Page 876 - Atlas of Creation Volume 1

The World of Electrical Signals

All the information we have about the world is conveyed to us by our five senses. Thus, the world we
know consists of what our eyes see, our hands feel, our nose smells, our tongue tastes, and our ears hear. We
never believe that the external world can be other than what our senses present to us, since we've depended
on those senses since the day we were born.

Yet modern research in many different fields of science points to a very different understanding, creating
serious doubt about the "outside" world that we perceive with our senses.
For this new understanding, the starting point is that everything we perceive as external is only a re-

sponse formed by electrical signals in our brain. The red of an apple, the hardness of wood—moreover, one's
mother, father, family, and everything that one owns, one's house, job, and even the pages of this book—all
are comprised of electrical signals only.
On this subject, the late German biochemist Frederic Vester explained the viewpoint that science has
reached:

Statements of some scientists, positing that man is an image, that everything experienced is temporary and de-
ceptive, and that this universe is only a shadow, all seem to be proven by current science. 190

To clarify, let's consider the five senses which provide us with all our information about the external
world.

How Do We See, Hear, and Taste?

The act of seeing occurs in a progressive fashion. Light (photons) traveling from the object passes
through the lens in front of the eye, where the image is refracted and falls, upside down, onto the retina at the
back of the eye. Here, visual stimuli are turned into electrical signals, in turn transmitted by neurons to a tiny

spot in the rear of the brain known as the vision centre. After a series of processes, these electrical signals in
this brain center are perceived as an image. The act of seeing actually takes place at the posterior of the brain,
in this tiny spot which is pitch dark, completely insulated from light.
Even though this process is largely understood, when we claim, "We see," in fact we are perceiving the

effects of impulses reaching our eye, transformed into electrical signals, and induced in our brain. And so,
when we say, "We see," actually we are observing electrical signals in our mind.
All the images we view in our lives are formed in our centre of vision, which takes up only a few cubic
centimetres in the brain's volume. The book you are now reading, as well as the boundless landscape you see

when you gaze at the horizon, both occur in this tiny space. And keep in mind that, as noted before, the brain
is insulated from light. Inside the skull is absolutely dark; and the brain itself has no contact with light.
An example can illustrate this interesting paradox. Suppose we place a burning candle in front of you.
You can sit across from it and watch this candle at length. During this time, however, your brain never has

any direct contact with the candle's original light. Even while you perceive the candle's light, the inside of
your brain is lightless. We all watch a bright, colourful world inside our pitch-dark brain.
R. L. Gregory explains the miraculous aspect of seeing, which we take so very much for granted:

We are so familiar with seeing, that it takes a leap of imagination to realize that there are problems to be solved.
But consider it. We are given tiny distorted upside-down images in the eyes, and we see separate solid objects in
surrounding space. From the patterns of simulation on the retinas we perceive the world of objects, and this is
nothing short of a miracle. 191
The same applies to all our other senses. Sound, touch, taste and smell are all transmitted as electrical
signals to the brain, where they are perceived in the relevant centres.
The sense of hearing proceeds in the same manner. The auricle in the outer ear picks up available sounds

and directs them to the middle ear; the middle ear transmits the sound vibrations to the inner ear by intensi-
fying them; the inner ear translates these vibrations into electrical signals and sends them to the brain. Just as
with the eye, the act of hearing takes place in the brain's hearing centre. The brain is insulated from sound

just as it is from light. Therefore, no matter how noisy it may be outside, it is completely silent inside the

874 Atlas of Creation