Consciousness, Perception and the Brain

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?  At first you might think, “of course it still makes a sound!” until further defining what “sound” actually means: the sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of hearing by vibrations transmitted through the air or other medium (dictionary.com).  When a tree falls there are certainly pressure waves vibrating through the air, but since “sound” is a quality of consciousness, if no ears are around to “hear” those waves, then the tree literally does not make a sound.  

“To the surprise of many, the world ‘out there’ has turned out to be quite unlike our experience of it. Consider our experience of the color green. In the physical world there is light of a certain frequency, but the light itself is not green. Nor are the electrical impulses that are transmitted from the eye to the brain. No color exists there. The green we see is a quality appearing in the mind in response to this frequency of light. It exists only as a subjective experience in the mind. The same is true of sound. I hear the music of a violin, but the sound I hear is a quality appearing in the mind. There is no sound as such in the external world, just vibrating air molecules. The smell of a rose does not exist without an experiencing mind, just molecules of a certain shape.” -Peter Russell, “The Primacy of Consciousness”

What we call “colors” or “sounds” or “smells” are all qualities created in consciousness which have no independent existence without a sentient observer.  Colors are just electromagnetic energy of a specific frequency, sounds are just vibrations of specific patterns, and smells are just various combinations of air molecules - all of which require the key element of consciousness to mystically transform these energetic emanations into our intricate and amazing everyday sensations.  

“All our perceptions, sensations, dreams, thoughts and feelings are forms appearing in consciousness. It doesn't always seem that way. When I see a tree it seems as if I am seeing the tree directly. But science tells us something completely different is happening. Light entering the eye triggers chemical reactions in the retina; these produce electro-chemical impulses which travel along nerve fibers to the brain. The brain analyses the data it receives, and then creates its own picture of what is out there. I then have the experience of seeing a tree. But what I am actually experiencing is not the tree itself, only the image that appears in the mind. This is true of everything I experience. Everything we know, perceive, and imagine, every color, sound, sensation, every thought and every feeling, is a form appearing in the mind. It is all an in-forming of consciousness.”  -Peter Russell, “The Primacy of Consciousness”

Electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 380 and 760 nanometers (frequency of 790–400 terahertz) is detected by the human eye and perceived as visible light; everything beyond that is invisible to us.  All the colors of the rainbow and absolutely everything we see comes from just a narrow frequency on an infinite electromagnetic spectrum.  Our highest perceivable frequency, at 790 terahertz, is the color violet.  However with the use of tools/technology we know that above violet are ultra violet light, X-rays, and gamma rays.  Our lowest perceivable frequency, at 400 terahertz, is the color red.  However, with the use of tools/technology we know that below red are infrared, microwaves, and radio waves.  The spectrum is infinite, yet we base our entire experience on the minute sliver perceivable to us and assume that is “reality.”

“Our eyes detect none of these other frequencies, and our image of reality represents but a tiny fraction of what is there.  The same holds true of the other senses. What we hear, smell and taste is but a limited sample of the physical reality. Furthermore, there are aspects of the physical world, such as magnetic fields and electric charge that have very little, if any, impact on our experience.”  -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

“In the space that you are occupying now are all the radio and television frequencies broadcasting to your area. You can't see them and they are not aware of each other because you and they are on different frequencies, or wavelengths. Only when the frequencies are really close do they experience 'interference'. It is the same with our reality. Our 'physical world' is just one of countless wavelengths, frequencies or dimensions, and to experience and interact with this realm we need an outer shell that is vibrating within this frequency range. Our consciousness is vibrating too fast to interact efficiently with this frequency … The body is the means through which our Infinite Awareness can directly experience this range of frequencies that I will call, to keep it simple, the five-sense realm, world or dimension. This is why the five senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste are so limited. They are confined to perceiving only this range of frequencies - this dimension.”  –David Icke, “The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy” (13-14)

So in the universe there exists an infinite array of electromagnetic radiation, but only the tiniest glimpse of that array is available for sensory experience.  Our physical bodies act like electromagnetic transistors for our awareness by switching on/off, amplifying or muting the multitude of signals around us and funneling what we focus on.  All visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory sensations are brought to our consciousness through this frequency decoding process, just like tuning a radio, and in the grand scheme of things, we are barely receiving a signal. 

“There is no 'solid' world 'outside' of you. All those people, streets, cars and buildings only exist, in that 'solid' 3D state, in your mind. Everywhere else, they are frequency fields, thought fields, energy matrices, call them what you will. Television and the Internet are perfect illustrations of what I am talking about here. When we think of television we think of pictures and programs, but the only place television exists in that form is on the TV screen. Everywhere else television consists of frequency broadcasts and electrical circuitry. When we think of the Internet we think of websites, pictures and graphics, but the only place the Internet exists in that form is on your computer screen. Everywhere else it consists of mathematical codes and electrical circuitry … To summarize: the 'physical' world is a tiny frequency range or dimension within Infinite Awareness - the 'ocean'. The body-computer tunes us into this strictly limited sense of perception, this television channel, and acts as our vehicle to interact with this 'world'. We have been manipulated into believing that 'we' are the computer and its mental, emotional and physical software programs. This dimension, like all the others, is a mass of frequency fields that the body-computer decodes into apparently 3D scenes, but in that form they only exist in the brain or, more accurately, the energy matrix we call the brain. There is no 'physical' world unless it is observed into form - decoded into form.” –David Icke, “The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy” (35-7)

The “outside” world around us has a convincing appearance of being “out there” somewhere, when in actuality the 3D world is no more “out there” than a dream.  In dreams we perceive sights, sounds, and sensations, we have all our emotional and rational faculties, we encounter people, places and situations all seeming to be happening in a world “out there” around us.  Not until we awaken do we realize that all those sights, sounds, sensations, people, places, and situations were simply creations of our minds, appearing around us, but coming from within us.

“Since the Greeks, philosophers have been thinking about ‘the ghost in the machine’, ‘the small man within the small man’ etc.  Where is ‘I’, the person who uses his brain?  Who is it that realizes the act of knowing?  As Saint Francis of Assisi said: ‘What we search for is the one that sees.’”  -Ken Wilber, “Holographic Paradigm” (37)

 “Today, after thirty years of investigation into the nature of consciousness, I have come to appreciate how big a problem consciousness is for the contemporary science. Science has had remarkable success in explaining the structure and functioning of the material world, but when it comes to the inner world of the mind – to our thoughts, feelings, sensations, intuitions, and dreams – science has very little to say. And when it comes to consciousness itself, science falls curiously silent. There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that can account for our having an interior world.”  -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

How and why do we have an inner life at all?  Professor of Philosophy at University of Arizona, Dr. David Chalmers has coined this issue, “the hard problem” of consciousness.    How could any complex material process in the brain create our rich immaterial internal worlds of thought, emotion, sensation, and perception?  Why is there a subjective aspect to reality at all?

“Nothing in Western science predicts that any living creature should be conscious. It is easier to explain how hydrogen evolved into other elements, how they combined to form molecules, and then simple living cells, and how these evolved into complex beings such as ourselves than it is to explain why we should ever have a single inner experience.”  -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

Let’s put the “hard problem” of consciousness through the process of elimination.  We now know from multiple experiments in quantum physics that quanta, the building blocks of matter, the fundamental units of “stuff” in the universe, do not become a set “something” with definite properties, location, and materiality without the key element of consciousness to collapse the wave function; In other words, no consciousness, no matter.  So if consciousness is supposedly an emergent property of a Newtonian/Darwinian mechanistic universe, what used to collapse the wave function in the days before the “evolution of consciousness?”

“[Since] a key component in the quantum measurement process includes an observer and his or her knowledge, this means the mind is inextricably wound into quantum reality … Based on the classical assumptions of local realism and mechanism, the brain – like any other physical object – is a clockwork object.  Since clockworks are not conscious, then what we call ‘I’ can only be an emergent property of a complicated piece of machinery.  And thus our sense of conscious awareness, or the feeling one has when smelling a rose, are illusions – though illusions to whom is not quite clear.  From a classical physics point of view, the ‘you’ that is currently reading this sentence is an illusion.  This seems to be a rather important limitation, as most people reading these sentences probably believe that they (their conscious minds) do exist.”  -Dean Radin, “Entangled Minds” (256-7)

We often falsely assume that we are our physical bodies because our consciousness seems trapped inside.  We feel pain and pleasure, all emotions, perceptions and sensations through the body and so we identify with it, but is the body who/what we really are?  If your leg gets cut off, is the leg still you?  Or was the leg just a tool, a vehicle you used to experience the physical realm? 

“We are energy beings residing in bodies so that we can experience this physical dimension.  The relationship between our energy being and our physical body is kind of like a person driving a car, except imagine that the person driving believes the car is their true being.  It might strike you as funny to imagine a person who believes that they are the car, but that is the way most of us think of ourselves.  We do not separate our physical bodies from the pure energy being that controls the body.  When people drive cars, they do not become car-beings.  We are the energy beings within our bodies.”  -Eric Pepin, “Handbook of the Navigator” (111-112)

Anyone who has experienced an OBE, NDE, or taken DMT will tell you emphatically that we are not our physical bodies.  Indigenous peoples and shamanic cultures regularly practiced meditation, “dreamtime,” trance-inducing chants, dances, fasts and ingested psychedelic entheogens all of which put them directly in touch with non-physical aspects of their consciousness.  Even the staunchest materialists are compelled beyond their will every night to relax their bodies to sleep while their consciousness travels to various dream worlds/dimensions beyond the physical.  The signs are all around us but the point is easy to miss: the physical world is simply a recurring dream that we awaken from when our bodies die.

“So the first revelation on the road to freedom: your body is not 'you' - it is a fantastic biological computer that 'you' are using to experience this reality.  It is a vehicle, a means, not a 'you' or an 'I'.  The spacesuit is the means by which an astronaut can experience other 'worlds'.  So is your 'body'.  We are not our bodies; we are Infinite Consciousness, the All That Is, a seamless energy field within which all 'worlds' and no 'worlds' exist.  The only difference between everything is the level of awareness that we are All That Is.  The deeper this awareness, the more you will access that level of 'knowing' and perception; the more you think you are an 'individual' and apart from everything else, the more you will disconnect from the Infinite One that you really are.”  –David Icke, “The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy” David Icke Books (2)

Still unconvinced that you are not your body?  Did you know that every 5 to 7 years, every single cell in your body dies and is replaced?  Your entire body, every cell in your brain, every cell in your eye, absolutely everything that composes your physical body has died and been replaced multiple times.  Meanwhile, your unique essence, your feeling of “I am-ness,” your consciousness, has remained exactly the same as when you were a child. 

“This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences.  We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.  As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’  Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.  This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals.  Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated ‘egos’ inside bags of skin [but] the cat has already been let out of the bag.  The inside information is that yourself as ‘just little me’ who ‘came into this world’ and lives temporarily in a bag of skin is a hoax and a fake.  The fact is that because no one thing or feature of this universe is separable from the whole, the only real You, or Self, is the whole.  The rest of this book will attempt to make this so clear that you will not only understand the words but feel the fact.”  -Alan Watts, “The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are” (53)

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