The External World Behind Quantum Physics - 2

Sounds Exist Only in Our Brains

The hearing process is similar to seeing. The information reaching us as sound is, just like images, merely electrical signals. The external ear collects the sound waves around us and transmits them to the middle ear. This then reinforces the vibrations and forwards them to the inner ear, which then converts these vibrations into electrical signals, depending on their frequency and concentration, and sends them to the brain.

In the brain, these messages are sent to the hearing center where they are processed and analyzed. And that is how hearing takes place.

However, one very important point here is that just as with images, the sounds we heard are not somewhere outside our brains. Peter Russell, known especially for his work on human consciousness, describes the position:

The same is true of sound. When Bishop Berkeley argued that nothing exists apart from our perceptions, a vigorous debate ensued as to whether a falling tree made a sound if no one was there to hear it. At that time nothing was known of how sound was transmitted through the air, or how the ear and brain functioned. Today we know much more about the processes involved, and the answer is clearly "No." There is no sound in physical reality, simply pressure waves in the air. Sound exists only as an experience in the mind of a perceiver-whether that perceiver is a human being, a deer, a bird, or an ant. 58

Sounds from the outside are converted by the external and
 middle ear into fluid waves in the inner ear. Following a series of processes,
these waves are transmitted in the form of electrical signals to the brain,
where they are perceived as sounds.
Therefore, external sound for us exists only as long as we perceive it.
What we hear is the product of these electrical signals inside our brain.

 For us, external sound exists only for so long as we perceive it. However, to repeat a very significant point, sounds, like visual images, are not inside our brains. In our brains, all that exists is electrical signals. All the kinds of sound we regard as "real" are products of these electrical signals in the brain. When we chat with a friend, we perceive their three-dimensional image in a perfect form in our visual cortex; we also hear the sounds they make in such a way as to confirm the impression of distance. If our friend is far away, we are assured that his voice is also coming from a distance. Yet these sounds are neither close to nor far away from us; they exist only in the form of electrical signals. To put it another way, these sounds are not inside our brains either. There is actually a profound silence inside the brain.

No matter how crowded and noisy the place where we happen to be there is still no sound inside the brain. The impulses transmitted by electrical signals inform us of the existence of a crowded and noisy outside world. In truth, however, we can make no direct contact with that noisy, crowded world outside, and neither can we re-create it in our heads. Sound is something we perceive.

As Peter Russell explains,

I hear the music of a violin, but the sound I hear is a quality appearing in the mind. There is no sound as such in the external world, just vibrating air molecules. 59

Therefore, in hearing sounds, we make the same error as we do with regard to seeing images. We imagine that sounds come from the world outside. Yet the sounds we perceive are actually a part of the shadow world brought into being for us. Just like the images, tastes, smells and sensations belonging to that illusory world, sounds also represent part of this world of perception. The noise from the crowded environment we imagine exists in the external world, the voice of a friend calling to us, and the music we listen to belong solely to this perceptual world.

We have no way of knowing whether or not these correspond to the reality outside, because we can never step outside our brains and experience the physical world directly.

Smells and Tastes Arise Solely in Our Brains

You can assume that the delicious smell of a meal cooking actually comes from the food itself. We imagine that other people experience exactly the same aromas as we do, and believe that we all share common sensations. But this is merely conjecture. What reaches us is scent molecules, which are converted into electrical signals. Just as with sight and sound, what we refer to as "smell" is a sophisticated mixture of electrical signals. The scent molecules themselves never reach our brains.

The famous George Berkeley, whom we referred to earlier, described this fact:

At the beginning, it was believed that colours, odours, etc., "really exist," but subsequently such views were renounced, and it was seen that they only exist in dependence on our sensations. 60

In dreams, when there are no scent molecules physically present, the perception of scent can be felt just as realistically. In the same way that you can envision exceptionally clear and distinct images and hear the most flawless sounds as you dream, you can also perceive scents in the same manner. Therefore, you can easily see that there is no need for an aroma to have a material existence in order for you to perceive it.

The same applies to the perception of taste. Just as with our other sense organs, the taste receptors on the tongue convert the various arriving stimuli into electrical signals. Therefore, when you eat a delicious piece of cake, you do not experience its actual taste. In the same way that you cannot see its true appearance or smell its true aroma, you also do not enjoy its real flavor. Its perceived "taste" is produced by the electrical signals sent to the brain.

We experience all the chocolate and fruit we enjoy during our lives in our perceptual world. The perceptions formed in our brains by way of our five senses tell us these look lovely, are sweet-smelling and flavorful. But this information belongs exclusively and entirely to ourselves. We are made to perceive these properties in our minds, and have no other experiences of the world outside us.

The Sense of Touch is No More Than Electrical Signals Transmitted
to the Brain

The external world we perceive seems totally realistic. Though it is a scientific fact that we inhabit a world made up of our perceptions, most people are deceived by the perfection of these perceptions. One of the most misleading factors is their sense of touch. People may harbor doubts as to the reality of what they see, smell or taste, yet being able to touch objects may mislead them into assuming they have direct contact with the external world. But in fact, information about the object touched is forwarded to the brain as electrical signals, which entirely eliminates all such preconceptions on the subject. As with all our other perceptions, the sense of touch arises in the brain. Your feeling an object depends on the information you receive regarding it in your brain.

Although you are touching an object, you cannot feel it if your brain does not perceive it, as Peter Russell makes clear:

Our notion of matter as a solid substance is, like the color green, a quality appearing in consciousness. It is a model of what is "out there," but as with almost every other model, quite unlike what is actually out there. 61

The concept of reality he emphasizes is exceedingly accurate. When you touch an external surface, your relationship with it consists solely of the electrons in your fingers repelling the electrons in the object. In other words, you are actually unable to even touch it. We have no direct contact with outside objects. Notwithstanding, the sensations that arise give the impression we are perceiving its true nature. We may perceive that a tree trunk is hard, and that cotton is soft. We perceive the different natures of both, but the process taking place at the molecular level consists of electrons repelling one another. The sensation of hardness from the top of a desk, the softness of a cat's fur or the rough surface of a brick wall reaches us solely as electrical signals. The physical experience taking place is completely different from the sensation arising within us. Therefore, we can never touch the original of any substance that exists externally. What reaches us is only a perception regarding the outside world, and on the basis of these perceptions, we have no means of knowing what the outside world is really like.

The sensation that arises when we touch something reaches us only as an electrical signal. 

Any sensation of matter we perceive comes into being solely by way of electrical signals. Therefore, we can never touch the original of any object that exists outside. 

It is impossible, based on the perception forming inside us, to know what a physical object 

is really like or to know the nature of the external world.

The illustration shows the processes taking place from the fingers to the brain 

after touching a single button.

Andrew B. Newberg, an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, states:

There were philosophers in the past that said, "Look, if I kick a rock and I hurt my toe, that's real. I feel that. It feels real. It's vivid. And that means it's reality." But it's still an experience and it's still this person's perception of it being real. 62

For instance, when you touch something hot, if the nerves responsible for transmitting the sensation of pain to your brain are impaired, it is impossible for you to feel that you are being burned. The burning sensation and the consequent feeling of pain are all just interpretations by the brain. Similarly, a feeling of perception may be established by artificial production using electrical signals, even though no outside stimulant is present. So we may feel that our hand is burning, even though there is no fire nearby. This is another proof that the sensations arise solely in our perceptual world. This significant fact was expressed by the famous 20th-century thinker 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 finger-tips, produced, according to modern physics, by the proximity of the electrons and protons in the table. If the same disturbance in our finger-tips arose in any other way, we should have the sensations, in spite of there being no table. 63

When our hand touches something hot, if the nerves
responsible for transmitting the sensation of heat
 to the brain are removed from the equation,
it is impossible to feel the sensation of burning,
because this feeling arises solely in our perceptual world.

 For our perceptual world, the essential feature of matter, its solidity, disappears in the scientific sense. In the same way that our seeing a thing provides no evidence about its true physical appearance, so our touching an object provides no clues concerning its real solidity. What we touch consists solely of an entity forming in the brain. Its true nature and appearance on the outside is a dream that we can never know, as the science writer J. R. Minkel sets out in an article in New Scientist magazine:

You're holding a magazine. It feels solid; it seems to have some kind of independent existence in space. Ditto the objects around you-perhaps a cup of coffee, a computer. They all seem real and out there somewhere. But it's all an illusion. 64

Distance Is Also a Perception Formed Solely in Our Brains

We quickly realize when people approach from a distance. Their appearance, voice and size vary depending on the terrain. On the basis of these factors, we make an analysis and determine the distance between them and us. Yet in fact, there is no distance at all between these others and ourselves. The idea that we are seeing them from some distance is due to a computation we carry out in our brains. Our sensation of distance is just a perception.

The appearance of what we call the external world is so convincing and impressive that one needs to reflect carefully in order to realize that it is all simply perceptions. Such factors as distance, depth, color, shade and light make the images so convincing and credible. These materials have been employed so flawlessly that they assume a three-dimensional, colored and vivid form in the brain. When countless details are added to this image, the result is the world that we inhabit throughout our lives, imagining it to be the original, but which in fact is a mere copy that we really experience only in our minds.

The perception that we refer to as "distance" is a kind of three-dimensional sensation. The factors we call perspective, shade and movement awaken a sense of depth and distance in images. This depth perception, known as space perception in optical science, is provided through highly complex systems. The simplest way of describing the system is to state that the image reaching any one eye is merely a two-dimensional one, with height and width only. The dimensions of the images reaching the retina, and the fact that both eyes see different images, give rise to the sensation of depth and distance. The images falling onto our two eyes differ slightly in terms of angle and illumination, and the brain then combines these two images together into a single picture that gives a sensation of depth and distance.

"Distance" has been created for us solely as a sensation. As has already pointed out, there is actually no distance between us and someone we think is approaching from further away. The person we behold has been created on a single plane in our brain. Our sensation of distance is merely the brain's interpretation. So absolute is our belief that this other person is at a distance that we shout in order to make ourselves heard and run to catch up with him. In fact, however, that person is at exactly the same place as ourselves. Every square centimeter we imagine that we run across is actually part of an image existing in our brain. In fact, we do not move; the other person comes no closer to us and draws no further away. Everything is observed solely in a minute point inside the brain.

For example, we imagine a plane flying in the sky to be many kilometers away. But it is actually right alongside us, in our brains.

When we look at a plane we imagine, as a result of the noise it produces and the frequency and wavelengths of the light waves it reflects to reach our eyes, that the plane is many kilometers away. Yet if the brain perceived frequency and dimension as one single unit, the situation would be very different. In that event, we would have no doubt that the plane we imagined to be thousands of kilometers away was actually at a different distance and we would be convinced of this reality.

Human beings see many details within the sense of depth that confronts them. They see a book they are holding fairly close by, the television beyond and the window further away still, and the Sun even further away. Their hands, legs and bodies are all contained within this visual field. Each object has its own particular perspective and a distance to the point from where it's observed. That is how people perceive things; their sense of depth, perspective, shade within the whole visual field convinces them that they are seeing the actual external world. In fact, however, everything they see, including their own bodies, is the effects of electrical signals inside their brains. There is no distance between the book in front of them and the Sun that they imagine to be 93 million miles away. And there is no distance between them and any other object either. Everything they observe is part of an image arising in the brain.

The formation of a sensation of depth on the two-dimensional retina bears a close resemblance to the technique employed by artists trying to impart a realistic sense of depth on a two-dimensional surface. There are certain recognized techniques for creating a feeling of depth: objects being placed in front of one another, one or more vanishing points, variation in texture, diminishing dimensions and height and movement-the closer an object, the quicker it seems to be moving. The method employed by artists also applies to images arising in the brain. Depth, light and shade are perceived by the two-dimensional retinas in our eyes through the same method. The more accurate the details in this image, the more realistic it seems and the more it misleads us. Thus we act as if the third dimension-with depth and distance-were actually there.

In fact, however, all the images we perceive exist in a single plane, rather like a film on a flat screen. The visual center in the brain is exceedingly small. All seemingly "distant" images such as far-off mountains, stars in the sky, the Moon and Sun, planes flying in the air and birds are all crammed into this minute space. In a technical sense there is no distance between a plane you imagine to be flying many kilometers away and the glass in your hand; both are on a single location in the visual center inside your brain.

This is a glorious proof of creation, sublime artistry and a flawless work. Allah creates these perfect images and details in the mind of every human being, at all moments and without interruption. Nothing is missing to make us harbor any suspicions regarding the existence of the three-dimensional images before us. The world belonging to us is created constantly as a copy of the original world outside. The might, power and creative artistry of Him to Whom all these belong are manifested in every detail. It is Almighty Allah, the Lord and Sovereign of all things, Who creates all the worlds and brings these into being individually for every human being.

In verses, Allah tells us that:

It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and of the Earth the same number, the Command descending down through all of them, so that you might know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Surat at-Talaq, 12)

Do they not see that Allah, Who created the heavens and Earth, has the power to create the like of them, and has appointed fixed terms for them of which there is no doubt? But the wrongdoers still spurn anything but disbelief. (Surat al-Isra', 99)

What Is "Real" for Us?

We believe in the existence of objects just because we see and touch them, and they are reflected to us by our perceptions. However, our perceptions are only ideas in our mind. Thus, objects we captivate by perceptions are nothing but ideas, and these ideas are essentially in nowhere but our mind... Since all these exist only in the mind, then it means that we are beguiled by deceptions when we imagine the universe and things to have an existence outside the mind. 65

-George Berkeley

Our seeing any object, hearing the sound it makes or touching it, provides little information about the nature of the material world existing outside. For us, what gives us evidence of anything's physical existence is our perception of it. Yet there is actually no sound, nor image, nor flavor, nor smell in our perceptual center in the brain where all these things arise. The inside of the brain is pitch dark and utterly soundless. There are no small observers in the brain to detect smells or observe images. Therefore, the idea that sounds and images can form inside the brain is illogical, scientifically impossible. However, we perceive an amazingly flawless, colored, mobile and distinct world in that pitch-black, soundless space. Despite being a world of perception forming solely in the brain, this world is realistic and highly convincing.

An image far clearer and more distinct than the most advanced three-dimensional film screens or televisions, of a far higher quality than the world's most perfect cameras, arises in the brain. Inside the brain form sounds that are much more perfect, much clearer and richer than the most advanced music systems, and which cannot be distinguished from the real thing. The perfume and scent of a rose also forms inside the brain, as do sensations of heat and cold, in the most precise manner.

This perfectly clear world is placed at our disposal, without interruption, by the will of Allah. Anyone looking around in a crowded shopping center can see children running around, different people shopping, brightly lit shop windows, trays of foodstuffs, an occasional stray cat, the warm air and the smells emanating from the food court reaching his nose-all at one and the same time. People may be chatting with friends, greeting someone they recognize, as window-shopping. Yet they are actually experiencing images arising in their brains. The crowd a person sees around him, all the details he observes, all form on a phantom screen inside the brain.

He actually watches and feels images shown to him by means of his senses. All of these are part of that person's experience, yet each is also nothing more than the entirety of perceptions arising in the brain.

Is the original of this world anything like the details that person is made to perceive? We cannot know. It is impossible for us to obtain any knowledge regarding whether there really are a lot of people around, or if the scent of flowers fills the air. What we are shown is the form of the environment as we perceive. For us, the external world is solely the world we are shown. If the electrical signals forwarded to us by our sense organs were eliminated, then our external world would disappear as well, even though there is an actual world outside.

We can only know what is forwarded to, reaches and is shown to us. That is the sum total of what goes on in our minds.

Gerard O'Brien describes the concept of the outside world and that of our perceptions:

There is an issue about whether or not the world that we experience, the world in some sense that is constructed in our heads, whether or not it actually corresponds to the way the world actually is. Because if you accept, as a number of theorists now do, that our experience of the world is constructed by our brains, then there becomes a real issue of the correspondence that exists between our experience of the world and the way the world really is, independent of our experience. And if you think there might be large mismatches between our experience of the world and the way the world really is, then it starts to look as though our visual world, the world of our experience, is in some sense an illusion. 66

That being the case, what is real for us?

What we refer to as "reality" indicates a world with a material existence outside the brain and the senses. People have a full belief in the existence of that world, whether they happen to be observing it or not. They are certain that they are in their own bedroom when they get up in the morning. They imagine that they are in their offices and that the computers there have their own independent existence, and that everything will still be there when they return the following morning. They assume that their homes will be there when they return in the evening and assume the continued existence of their friends, families, acquaintances and relatives, whether or not they can see them or talk with them. Most of these experiences are repeated every day and permit no room for any doubt. On the contrary, they are of such a quality to be thoroughly convincing.

But all these things are actually in our minds, things that we are led to experience. All we see is an illusory copy of the outside material world of whose existence we are so certain. It is solely our perceptions that give rise to our world.

Susan Blackmore defines this world inside the brain:

The mind feels like a private theatre. Here I am, inside the theatre, located roughly somewhere inside my head and looking out through my eyes. But this is a multi-sensational theatre. So I experience touches, smells, sounds, and emotions as well, and I can use my imagination too-conjuring up sights and sounds to be seen as though on a mental screen by inner eye or heard by my inner ear. All these are the "contents of my consciousness," and "I" am the audience of one who experiences them. 67

The world we observe is merely a copy. An amusement park full of lights is only a duplicated image forming in the brain, whose source is simply electrical signals. The voices of the people around us, our relatives and birds are similarly, duplicate sounds arising within the brain, whose source is just electrical signals. The taste and smell of a piece of fruit we eat are duplicate tastes and smells forming in the brain. It is impossible for us to eat the original of the fruit. The source of all the features of the fruit in our brains is, again, electrical signals.

You have never felt the true heat of the Sun, the actual coolness of the sea nor the coldness of an ice cube. Because you can never have direct experience of the Sun, the sea or ice, and the effects they have on you are simply electrical signals.

A glass of water set in front of you is not distant from you at all. It is not standing in front of you, it is in your brain. You perceive an image of it in your brain.

When we imagine we are touching a glass surface, we are not actually touching the original glass. It is not our fingers that do the touching, but the brain. That being so, nobody can ever touch a real glass. They cannot drink water from it. The water they drink consists of a sensation of drinking imparted by perceptions arising inside the brain.

In the documentary film What the Bleep Do We Know?, Joe Dispenza, who has a Doctor of Chiropractic Degree from Life University in Atlanta, Georgia, says, "Your brain doesn't know the difference between what's taking place out there, and what's taking place in here." Fred Alan Wolf says, "There is no 'out there' out there, independent of what's going on in here [in the brain]." 68

The life we lead is a composite of the duplicates in question. The realistic appearance of these perceptions is highly deceptive. We think that the person in front of us sees the same things as we do, and we imagine that we are both in agreement and that we are observing the true state of the world. Yet in fact, the other person, who agrees with us on the things we see and hear, also consists of an image arising in our brain. In addition, we can never know what difference there is between the things he perceives and what we perceive. It is impossible for us to describe what "green" means for us, or what a lemon smells like.

So what is real? In that regard, Joe Dispenza asks the following questions:

Scientific experiments have shown that if we take a person and hook their brains up to certain PET scans or computer technology, and ask them to look at a certain object, and they watch certain areas of the brain light up. And then they've asked them to close their eyes and now imagine that same object. And when they imagine that same object, it produced the same areas of the brain to light up as if they were actually visually looking at it. So it caused scientists to back up and ask this question. So who sees then? Does the brain see? Or do the eyes see? And what is reality? Is reality what we're seeing with our brain or is reality what we're seeing with our eyes? And the truth is that the brain does not know the difference between what it sees in its environment and what it remembers. Because the same specific neural nets are then firing. So then it asks the question: What is reality? 69

In the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, J. Z. Knight describes reality:

That we simply are has allowed this reality we call real, from the power of intangibility to pull out of inertness, "action," "chaos," and hold it into its form, and we call it matter. 70

Each of us lives in a world of perceptions that belongs to us alone. Nobody can share the images in this world and nobody can confirm them, yet we regard these images as reality. That being so, is reality simply an illusion? Does it consist solely of what we are made to experience? Do the body we regard as our own, and the life we consider to be ours, exist solely as phantoms in our minds?

All these are indeed phantoms. We live in a phantom world brought into being in our own brains. We imagine that we are looking at the true world outside, but a whole new world actually exists in our brains, and it is impossible for us to step outside it.

The philosopher Geoff Haselhurst describes how science has no explanation for the realism of the world that forms in the brain:

Further difficulties arise because our senses also deceive us. Philosophers have known for thousands of years that our mind represents our senses, thus the world we see and taste and touch is different (naive real) to the real world which causes our senses. . . . Likewise, our sense of color is an obvious example of how our mind represents a certain frequency of light.If we are to describe Reality then it must be founded on real things which exist and cause our senses, not on the naive real representation of our senses. Thus Science, by being empirically founded, is not well suited to describing Reality itself. 71

Peter Russell makes the following statements:

At first, we might find it surprising that the conclusions of modern physics are so far removed from our experience or reality. . . . What would be far more surprising would be to find that the image of reality created in the human mind was indeed a faithful representation of the thing-in-itself.When we speak of the material world we usually think we are referring to the underlying reality-the world that we are perceiving "out there". In fact we are only describing our image of reality. The materiality we experience, the solidness we feel, the whole of the "real world" that we know are all aspects of the image created in the mind; they are part of our interpretation of reality. Paradoxical as it may sound, matter is something created in the mind. 72

That being so, reality for us is not matter, the external original of which we can never directly experience. Since all these things consist of an image formed by electrical signals in the brain, reality cannot be the world inside the brain, either. This world is completely illusory, a phantasm. We are misled by observing that world. "Reality," therefore, is neither outside nor in the image inside the brain.

Is it difficult to come to terms with this state of affairs? Fred Alan Wolf summarizes the familiarity with the illusory world in which people live and how they seek to avoid the concept of "true realism":

Yet, we unconsciously strive to keep this secret buried inside ourselves. . . In other words, we unconsciously choose to live under the illusion that everything is as we see it. This is not only a fundamental truth for you and me, it is the deep secret of the universe's existence . . . and it only works because we agree to believe the trick. If we can stop believing it for one minute, one second, even one millisecond, and allow our consciousness to become aware that we have stopped, we will see the trick revealed.

At some point in our lives, somehow, somewhere, just for an instant, the unveiling of the great mystery comes to pass . . . But, we don't shout, Wow! No gasps of wonderment fill the theater. Something becomes distinguishable from nothing in a single creative act, but we trick ourselves into not seeing. And so it goes. No applause fills the air. We sit back, watch the show, breathe a sigh of relief, and say unconsciously, "We'll never figure this one out, might as well just accept it."

. . . And most of us habitually remain unconscious and cling to the illusion until the last nanosecond of our existence. We watch the boundary between ocean and land, between air, earth, and water. We watch the effervescent crust of sand, water, and air and remember the distinctions. And likewise, we live our lives in the comfortable notion that an invisible membrane separates us from that world "out there"; that "in here," in our minds, our inner worlds of imagination, we are safe and alone. In no way can any person or thing intrude into our individual mind worlds. Every sense in our bodies continually tells us that this is true, that we are each alone. We ignore any information, any thought, any perception, any imaginative tale, anyone else's story that confronts our sensory presentation of the separated "out there" and "in here" worlds. We look skeptically at people who tell us a different story, probably dismissing them as misguided fools, or even lunatics. 73

It's by no means easy for any materialist to grasp and accept the fact that the world forming in the brain is not real. This has been verified by modern science, but nonetheless, as expressed by Fred Alan Wolf, this great truth is ignored. The fact we live in an illusory world is reflected as an ordinary scientific discovery and as an insoluble problem. The only reason for this is that what is "true" for us is "unacceptable" to the materialist mindset. This "truth," which materialists cannot admit and which scientists are searching for, belongs to the human soul.

It is the human soul that is absolute in this world and that will live forever in the Hereafter. It is Allah Who bestows this soul on man. The matter outside man, people's own bodies and the worlds arising in their minds will all one day come to an end and vanish. It is the soul, imparted by Almighty Allah, that is absolute and perpetual.

Your Lord said to the angels, "I am going to create a human being out of clay. When I have formed him and breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration to him!" (Surah Sd, 71-72)

The Realism in Dreams

We do not actually speak with anyone in our dreams. We see no-one, and our eyes are closed. We neither run, nor walk. No monsters frighten and chase us, no green and spacious lawns spread out before us. There are no skyscrapers we are scared to look down from or crowds of people. In the face of all these images, we are, in fact, alone in bed. The loud noises from the crowds we imagine to be surrounding us, never in fact reach into our silent room.

When we imagine ourselves to be running very fast, we are not in fact moving at all. When we imagine ourselves to be having a heated discussion with someone, we do not in fact even open our mouths. Yet during dreaming, we experience all these things very vividly. The people around us, our surroundings and the things we experience are so realistic that we never imagine that these things are actually part of our dream.

We may even dream of being hit by a car and receive a very clear impression of the pains that result. We truly feel the fear we experience as the car approaches, it speeds toward us, and the moment of impact. We have no doubt as to the reality of these sensations. The temperature of air, people's expressions, the clothes we are wearing and everything are exceedingly realistic. Yet we have actually experienced none of these. No light or sound reaches us. There is no cause of any image, sound or smell. The concept we refer to as the external world has disappeared. This is all experienced solely in our minds. Yet we do not realize that this is the case. Even if we are told-in the dream-that we are actually dreaming, we completely discount the possibility and are utterly convinced of the reality of the dream world we are inhabiting. For us, the things we see, smell, touch and feel in dreams have a definite reality. For that reason, our fears, joys and doubts during dreaming are also real. We have all the same physical experiences as when we are awake. No evidence might require us to suspect that we are, in fact, dreaming.

Dreaming is a powerful example demonstrating that the external world for us is in fact a perception. In the same way that someone dreaming has no doubt that his surroundings are real, so it is very difficult to be convinced that the reality of what we refer to as "the real world" is only in our minds. Yet how we perceive the images we call "real life" is exactly the same as how we experience dreams. Both images form in the mind. We have no doubt as to the reality of either set of images as we observe them. Yet we do have proof that dreams are not real. When we awaken, we say, "It was all just a dream." So how can we prove that we are not dreaming at this very moment?

Allah imparts this truth in His verses:

The Trumpet will be blown and at once they will be sliding from their graves towards their Lord. They will say, "Alas for us! Who has raised us from our resting-place? This is what the All-Merciful promised us. The Messengers were telling the truth." (Surah Ya Sin, 51-52)

The proof of this at this moment is the scientifically imparted evidence. In this case, the moment that well wake up from the dream will be when we depart from this earthly life. So the right thing to do is to regard this world as mere illusion for us, as something we experience in the mind, and behave accordingly.

Peter Russell compares the realism of dreams to that of the world we inhabit:

Our perception of the world has the very convincing appearance of being "out there" around us, but it is no more "out there" than are our nightly dreams. In our dreams we are aware of sights, sounds, and sensations happening around us. We are aware of our bodies. We think and reason. We feel fear, anger, pleasure, and love. We experience other people as separate individuals, speaking and interacting with us. The dream appears to be happening "out there" in the world around us. Only when we awaken do we realize that it was all just a dream-a creation in the mind.

When we say, "It was all just a dream," we are referring to the fact that the experience was not based on physical reality. It was created from memories, hopes, fears and other factors. In the waking state, our image of the world is based on sensory information drawn from our physical surroundings. This gives our waking experience a consistency and sense of reality not found in dreams. But the truth is, our waking reality is as much a creation of our minds as are our dreams. 74

Rn Descartes described this as well:

I dream of doing this or that, going here or there; but when I awake I realize that I have done nothing, that I have been nowhere, but have been lying quietly in bed. Who can guarantee that I am not dreaming now, or that even my entire life is not a dream? 75

Never, of course, can we guarantee that the people around us, or even the life we are experiencing at this moment, are not a dream. When we dream, we can touch a piece of ice and perceive its cold wetness and transparency in a perfect form. When we smell a rose, we perceive its unique scent in an equally flawless manner. The reason is that the same processes take place in our brains when we really smell a rose or only dream that we are doing so.

That being so, we can never know when we are experiencing the true image and perfume of a rose. In fact, we never have direct experience of a real rose in either case, and in either event. Neither the image nor the perfume of the rose are anywhere in our brains.

Therefore, neither case represents reality, as Gerald O'Brien describes:

Yes, we're asleep in our beds, our eyes are shut and yet we are having for many people some very vivid visual experiences. We are in our visual experiences situated in a world populated by people, by things happening around us and while we're in the dream state to all the world it appears to us as though we're actually in the world in some sense. Now that's really important because that tells us that our brains are actually capable of constructing our visual experiences in this way in our dreams. And this then suggests, to some philosophers and theorists of the mind in general, that perhaps when we're awake and looking around at the world, our common-sense understanding is wrong. Perhaps indeed that all of our experiences, all of our visual experiences of the world are in some way constructed by the brain and that this commonsense view that we are in direct contact with the world is actually wrong. 76

When we look at a table, our visual system first acquires information about the edges of the table. And a representative picture resembling the table's outline forms in our minds. Following this, the system then selects the color and texture of the table. These are some of the essential elements for the process of "completion." After this information has been obtained, the brain makes a general estimate regarding the image before it. The brain does not need to examine every detail of that image and enter into detailed computation. It creates images based on "guesswork." 80

Therefore, the brain produces an illusion that we believe to exist. The image in the blind spot is not a true image of what is in front of us; yet we are unaware of this. Interestingly, however, we have no evidence that the entire image is true. The image in the blind spot, which does not actually exist, seems as realistic as the other surrounding images. We are unaware of where the blind spot is in our day-to-day lives. That being so, we cannot know whether the images we obtain are all illusions. We may take them to be "realistic," but this is not enough proof for believing that the images shown to us are "real."

Other perceptual defects or errors in the brain also demonstrate this. One such is cortical color blindness. If the area V4 in the brain, which involves processing color, is damaged, sufferers see the world in shades of gray. Everything appears like a black-and-white film. Yet such people have no problems with reading a newspaper, recognizing people's faces or movements and determining direction. 81 If the middle temporal visual area (MT) is damaged, patients can still read and see colors, but cannot tell in which direction and how fast a thing is moving.

Prof. Ramachandran has written this on the subject:

When one or more areas are selectively damaged, you are confronted with paradoxical mental states of the kind seen in a number of neurological patients. One of the most famous examples in neurology is the case of a Swiss woman (whom I shall call Ingrid) who suffered from "motion blindness." Ingrid had bilateral damage to an area of her brain called the middle temporal (MT) area. In most respects, her eyesight was normal; she could name shapes of objects, recognize people and read books with no trouble. But if she looked at a person running or a car moving on the highway, she saw a succession of static, strobelike snapshots instead of the smooth impression of continuous motion. She was terrified to cross the street because she couldn't estimate the velocity of oncoming cars, though she could identify the make, color and even the license plate of any vehicle. She said that talking to someone in person felt like talking on the phone, because she couldn't see the changing facial expressions associated with normal conversation. Even pouring a cup of coffee was an ordeal because the liquid would inevitably overflow and spill onto the floor. She never knew when to slow down, changing the angle of the coffeepot, because she couldn't estimate how fast the liquid was rising in the cup. All of these abilities ordinarily seem so effortless to you and me that we take them for granted. It's only when something goes wrong, as when this motion area is damaged, that we begin to realize how sophisticated vision really is. 82

Hallucinations are another example of perceptual defects. Hallucinations generally stem from brain damage, various febrile diseases, drug use or old age and senility. The sufferer perceives things which do not exist-they see things which are not there and hear non-existent sounds. Such people are wholly awake and conscious when they experience hallucinations, which images are highly convincing.

These syndromes we have cited are just a few of these disorders, as a result of which some people experience vivid events that do not correspond to reality. For some people, external colors seem very different. Our brightly colored world is like a black-and-white film for them. If we really have direct experience of the external world-if the world we inhabit does not consist solely of electrical signals reaching the brain-then why do these people experience different perceptions?

If there is just "one" external world, why do they not perceive the outside world in the same way we do, and why do they not see the same things?

Most of us have no doubt that we have a perfect perception of the outside world and that our perceptions form a seamless whole. Yet the same thing applies to someone who sometimes experiences hallucinations. Such people also think the illusory images they see are real. That being so, we can say nothing about what the external world arising in our brains actually resembles, or whether it seems different to others' perceptions. This is something that cannot be tested by 21st-century science or determined experimentally. It is impossible for us to know what an individual world, brought into being for each one of us, is like. We have direct experience only of our perceptions within that world. We cannot step out of it or learn any more about it.

The electrical signals transmitted by way of our senses give rise to a copy of the external world for us. Fundamentally, however, there remains an "identity" that perceives the outside world, that draws meaning from what it perceives, harbors doubts, rejoices, experiences sorrow, becomes excited, thinks, recognizes and analyzes. But where in the brain is this entity, which we refer to as "I"? Does the interaction of neurons cause us to think and be happy? Is that what enables us to enjoy music? Is that interaction the source of our enjoying looking at a landscape or eating a delicious meal?

Obviously, no rational person can answer "Yes" to these questions. Our identity lies outside the brain, and is known as the "soul."

They will ask you about the Spirit. Say: "The Spirit is my Lord's concern. You have only been given a little knowledge." (Surat al-Isra', 85)

31. http://science.howstuffworks.com/light2.htm
32. Richard L. Gregory, "The Psychology of Seeing," in Eye and Brain, 5th edition, Princeton Science Library, 1997, p. 20.
33. Wolf, Mind into Matter, p. 136.
34. Ibid., p. 137
35. M. Ali Yaz, Sait Aksoy, Fizik 3 (Physics III), Istanbul, Srat Publishing, 1997, p. 3.
36. http://hhmi.org/senses/b140.html
37. Peter Russell, "The Primacy of Consciousness," http://www.peterussell.com/SP/PrimConsc.html (Emphasis in the original).
38. Gregory, "The Psychology of Seeing," in Eye and Brain,p. 84.
39. Daniel C Dennett, Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 142.
40. Ibid.
41. Georges Politzer, Principes Elmentaires de Philosophie (Elementary Principles of Philosophy), Editions Sociales, Paris, 1954, p. 40.
42. Natasha Mitchell, "Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?, Radio program, 18 January 2004, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s996555.htm
43. Peter Russell, From Science to God: A Physicist's Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness, New World Library, 2002, p. 47.
44. Rita Carter, Mapping The Mind, University of California Press, London, 1999, p. 107.
45. Schwartz & Begley, The Mind and the Brain, pp. 26-27.
46. Peter Russell, "The Primacy of Consciousness," http://www.peterussell.com/SP/PrimConsc.html (Emphasis added).
47. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, JP Tarcher, New York, 2nd ed., 1987, p. 180.

48. Craig Hamilton, What is Enlightenment?, No. 29, June-August 2005, p. 70.
49. Peter Russell, "The Primacy of Consciousness," http://www.peterussell.com/SP/PrimConsc.html
50. V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1998, p. 66.
51. Ibid., pp. 66-68.
52. Ibid., pp. 70, 72.
53. Gregory, "The Psychology of Seeing," in Eye and Brain, p. 5.
54. Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Vintage Books, 2000, p. 9.
55. Susan Blackmore, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2005, p. 64.
56. - Russell, From Science to God, p. 42.
57. Michael I. Posner, Marcus E. Raichle, Images of Mind, New York: Scientific American Library, 1999, p. 88.
58. Russell, From Science to God, p. 50.
59. Peter Russell, "The Primacy of Consciousness,http://www.peterussell.com/SP/PrimConsc.html
60. George Berkeley, "A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge," 1710, Works of George Berkeley, Vol. I, ed. A. Fraser, Oxford, 1871.
61. Peter Russell, "The Primacy of Consciousness," http://www.peterussell.com/SP/PrimConsc.html
62. "What The Bleep Do We Know?" 
63. Bertrand Russell, ABC of Relativity, Routledge, London, 6th ed., 2001, p. 145.
64. J. R. Minkel, "The Hollow Universe"," New Scientist, 27 April 2002, no. 2340, p. 22
65. Politzer, Principes Elmentaires de Philosophie, pp. 38-39-44.
66. Natasha Mitchell, "Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?," Radio program, 18 January 2004, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s996555.htm (Emphasis in the original).
67. Blackmore, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 13-14.
68. "What the Bleep Do We Know?," mns: 0.14.54 - 0.15.09.
69. Ibid., mns: 0.08.29 - 0.09.31
70. Ibid., mns: 01.37.14 - 01.37.31
71. Geoff Haselhurst, "On Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science," http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Metaphysics-Principles-Reality.htm
72. http://www.peterussell.com/Reality/realityart.html (Emphasis in the original).
73. Wolf, Mind into Matter, pp. 15-16.
74. Russell, From Science to God, p. 42.
75. http://www.cevaplar.org/index.php?khide=visible&sec=1&sec1=22&yazi_id=3828
76. Mitchell, "Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s996555.htm
77. Remez Sasson, "Reality Versus Imagination and Illusion," http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_000014.htm 
78. Ramachandran & Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain, p. 94.
79. Ibid., p. 103.
80. Ibid. 
81. Ibid., p. 26.
82. Ibid., p. 72.