Page 188 - Matter: The Other Name for Illusion

The pain and wetness when someone cuts her hand all form in
the brain. That same person might dream she has cut her hand
and might experience the same sensations in that dream. Yet
in her dream she is simply seeing an illusion, and there is no
real knife or bleeding wound. That being the case, the feeling
of pain does not alter the fact that we see all our lives as images within our brains.

events you are witnessing in your mind," the person will not believe him, and
will object. He might even say: "I am a materialist. I do not believe in such
claims. I feel everything I am now seeing. Look, can't you see the blood?"
Those who insist that they have direct contact with the original matter are
like the person we have just been considering. In the world of perceptions they
live in, they hear the words, "All these things are perceptions, and you can
never reach the original sources of these perceptions," yet they violently
oppose this truth.

Yet we must not forget that nobody who cuts his hand just says, "This is
only an image" and sits down without doing anything about it. That is because
God has created effects binding people to the images they perceive. For
instance, someone who cuts his hand puts something on it, bandages it or goes
to the doctor. However, he merely has experience of images formed in his brain
of all of these processes. The bandage and the medicine he puts on are all
images that form inside the brain.

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O Objection: "Is saying that we only have experience of the illusion
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o of matter we perceive in our minds compatible with Islam?" "
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R Reply: Some Muslims suggest that the fact that we only have experience
186 MATTER: THE OTHER NAME FOR ILLUSION