Page 147 - The Truth of the Life of This World

"The External World" Inside Our Brain

As a result of these physical facts, we come to the following indis-
putable conclusion: Everything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as "mat-
ter," "the world" or "the universe" is in fact electrical signals interpreted in
our brain. We can never reach the original of the matter outside our brain.
We merely taste, hear and see an image of the external world formed in
our brain. In fact, someone eating an apple confronts not the actual fruit,
but its perceptions in the brain. What that person considers to be an apple
actually consists of his brain's perception of the electrical information con-
cerning the fruit's shape, taste, smell, and texture. If the optic nerve to the
brain were suddenly severed, the image of the fruit would instantly disap-
pear. Any disconnection in the olfactory nerve travelling from receptors in
the nose to the brain would interrupt the sense of smell completely. Simply
put, that apple is nothing but the interpretation of electrical signals by the
brain.
Also consider the sense of distance. The empty space between you and
this page is only a sense of emptiness formed in your brain. Objects that
appear distant in your view also exist in the brain. For instance, someone
watching the stars at night assumes that they are millions of light-years
away, yet the stars are within himself, in his vision centre. While you read
these lines, actually you are not inside the room you assume you're in; on

the contrary, the room is inside you. Perceiving your body makes you
think that you're inside it. However, your body, too, is a set of images
formed inside your brain.
The same applies to all other perceptions. When you believe you're
hearing the sound of the television in the next room, for instance, actual-
ly you are experiencing those sounds inside your brain. The noises you
think are coming from meters away and the conversation of the person
right beside you - both are perceived in the auditory centre in your brain,
only a few cubic centimetres in size. Apart from this centre of perception,
no concepts such as right, left, front or behind exist. That is, sound does
not come to you from the right, from the left, or from above; there is no

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