Page 199 - The Creation Of The Universe

You live out your en tire life in your brain. The peo ple you see, flow ers you smell, mu sic
you hear, fruit you taste, the mois ture you feel with your fin gers—all these are im pres -
sions that be come "re al i ty" in the brain. But no col ors, voi ces or pic tures ac tu al ly ex ist
there. You live in an en vi ron ment of elec tri cal im puls es. This is no idle the o ry, but the
sci en tif ic ex pla na tion of how you ac tu al ly per ceive the out side world.

completely silent. Nevertheless, the sharpest sounds are perceived in the
brain. In your completely silent brain, you listen to symphonies, and
hear all of the noises in a crowded place. However, were the sound lev-
el in your brain measured by a precise device at that moment, complete si-
lence would be found to be prevailing there.
As is the case with imagery, decades of effort have been spent in trying
to generate and reproduce sound that is faithful to the original. The results
of these efforts are sound recorders, high-fidelity systems, and systems for
sensing sound. Despite all of this technology and the thousands of engi-
neers and experts who have been working on this endeavor, no sound has
yet been obtained that has the same sharpness and clarity as the sound per-
ceived by the ear. Think of the highest-quality hi-fi systems produced by