Page 265 - For Men of Understanding

ences perceptions and feelings that don't exist in the external world. The fact
that our dreams give us events with no physical, external correlates clearly
reveals that the "world out there" is one whose true essence we can never
know. We can learn the true nature of that world only from the revelation of
Almighty Allah, Who created it.
Those who believe in the materialist philosophy, the Marxists in particular,
are enraged when informed of this reality. They quote examples from the
superficial, ignorant reasoning of Marx, Engels, or Lenin and else make emo-
tional declarations.
However, they should realize that they can make these declarations in a
dream as well. They can dream of reading Das Kapital, participating in meet-
ings, and even feel the pain of getting involved in a fistfight. When asked-in
their dream-they will think that what they see is absolute reality, just as they
assume that everything they see while awake is absolutely real. But they should
know that everything they experience-be it in a dream or in their daily lives-
consists of only perceptions whose "real" source they can never reach.

The Example of a Shared Nervous System
Let us consider Politzer's car crash example: If the injured victim's nerves
travelling from his five senses to his brain, were connected in parallel to anoth-
er person's-Politzer's, for instance-then at the instant the bus hit that person,
Politzer, sitting at his home at that same time, would feel the impact too.
Politzer would experience all the sensations experienced by the person under-
going the accident, just as the same song will issue from two different loud-
speakers connected to the same tape recorder. Politzer will hear the braking of
the bus, feel its impact on his body, see the sights of a broken arm and spread-
ing blood, suffer the aching fractures, experience entering the operation room,
the hardness of the plaster cast, and the feebleness of his healing arm.
Just like Politzer, every other person connected to that man's nerves would
experience the accident from beginning to end. If the man in the accident fell
into a coma, so would everyone. Moreover, if all the perceptions pertaining to
the car accident were recorded in some device, and repeatedly transmitted to
someone, the bus would knock this person down again and again.
But which one of these two buses hitting those people is real? To this ques-

tion, materialist philosophers have no consistent answer. The correct answer is
that all of them experience the car accident, in all its details, in their own
minds.
The same principle applies to our other examples. If the sensory nerves of
Engels, who felt the fullness in his stomach after eating a cake, were connect-

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