Page 806 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Many thinkers, religious scholars and scientists throughout history have brought this subject up and
explained that matter is really a collection of perceptions. For instance, ancient Greek philosophers such as
Pythagoras, the Elea School and Plato—with his allegory of the cave—have looked at the subject from that
aspect. Documents that have come down to us show that religions such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism,

Taoism, Judaism and Christianity have all discussed the matter. Prominent Islamic scholars such as Imam
Rabbani, Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi and Mawlana Jami have also discussed the essence of matter in the same
way. However, it is the Irish philosopher Berkeley whose ideas on the subject need to be given the most de-
tailed discussion.

Berkeley said that matter was a totality of perceptions. He came in for fierce attacks from the material-
ists of the time who believed that matter enjoyed a physical existence, and who tried to silence him by in-
sults and slander. A materialist, Bertrand Russell did the same thing. Although Russell is one of the thinkers
that materialists have the greatest faith in, and although he is seen as a great supporter of the materialist

viewpoint, he was unable to refute what Berkeley said. In his book The Problems of Philosophy, he described
the situation in these terms:

…Berkeley retains the merit of having shown that the existence of matter is capable of being denied without ab-
surdity, and that if there are any things that exist independently of us they cannot be the immediate objects of
our sensations. 52

However, because of the lack of scientific facts at the time when they lived, neither Berkeley nor other
thinkers were able to support their views with empirical evidence. As a consequence, it was not possible for

the matter to be completely understood or widely discussed, particularly given the pressure from those
who held the opposite view. Some of these incorrectly evaluated the truth they had discovered, and even
though they came close to the truth, they were unable to draw the correct conclusions. Others with hidden

agendas tried to drag the matter in a completely erroneous direction.

The Essence of Matter is a Scientific Fact:

In our time, however, the "perception of matter in the mind," is no longer a matter of philosophical
speculation, but has turned into a fact backed up by scientific proof. Advances in the world of science have
revealed the functioning of man's sensory organs. As we saw at the beginning of this book, this functioning
is the same for every sensory organ. The signals coming to our sensory organs from the outside world are

turned into electrical signals by our cells and forwarded to the perception centers in our brain by our
nerves. So man sees, hears, smells, tastes or touches the world in tiny perception centers in his brain.
These scientific facts are now completely clear, and can be found in any book on physiology or high
school biology textbook. The way images and perceptions form in the brain is now taught in a detailed

manner in medical schools. As our knowledge has advanced, sciences such as physics, quantum physics,
psychology, neurology, biology and medicine have clarified the factual details of the process.
For instance, the theoretical physicist Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, who has attracted considerable attention with
his research and has written eight award-winning books, explains that quantum physics in particular has

revealed that the world we see is actually an illusion:

…there is something beyond all materialism, beyond the physical world, out of which all reality, the whole of
existence, projects. This would overwhelm traditional dualism – and I take this view not as a mystic but as a
quantum physicist. I think that our most modern understanding of the physical world suggests that there may
be an ineffable realm, a mystical realm, an "imaginal" realm, out of which the physical world pops into existence.

Kind of like what [the German physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics] Werner Heisenberg suggested
when he brought the notion of consciousness into physics – when he said that it's the observer who creates the
observed simply by the act of observation… I see reality differently. Reality to me is more like a dream – I see a

dreaming reality. I envision a dreamer, or a great spirit, of which we're all a part… And I think that using this
model we can achieve some real scientific breakthroughs, rather than attempting to reduce everything down
to the simplest level. 53

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