Page 132 - Miracle in the Eye

M MIRACLE IN THE EYE

Who Is the Perceiver?
In order to perceive, no external world is necessary. Given the right
kind of stimulation to the brain, sensations of touch, sight, and sounds, can
be recreated in the brain. The best example of this process is dreams.
During dreams, your body typically remains still and motionless in a
dark and quiet bedroom, and your eyes remain shut. Neither light nor
sound nor any other stimuli from the exterior world is reaching your brain
for it to perceive. Yet in your dreams, you still perceive experiences very
similar to real life. In your dreams you also get up and go to work, or go on
vacation and enjoy the warmth of the sun.
Furthermore, in dreams you never feel doubts about the reality of
what you experience. Only after you wake up you realize your experiences
were only dreams. You not only experience such feelings as fear, anxiety,
joy and sadness but also see different images, hear sounds and feel matter.
Yet there is no physical source producing these sensations and perceptions;
you lie motionless inside a dark and quiet room.
René Descartes, the renowned philosopher, offered the following rea-
soning on this surprising truth about dreams:

In my dreams I see that I do various things, I go to many places; when
I wake up, however, I see that I have not done anything or gone any-
where and that I lie peacefully in my bed. Who can guarantee to me
that I do not also dream at the present time, further, that my whole life is
not a dream? 53
We are therefore looking at a manifest truth: There is no justification
for our claiming that we establish direct contact with the original of the
world that we claim to exist and to be living in.

Is Our Brain Distinct from the Outside World?
If everything we know as the outside world is only perceptions pro-
duced internally, what about the brain which we think does the seeing and
hearing? Isn't it composed of atoms and molecules like everything else? The
brain, too, is a piece of tissue that we perceive through our senses. This being
so, what is it, if not the brain, that perceives everything—that sees, hears,

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