Page 51 - Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

The Secret Beyond Matter 49

Lincoln Barnett says that no one can know that another person perceives the
colour red or hears the C note the same way as he himself does. 46
Our sense of touch is no different than the others. When we touch an
object, all information that will help us recognise the external world and
objects are transmitted to the brain by the sense nerves on the skin. The feel-
ing of touch is formed in our brain. Contrary to general belief, the place
where we perceive the sense of touch is not at our finger tips or skin but at
the relevant centre in our brain. As a result of the brain's assessment of elec-
trical stimulations coming from objects to it, we sense different properties
these objects such as hardness or softness, or heat or cold. We derive all
details that help us recognise an object from these stimulations. Two famous
philosophers, B. Russell and L. Wittgeinstein, have this to say:
For instance, whether a lemon truly exists or not and how it came to exist
cannot be questioned and investigated. A lemon consists merely of a taste
sensed by the tongue, an odour sensed by the nose, a colour and shape
sensed by the eye; and only these features of it can be subject to examination
and assessment. Science can never know the physical world. 47
It is impossible for us to reach the original physical world. All objects
around us are apprehended through one or more means of perception such
as seeing, hearing, and touching. By processing the data in the centre of
vision and in other sensory centres, our brain, throughout our lives, con-
fronts not the "original" of the matter existing outside us but rather the
copy formed inside our brain. We can never know what the original forms
of these copies are like.

"The External World" Inside Our Brain
As a result of our scientific investigation of the physical facts described
so far, we may conclude the following: we can never have direct experience
of the original of anything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as matter, "the
world" or "the universe." We merely know their copies in our brain.
Someone eating a fruit in fact is aware not of the actual fruit itself but of
a 'picture' of it in the brain. The object considered to be a "fruit" actually con-
sists of an electrical impression in the brain which includes the shape, taste,
smell, and texture of the fruit. If the sight nerve travelling to the brain were
to be severed suddenly, the image of the fruit would suddenly disappear.
Similarly a disconnection in the nerve travelling from the sensors in the nose
to the brain would completely destroy the sense of smell. Simply put, the