six-mirror, giant gamma-ray telescope on Mount Hopkins |
The light stimulating the human eye in order to form an image represents a narrow band of this broad range of frequencies-an area less than an octave in width. The wavelengths that stimulate the retina vary between 39 and 75 millionths of a centimeter. According to professor of neuropsychology Richard L. Gregory, "Looked at in this way we are almost blind!" 32
Bearing this in mind, you can realize how the light you see represents only a very small fraction of the light that you perceive to be out there. Your retina perceives images formed by light consisting of a rather small band. The realm of other frequency bands apart from this one is unknown to us.
The light in the narrow range of frequencies we can see conveys all that we can experience in the outside world.
The chief property of light is the effect it has on matter. In general, matter possesses inertia, resisting all the pressures placed on it by pushing or pulling. And whenever we push or pull an object, we feel pushing or pulling forces on ourselves. Newton called this action and reaction. Light also acts on matter, but light particles have no inertial property. We can see light reacting with objects, as when a laser beam cuts through metal or repairs a damaged retina. But we can never perceive the actions and reactions that matter has on light. Physicists refer to light's inability to be pushed or pulled as "its absence of any rest mass."33
Rest mass is the mass of a body when at rest, in other words, it is a fixed entity. Yet when it comes to light, it is never at rest: It is in a state of constant movement. Therefore, light is a form of energy that lacks mass and for that reason does not exhibit a basic characteristic of "matter." Fred Alan Wolf describes this state of affairs:
When we see light, we really don't see light at all: we see an effect appearing as a result of light pushing and pulling on the matter making up our sensory bodies. We see matter moving. Light itself is really out of this world . . . 34
Where Is Light, Actually?
Is it light that makes the outside world visible to us, and is the means whereby our brains form images of the outside world? Does light cause all corporeal entities to come into being when we step outside and cause them to disappear for us in a completely darkened room? Were it not for light, would the whole world around us cease to exist?
The idea that the external world we perceive exists only through the help of visible light is actually our own impression. There is actually no light in the outside world, in which a pitch darkness rules. Neither lamps, nor car headlights, nor the Sun emit any light in the sense we know it. Light occurs and illuminates the world we live in solely as a perception in our brains.
The Sun and other sources of light emit electromagnetic particles (photons) at varying wavelengths. These particles spread outward through the universe as dictated by their structures. For example, many radioactive particles pass right through your body. Only a lead shield can halt them. Some of these particles are so heavy and so charged with energy that they generally destroy any molecules they meet and continue on their way without changing course. This is the underlying reason why radiation causes cancer. X-ray machines make use of a weaker form of radiation. Via photosensitive film, these machines convert the effect set up by radio waves into visible light, converting them into a form that our retinas can detect. In other words, light exists as long as it is percieved by the eye and interpreted by the brain. But light and illumination do not exist outside in the terms with which we are familiar.
Radio waves do not damage human tissue as they pass through it. These waves cannot be detected by our senses, but the radios in your home or auto convert them into sound waves that your ears can perceive. The crackling noise you hear between channels or when no radio program is being broadcast is actually the "sound" of the cosmic background radiation that has been emitted by all the stars, including our Sun, since the beginning of the universe. What we refer to as "sound" here is actually our perception of our radios processing these waves and making them audible to our ears-followed by the signals our auditory nerves transmit to our brains.
In other words, the waves themselves do not really exist, since they have no material existence in the physical sense. They must be converted into a form that the ears can hear and the brain can interpret. The same applies to a television set. Various light waves that are invisible to us are converted by the set's screen into a form we can perceive.
The photons that are the source of the perception we call "light" are light particles and generally bounce off the atom they first collide with. In doing so, they cause little harm to their point of impact. Because of the higher frequencies at which they vibrate, ultraviolet rays carry a greater energy charge that can effect our skin and may sometimes damage our cell's genetic codes. That is why excessive exposure to sunlight can lead to cancer.
Due to their frequencies, the photons known as infrared leave some of their energy on the molecules with which they collide and increase the rate at which they vibrate-thus raising their temperature. That is why infrared rays are also known as "heat rays." A hot stove or electric heater gives off large quantities of infrared rays that are perceived as heat on your skin. Yet in fact, nothing "hot" exists outside. What we call "heat" consists of energy generated by the light waves striking matter. It is impossible to claim that anything known as "heat" exists in the absence of a conscious entity that perceives it.
Some photons have frequencies that fall between the ultraviolet and the infrared. When these rays strike the retinal layer at the back of your eyes, they are converted into an electrical signal by the cells there. Thus we perceive photons, which are all in fact physical particles, as "light." If the cells in our eyes perceived photons as "heat" particles, then we would have no such concepts as light, color, or darkness; and when we looked at physical objects, we would merely feel whether they were "hot" or "cold." The way the outside world appears to us depends on the way our senses perceive it. There is actually no light or heat there, in objective terms.
We are surrounded by particles of different frequencies and wavelengths. Only the perception centers in our brains make these "visible" and "detectable" for us.
The photons that fall onto the retinal layer are converted into electrical currents by the perception cells there. These currents are then transmitted by the nerves to the visual center in the brain. The visual center then forms an image by interpreting these electrical currents. This property of light is expressed thus in physics textbooks:
The word light was used in a physical or objective sense in reference to electromagnetic waves or photons. The same word is also used in a psychological sense in reference to the sensation that arises when electromagnetic waves and photons strike the retina of the eye. Let us express both the objective and subjective concepts of the word light: Light is a form of energy that manifests itself with the visual effects born from the stimulation of the retina in the human eye. 35
The bright and vibrant world that we imagine exists outside us does actually have a material existence-but its perception is in fact a kind of phantom produced within us, the original of which we can never see. The seascape you see on a sunny day actually consists entirely of darkness. There is no reflection on the water, sea-blue color, clarity of air or eye-catching white clouds at all. What enables us to perceive this image, so bright and vivid for us, is merely the electrical signals transmitted to our brain. Apart from effecting a perception in our brains, light exists on the outside solely as a form of energy. For that reason, light-which we may think of as the reason for our perception of matter, is actually nothing but an illusion.
Considering this fact, we arrive at a very striking conclusion: Your eyes actually have no property such as "sight" at all. The eye is merely a subordinate unit that converts photons into electrical signals. It has no ability to perceive. It is not the eye that watches the bright world that we imagine surrounds us. The sensation of light or color does not form in the eye itself-as well explain in detail in the sections regarding vision.
Are Colors Only in Our Brains?
What we perceive as light consists solely of signals interpreted in our visual cortex. Therefore, colors, which stem from light and pervade our entire lives, are nothing more than interpretations by the brain.
The names of different colors are assigned to photons of various frequencies. We are able to distinguish colors such as red and yellow according to the degree of photon vibration: Thus different colors have different scales of vibration. Paper and snow appear white because they reflect all frequencies, and the combination of these gives rise to white. Leaves are green, because they reflect only photons at a frequency that gives rise to the appearance of green, while they absorb all the others. Glass is transparent, because photons can pass through it and reach our eyes without encountering any obstruction. A black fabric reflects very little light back because it absorbs almost all the photons that strike it. As a result, few photons reach our eyes, and we perceive the fabric as dark or black.
A mirror copies an image because it has a smooth reflective surface, and the moment that light rays strike it, almost all bounce off and their parallel nature is not distorted.
Color perception begins in the cone cells in the eye's retinal layer. In the retina, there are three main groups of cone cells, each of which react to particular light wavelengths. The first of these three groups is sensitive to red, the second to blue, and the third to green. As a result of these three different groups being stimulated in different proportions, millions of different color shades are perceived. However, it is not enough for light to reach the cone cells in order for us to see colors. Jeremy Nathans, a researcher from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, states how the cone cells in the retina do not actually give rise to color:
All that a single cone can do is capture light and tell you something about its intensity . . . it tells you nothing about color. 36
These color data perceived by the cone cells are converted into electrical signals, thanks to the varying pigments they possess. The nerve cells connected to these cells then transmit these signals to a special region in the brain, in which forms the vivid world we see throughout our lives.
Are there any colors in this region?
This special visual center of the brain is completely dark, like all the other parts of the brain. There is no light there, and no colors. There is no red, green or yellow in this part of the brain. There is no white. There is no reflection of bright flower gardens or dazzling sunlight, no blue sky or verdant trees. The inside of the skull is pitch black. We imagine that light enters it directly through our eyes. But in fact, there is not the slightest trace of light anywhere behind the eyes.
The formation of colors stems from objects' light-reflective properties. Since there is no light in the outside world, there can be no question of the existence of any color. Therefore, where is the colorful world we regard as "outside" our eyes? This world cannot reach us directly from the outside, nor does it form inside our brains. The colorful world is something we perceive. It assumes this form because we interpret it as such.
Peter Russell from the Cambridge University Department of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics describes this state of affairs:
To the surprise of many, the world "out there" has turned out to be quite unlike our experience of it. Consider our experience of the color green. In the physical world there is light of a certain frequency, but the light itself is not green. Nor are the electrical impulses that are transmitted from the eye to the brain. No color exists there. The green we see is a quality appearing in the mind in response to this frequency of light. It exists only as a subjective experience in the mind. 37
Like light, colors are an interpretation by the brain. The brightness in the image and the world of color are formed solely by types of radiation we perceive in this manner.* The interpretation is entirely subjective. Richard L. Gregory, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, sums up the position in his book, Eye and Brain:
Strictly speaking, light itself is not coloured: it gives rise to sensations of brightness and colour, but only in conjuction with a suitable eye and nervous system. 38
Any damage or structural alteration that occurs in the eye may cause the same object to be perceived in very different ways, even though the signals generated by the arriving photons and the visual center in the brain still have exactly the same properties. That is why color-blind people and those with normal vision perceive and interpret specific colors so very differently.
The conlusion emerging from this whole account is that what we perceive as "the outside world" is dark. In fact, even the concept of darkness may be misleading. There is no color at all there. The three-dimensional, bright world we see portrayed in vivid colors is entirely deceptive. The reflected photons we interpret as light or color are nothing more than physical events taking place in complete darkness. Our entire bodies, including our eyes, and the whole material world we see as a three-dimensional, brightly colored sphere, are actually contained within the brain, which alone interprets what we see in this way. However, the interesting thing is that the eye that perceives all this and the brain that interprets it are also in complete darkness. Light and color do not exist in the brain that interprets them.
Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy from Tufts University, has conducted countless experiments into consciousness and the brain. He summarizes the position:
The common wisdom is that modern science has removed the color from the physical world, replacing it with colorless electromagnetic radiation of various wavelengths. 39
In the same book, Dennett quotes from an introductory book on the brain by Ornstein and Thompson:
"Color" as such does not exist in the world; it exists only in the eye and brain of the beholder. Objects reflect many different wavelenghts of light, but these light waves themselves have no color. 40
Since color is concerned with the way in which a person perceives external light, there is no way in which we can know whether the world we perceive is the same for any other person or not. You can never know whether the color that someone else sees as "red" is the same red that you see. For us, the concept of "colorful" may actually express millions of different hues altogether. Yet someone else may see a far more limited variety of colors and yet still interpret this as a full spectrum. We have no way of comparing our perception with that of anyone else looking at the same object. We imagine that we are looking at the same thing. But perhaps the things that we perceive and what another person sees are actually completely different to one another. Since our perception of the external world is limited to our five senses, we cannot know whether "blue" means the same thing for any other person, or whether coffee tastes the same. Neither can we describe these perceptions.
Color-blindness is one of the significant pieces of evidence that colors are formed solely in the brain. A minor inherited genetic variation arising in the retina is known to cause color-blindness. Many people in this situation are unable to tell the difference between red and green. The only reason for this is our different ways of perceiving the concept of color. Something we are certain is "green" being perceived as "grey" by another party does not show that either one is mistaken. We can never know who is right and who is wrong, because both individuals have individual perceptions, and we have no means of conducting comparisons and testing the true reality. Green perception and grey perception are both individuals personal experiences, the validity of which is again based on those individuals' interpretation.
We need to realize that all the properties we ascribe to objects and other people actually belong to images in our brains, not to the "originals" in the outside world. Since we can never step outside of our own perceptions and reach the outside reality, we can never perceive the true existence of matter, of colors, much less of the universe as a whole. The famous 18th-century philosopher Bishop George Berkeley drew attention to this fact:
If the same things can be red and hot for some and the contrary for others, this means that we are under the influence of misconceptions and that "things" only exist in our brains. 41
Oxford University's Gerard O'Brien, working at the University of Adelaide in Australia, said this in a radio talk:
Now when we look out into the world, we see objects as coloured. We think those colours are actually attached to all the objects that we see. But now there is a very interesting question as to whether that is the case. . . . It might turn out-and there are a number of philosophers who argue-that the colours that we experience, those colour properties are in fact only features of our internal representation of the world, that there are no corresponding colours in the world itself. And so the world outside our heads, the world independent of our experience is actually colourless. . . . Is the apple red when you're not looking at it, so to speak? And when we think about it, it's a somewhat chauvinistic view of ours to think that the world actually contains the kinds of colours that we see it as having. Because we now know enough about other animals that we share this planet with, and they have different kinds of colour systems and they make in some cases less discriminations amongst colours than we do. And as a result, there's the view that they actually see the world as differently coloured than us. So we see it having certain colours, other animals perhaps see it as having a different set of colours. Now, why should we think that our view is the correct one-that the colours that we see are in fact the colours the world actually has? Perhaps these are just two different internal ways of coding the world that is internal to the representations that we and other animals generate. 42
O'Brien's analysis on this subject is highly important in terms of questioning what "external reality" is like. There is no evidence that other living things see light or perceive color in the same way as we do. It is impossible for us to obtain any scientific evidence to show the truth. That being the case, all we can state regarding the external world is conjecture and guesswork, because our perception of the outside world-in the way we are familiar with it-depends on our five senses.
The Five Senses That Present the Outside World
If all that we ever know are the sensory images that appear in our minds, how can we be sure there is a physical reality behind our perceptions? Is it not just an assumption? My answer is: Yes, it is an assumption, nevertheless, it seems a most plausible one. 43-Peter Russell
The outside world exists in a concentrated wave form. However, the world we perceive is not the actual world outside. Therefore, if the electrical signals reaching the brain are eliminated, the world outside will effectively cease to exist for us. That is because we learn everything about the world outside by way of our senses. The information we learn about the outside world only comes in the form that our sensory organs transmit. This information reaching us is converted into electrical signals that are interpreted in the relevant sites in the brain. For that reason, the water we drink, any film we watch or any flower we smell are all the results of interpretations by the brain.
Recall, however, that actually there are neither colors, nor sounds nor images in our brains. All that occurs in our brains is electrical signals. The boundless landscape you imagine you see in front of you, a brightly colored flower in which you take such delight, loud music or a meal that tastes so delicious-all consist solely of electrical signals reaching the brain. This, however, does not mean that the outside world does not exist. It will not come to an end if the electrical signals reaching you from your sense organs are cut off. The outside world will come to an end "for you only" because for you, the outside world consists only of the interpretation of electrical signals by your brain.
In her book Mapping the Mind, the science writer Rita Carter describes how we perceive the world:
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. 44
This is truly astonishing and significant. All the sensations, images, tastes and sounds we receive about the world actually consist of the same material: electrical signals. The regions in the brain affected by these signals turn them into delicious food, a beautiful landscape, or lively music. But the conscious entity that feels or perceives them is something else. The brain and electrical signals themselves cannot enjoy the taste of food or the color and smell of a flower. Materialist scientists fail to realize that it is the soul-as distinct from the brain-that perceives and evaluates.
Jeffrey M. Schwartz describes how perceptions arise independently of the brain:
Every conscious state has a certain feel to it, and possibly a unique one: when you bite into a hamburger, it feels different from the experience of chewing a steak. And any taste sensation feels different from the sound of a Chopin tude, or the sight of a lightning storm . . . Identifying the locus where red is generated, in the visual cortex, is a far cry from explaining our sense of redness, or why seeing red feels different from tasting fettuccine Alfredo or hearing "Fr Elise"-especially since all these experiences reflect neuronal firings in one or another sensory cortex. Not even the most detailed fMRI gives us more than the physical basis of perception or awareness; it doesn't come close to explaining what it feels like from the inside. It doesn't explain the first-person feeling of red. How do we know that it is the same for different people? And why would studying brain mechanisms, even down to the molecular level, ever provide an answer to those questions? 45
Peter Russell has described the problem in these terms:
Every time we try to pin down the physical aspect we come away empty-handed. Every idea we have had of the physical has proven to be wrong, and the notion of materiality seems to be evaporating before our eyes. But our belief in the material world is so deeply engrained-and so powerfully reinforced by our experience-that we cling to our assumption that there must be some physical essence. Like the medieval astronomers who never questioned their assumption that the Earth was the center of the universe, we never question our assumption that the external world is physical in nature. Indeed it was quite startling to me when I realized that the answer might be staring us straight in the face. Maybe there really is nothing there. No "thing," that is. No physical aspect. Maybe there is only a mental aspect to everything. 46
American author Marilyn Ferguson notes this important search in the world of science and philosophy for who or what it is that performs such perceiving:
Philosophers since the Greeks have speculated about the "ghost in the machine" the "little man inside the little man" and so on. Where is the I-the entity that uses the brain?
Who does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint Francis of Assisi once put it, "What we are looking for is what is looking. 47
Consciousness is a property belonging solely to the soul bestowed on human beings by Allah. It is through the soul that man becomes an entity able to think, perceive and decide. The mind and consciousness possessed by human beings are properties bestowed on them by the soul. In one verse Allah tells us that:
Accordingly, We have revealed to you a Spirit by Our command. You had no idea of what the Book was, nor faith. Nonetheless We have made it a Light by which We guide those of Our servants We will. Truly you are guiding to a Straight Path. (Surat ash-Shura, 52)
This subject will be clarified in detail later.
Who Observes the Visual Images in the Brain?
After the light from an outside object falls onto the retina, signals are transmitted to up to 30 different visual centers in the brain for processing. The light passing through the lens at the front of the eye leaves an upside-down and two-dimentional image on the layer of retinal cells at the back of the eye. Following various chemical processes, the rod and cone cells there convert that image into electrical impulses, which signals are transmitted by the optic nerve to the vision center at the rear of the brain. The brain then assembles these into meaningful three-dimensional images.
In the words of Craig Hamilton:
How that happens is an example of what is known as "the binding problem" and is itself a mystery that no one has yet solved convincingly. For the moment, though, what is important to understand is that each of your eyes is seeing a different part of the picture, and your brain is piercing it together into a unified whole. 48
These accounts provide a general description of how the eye sees. The eyes represent the first stage in the formation of an image, the original of which, in the world outside, we can never know. The world existing outside us is replicated inside us in a very small area in the brain, thanks to the light passing through our eyes and by way of electrical signals. When we look around us, any images we see, even if it is one of the boundless heavens, actually forms in this tiny area of the brain. We can never know whether or not the original of this boundless image actually corresponds to what we see.
Peter Russell sums up the position:
When I see a tree, it seems as if I am seeing the tree directly. But science tells us something completely different is happening. Light entering the eye triggers chemical reactions in the retina, [and] these produce electro-chemical impulses which travel along nerve fibers to the brain. The brain analyses the data it receives, and then creates its own picture of what is out there. I then have the experience of seeing a tree. But what I am actually experiencing is not the tree itself, only the image that appears in the mind. This is true of everything I experience. Everything we know, perceive, and imagine, every color, sound, sensation, every thought and every feeling, is a form appearing in the mind. It is all an in-forming of consciousness. 49
Since we cannot directly see the original of the world outside us, and since everything is a perception arising in the brain, then is it actually the eye that sees?
Throughout our lives, we imagine that we see the world that lies outside us with our eyes. But the scientific description of the visual functions performed by the brain shows that it is not the eye that sees. The eye and its millions of retinal nerve cells serve to transmit the message to the brain in order for vision to take place. The retina perceives the photons falling onto it and forwards them to the brain by converting them into electrical signals. In other words, what we are seeing is light waves from the outside falling onto retinal cells consisting of fat, protein and water and the electrical signals they transmit. In the brain, there are no children running in the garden, no sunny sky, no ships cleaving through the waves. The only thing that exists is electrical signals.
Is there some site inside the brain where all these perceptions arise, where images take life, where sounds are heard and where smells form? If we examine the brain very closely, we find neurons interacting with one another and the various chemical and electrical transfers among them. Yet inside the brain, we cannot find colors, shapes, texts or anything belonging to the world outside. There are no waving green leaves, crowds shopping, houses, cars or furniture inside the brain.
Nowhere in the brain is there a friend, our mother or father smiling at us. The image of this book you are reading exists nowhere in the brain. In short, the world we imagine we see around us is neither outside us nor inside the brain. Scientists who claim that the image does exist in the brain have this question to answer: If an image does form in the brain, then who is it who perceives that image?
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego. He dramatizes this question in his book Phantoms in the Brain:
He glanced down at the glass . . . in his hand. "Well, there is an upside-down image of this glass falling in my eyeball. The play of light and dark images activates photoreceptors on my retina, and the patterns are transmitted pixel by pixel through a cable-my optic nerve-and displayed on a screen in my brain. Isn't that how I see this glass . . . ? Of course, my brain would need to make the image upright again."
Though his knowledge of photoreceptors and and optics was impressive, his explanation-that there's screen somewhere inside the brain where images are displayed-embodies a serious logical fallacy. For if you were to display an image of a . . . glass on an internal neural screen, you'd need another little person inside the brain to see that image. And that won't solve the problem either because you'd then need yet another even tinier person inside his head to view that image, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. You'd end up with an endless regress of eyes, images and little people without really solving the problem of perception . . .50
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| When we look at a book, a pencil or a human being, a different nervous activity goes into operation for each object perceived. The higher brain centers are informed about what we are looking at. However, the countless chemical processes involved here are not by themselves sufficient to account for sight, because there is no little person observing the images in the brain. It is the human soul that observes the external world and draws significance from it. |
Since no entity is watching the images inside the brain, then to claim that there is an image in the brain is unrealistic and illogical. The inside of the brain is completely dark, without light or sound. In the brain, there are no bright colors, lovely flowers, stoves that give a feeling of warmth or chirping birds.
So what is it that does form inside the brain? Ramachandran's technical explanation runs as follows:
So the first step in understanding perception is to get rid of the idea of images in the brain and to begin thinking about symbolic descriptions of objects and events in the external world. A good example of a symbolic description is a written paragraph like the ones on this page. If you had to convey to a friend in China what your apartment looks like, you wouldn't have to teletransport it to China. All you'd have to do would be to write a letter describing your apartment. Yet the actual squiggles of ink-the words and paragraphs in the letter-bear no physical resemblance to your bedroom. The letter is a symbolic description of your bedroom.
What is meant by a symbolic description in the brain? Not squiggles of ink, of course, but the language of nerve impulses. The human brain contains multiple areas for processing images, each of which is composed of an intricate network of neurons that is specialized for extracting certain types of information from the image. Any object evokes a pattern of activity-unique for each object-among a subset of these areas. For example, when you look at a pencil, a book or a face, a different pattern of nerve activity is elicited in each case, "informing" higher brain centers about what you are looking at. The patterns of activity symbolize or represent visual objects in much the same way that the squiggles of ink on the paper symbolize or represent your bedroom. As scientists trying to understand visual processes, our goal is to decipher the code used by the brain to create these symbolic descriptions, much as a cryptographer tries to crack an alien script. 51
But the mere existence of this map does not explain seeing, for as I noted earlier, there is no little man inside watching what is displayed on the primary visual cortex. 52
ichard L. Gregory offers this description:
It is important to avoid the temptation of thinking that eyes produce pictures in the brain which are perceptions of objects. The pictures-in-the-brain notion suggests an internal eye to see them. But this would need a further eye to see its picture-another picture, another eye-and so on forever, without getting anywhere. 53
Professor Antonio Damasio, head of the Iowa University Neurology Department, says, "Quite candidly, this first problem of consciousness is the problem of how we get a 'movie-in-the-brain,'" 54 thus openly admitting the predicament in which scientists find themselves on this subject. It is clear that 21st-century science leaves unanswered the question "Who is it who is seeing?" Scientists have abandoned the hypothesis that there is an observer in the brain. But for scientists, this has made the concept of the image forming in the brain even worse. A single location in the brain presents us a world with countless distinct and flawless details, and non-stop. This is the technical and scientific explanation. Then, where is the "image"?
The Oxford University psychology writer Susan Blackmore comments:
Crick* says that he wants to find the correlates of 'the vivid picture of the world we see in front of our eyes' or what Damasio calls the 'movie-in-the-brain.' But if the visual world is a grand illusion, then they will never be able to find what they are looking for because neither the movie-in-the-brain nor the vivid picture exist in the brain. They are both part of the illusion. 55
That being the case, what is happening is not an illusion, and it would be more accurate to describe it as a phantom.
The world we possess is formed solely in our perceptions. There is nobody else who sees this world as we do, who experiences the same perceptions, or who witnesses the same world. Neither is what we see any part of our brain. The brain is also within this same phantom image. Our perceptions constitute a world that is shown to and created for us. There is indeed a reality outside, a material world, but human beings can never reach it.
As Erwin Schrdinger, one of the discoverers of quantum physics, stated, "Every man's world picture is and always remains a construct of his mind, and cannot be proved to have any other existence." 56
When we imagine the book in our mind's eye, we have an experience very similar to when we actually see the book with our physical eyes. This is an important proof that we can obtain an image of an object in the brain only by thinking about it-an object that does not really exist. The Washington University psychologist Michael Posner and neurologist Marcus Raichle say this about the brain's extraordinary mechanism:
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 the 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? 57
What creates an object in our minds, in the absence of the original of that object, is the same mechanism that creates it in our minds when we imagine the original does exist. Therefore, the existence of the images we see as the external world is merely an illusion, a phantom. Everything we see-the bright world in front of us, our friends, the people around us and even our own bodies-are part of this dream. What we imagine to be the source of all these, their originals in the external world, must always remain unknown to us.
So far, most neurologists and psychologists who have investigated this subject have easily come to this conclusion. Yet they generally avoid answering the question of "Who does the perceiving?" They look for tiny imaginary figures inside the brain and seek a material entity that perceives all these things. They debate these questions in books, articles and conferences, cite other scientists who have also been unable to resolve the issue and claim that they too have been unable to find a solution. The fact is, however, that all the technical and scientific facts indicate that human beings possess a soul that perceives, sees and feels. What scientists look for in the brain-the "seeing entity" in other words-is the soul. Everything belonging to what we consider to be the "outside world" consists of images displayed to the soul.
This insight totally does away with materialism, in which some scientists have such a strong belief. For materialists, who claim that everything consists of material entities, the existence of the soul is totally unacceptable. For that reason, the question of "Who does the perceiving?" will always remain unanswerable for materialists.
It is Allah Who gives human beings their souls. It is Allah Who causes that soul to hear, see and feel. It is Almighty Allah Who creates a perfectly clear, flawlessly detailed and extraordinarily vivid world for us solely as an illusion, Who gives the soul the impression that it is really experiencing all these things, and Who creates all things out of nothing. Allah has told man of the truth of this in verses:
That is the Knower of the Unseen and the Visible, the Almighty, the Most Merciful. He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay; then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid. Then [He] formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Surat as-Sajda, 6-9)
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