Page 88 - Matter: The Other Name for Illusion

In the following passage, Karl Pribram describes this important search by
science and philosophy for the identity of the perceiver:
Philosophers since the Greeks have speculated about the "ghost" in the
machine, the "little man inside the little man" and so on. Where is the I—
the entity that uses the brain? Who does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint
Francis of Assisi once put it, "What we are looking for is what is
looking". 25

Although many people venture close to this reality in answering the
question "who is the entity that sees", they hesitate to accept all of its
implications. As demonstrated in the examples above, in discussing the entity
in our brains, some refer to the "little man", while others say "the ghost in the
machine", some refer to "the being using the brain" while some say "the

internal eye". All these terms have been used to describe the entity beyond the
brain which possesses consciousness, and the means of reaching this entity.
However, materialist assumptions keep many people from understanding the
true nature of this being which actually sees and hears.
The only source that answers this question is religion. In the Koran, God
states that He created man in a physical way initially and then "breathed His
Spirit" to the man He created:

When your Lord said to the angels, "I am creating a human being out of
dried clay formed from fetid black mud when I have formed him and
breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration in front of him!"

(Surat al-Hijr: 28-29)

(He) then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you
hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Surat as-Sajda:
9)

In other words, the human being has another existence besides its physical
body. That entity inside the brain which says "I am seeing" the sight inside
the brain, and "I am hearing" the sound inside the brain and aware of its
own existence, and which says "I am me", is the soul given to human
beings by God.

Any human being with a mind and a conscience can understand this: the
being that watches every incident inside the brain—watches as if looking at a

86 MATTER: THE OTHER NAME FOR ILLUSION