Page 744 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

scious thoughts and experiences cannot be brain happenings, but must be something else, something caused or
produced by brain happenings, no doubt, but something in addition, made of different stuff, located in a differ-
ent space. Well, why not? 24

On the other hand, R. L. Gregory questions the existence of the entity in the back of the brain, which
sees all sights:

There is a temptation, which must be avoided, to say that the eyes produce pictures in the brain. A picture in the

brain suggests the need of some kind of internal eye to see it – but this would need a further eye to see its pic-
ture… and so on, in an endless regress of eyes and pictures. This is absurd. 25

Materialists who believe that nothing exists except matter cannot understand this particular question. Who
does this "internal eye", which sees and perceives things seen and reacts to such things, belong to?

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". 26

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 de-
scribe 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 Qur’an, 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 inci-
dent inside the brain—watches as if looking at a screen throughout his life—is his soul. Every human being
has a soul that sees without the need for an eye, hears without the need for an ear and thinks without the
need for a brain.

The materialistic view—which maintains that matter is the only thing that exists, and that human con-
sciousness is only a result of some chemical reactions in the brain—is in a quandary about this issue. To see
this it might be instructive to ask the following questions to a materialist:
Sight is formed in our brains but what is it that watches this sight in our brains?

Try to see in your mind's eye your neighbor living downstairs in your apartment building when he is not
with you. Who is it that vivifies this person so clearly in your imagination down to the details of his costume,
the lines in his face, the whites in his hairs; the tone of his voice, the way he speaks, the way he walks?
A materialist will be unable to give a satisfactory answer to such questions. The only explanation to

these questions is the soul given to man by God. However, materialists do not accept the existence of any
being other than matter. For this reason the truth explained in this book deals a massive blow to atheist ma-
terialist thought, and constitutes a subject that materialists refuse to discuss most.

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