Page 32 - The Little Man in the Tower

The Little Man in the Tower

The Three-Stage Wall between You

and the Outside World

Close inspection of these scientific facts reveals a most important fact:
Never can we establish actual, direct contact with the outside world.

For example, when we sit watch television, we can never actually see the
screen. All that reaches us is the photons emerging from the picture tube.
These are not light, but only wave particles. Similarly, we "see" objects in
the room by the photons they reflect, much like a tennis ball bounces off a
wall and back toward us. In other words, even at this stage, we are already
divorced from the television’s image itself.

When its photons reach our eyes and strike their retina, they are turned
into electrical energy by the enzymes there. This constitutes yet another
phase between the television and ourselves.

When nerves carry this electrical energy to the visual center in our brain,
it changes form once again, taking the form we refer to as "images." This is
the third stage. Just one single step is enough to break the connection
between the television’s screen and ourselves, yet we are actually dealing
with three.

To give an analogy, this is like playing the game of Telephone, also known
as Chinese Whispers, with three different people in three interconnected
rooms. Did the first person really say the sentence that is whispered into your
ear, or did the second or third person change it around somehow? Did the third
person make it up all by himself? You can’t ever be sure. You cannot even be
sure what the first and second players really said at all.

30