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Berk asked:

I am working on this subject as a project and will be privileged to hear your interpretations on the
following questions:

*The light coming from an object is transformed into electrical signals by the cells in the eye and then
transmitted to the center of vision in the brain. And the electrical signals there are turned into an
image. For example, you actually see this message in your brain. Then who is the one that sees and
perceives the image of this message in the brain? How do you define the consciousness that can see
this image in the brain without the need of an eye?

*Brain is a piece of flesh composed of lipids, proteins and other various molecules. Could the
consciousness that sees this image be this piece of flesh? Or could the brain cells make up a
consciousness that sees these electrical signals as a sea view or an e-mail message?

*No light penetrates the skull, which means the brain is entirely in darkness. Then how does such an
illuminated, clear image is formed in this pitch-dark place? For instance how are the rays of the sun
seen over the unlit brain cortex?

*Also no sound enters the brain. This means there is deep muteness where the brain exists.
However, people listen to all different sounds inside the brain. The sound waves are turned into
electrical signals inside of the ear and then transmitted to the center of hearing. And the
consciousness inside the brain listens to these for instance as a melody. Then who is it that listens to
the loud music aired from powerful loudspeakers and how?

*The image is formed inside a miniature spot in the brain. Then how is the three-dimensional image
with depth is formed on this diminutive screen? For instance when I look at the horizon or the sky,
how is such an image with vast depth formed at this tiny spot of center of vision just as identical to its
original with the same depth and sense of distance? What is it that gives me the feeling of distance
and space?

*When a person sees a glass of water, in fact he does not see its real form but only a copy of it in his
brain. The coldness that he feels when touching the glass surface is not the real coldness of the glass
but only a copy of it. This means nobody is ever able to feel that he touches the real glass. Since it is
not his fingers that feel the sense of touch, but merely the sense of touch in the brain. Should we not
in this case conclude that people are never able to reach the reality of objects and can never touch
the reality of a glass? But not every person knows this fact. Everyone thinks they touch and see real
objects. Is it not strange that people are not aware of this and they never think about this?

*Nothing changes when a person is hit by a bus or comes across a lion. Since, just like the image of
the bus, the sense of collision or the fear while running away from a lion, all form in the brain. When I
see a bus, I see it at the center of vision inside my brain. If I go and hold the door of the bus, I feel the
coldness of the metal inside my brain. Then I cannot discriminate from this fact what happens when I
feel pain if a bus hits or a lion bites. Then is it not very illogical when people say, "It shows I am in
contact with the bus or the lion because I feel pain when the bus hits or the lion bites"?

*We live the entire period of our lives inside our brains. In a similar way, we also have dreams in our
brain. For instance when we touch a piece of ice in our dream, we feel it is wet and cold. Or, when we
smell a rose, we get the wonderful scent of it. We again sense the feelings of fear, pain, anxiety and
panic in a similar fashion. Then are the dreams and the real life the same in this sense?

*The person's own body is also included in the images a person sees. So, a person only sees the
copy of his own body. This means every person all through his life lives in the cave in his skull where
he never knows what is outside, including his own body and other objects. Now think over this
happening once more: Right now are you inside of the room you are present or is the room inside of
you? Isn't the second alternative the right answer scientifically?

*Let us imagine 5 different people who look at a garden of roses. Since every one of these people
see the rose garden in his own brain, then aren't there 5 different rose gardens in the brains of every
one of the 5 people? Is the color red that each one sees the same with the other's perception of red?
Would there be any possibility to compare these?

*We say that the original objects we see the copies of in our brain exist outside, but what if nothing
exists outside? Because we never have the ability to test this or observe this. Then is it not dubious
that the original objects are outside? At least there is a 50-50 percent possibility. Then how can we be
sure that the original objects are outside? If there is no original object outside, then what is the entity
that makes the images and the senses in our brain?

*If we are living an illusion that has the possibility of not having any reality outside, then we may be
existing in a very different place. For instance is it not possible for the entire humanity to exist right
over a piece of crystal? Or is it not possible that the complete history of humanity has been
experienced in a place not bigger than the head of a pin? Would there be anything to stop us thinking
in such a broad extent?

*Some people are incredibly afraid when these topics are discussed? What do you think the reason
for this may be?

You don't see a message in your brain, you see what is in the world. A perceptual state is a relational
state, the relata being the brain and what is perceived. It is necessary for the brain to be an
informational state relating to what is perceived if there is to be consciousness or sense-experience.
The fact that the brain is dark and mute is evidence for the perception being a relational state. How
the brain gives rise to consciousness is a fundamental problem for philosophy and science.

You cannot "see" a message in your brain. The various transmitting mechanisms in the brain which
process topographic maps of what is on the retina produce a brain state with a different description
from the way we see, describe and know the environment, which is what we really see. Information
from the visual environment — outside the head — will produce an image on the retina which is
highly processed and abstracted from what is in the visual field. It bears no imagistic likeness and
could not do so. Firstly, because the visual cortex uses information which does not come purely from
retinal stimulation but from other sources, such as the tactile sense. For instance, if you see a mirage
— the sun shining on the road which looks like water — you know you see a mirage because you are
aware of the heat, an awareness which comes from a different neural source. Secondly, colour is the
result of wavelengths of light on the retina and as coded in the brain it is not colour at all.

The "I" who perceives is the one who is conscious by virtue of undergoing a totality of information
processing in the brain. For consciousness of oneself as "I", more than a brain is needed. We need to
distinguish ourselves from things in the environment. You could not be a brain "looking" at some
"diminutive screen" in your head and get any consciousness of yourself.

Consciousness cannot be flesh. This is the mind-body problem. The brain is essentially physical and
consciousness is essentially mental and there can be no identity between these different kinds. It
doesn't make sense to say consciousness is physical.

Three-dimensionality is something which we come to know through the sense of touch: I think this is
Berkeley's view and it seems correct. The visual correlate, perspective, is not actually
three-dimensional, although I have looked in Paul Churchland's book Matter and Consciousness and
he does talk of "three-dimensional seeing" which occurs by means of "stereopsis" which is a
comparison of images from each eye. You might do well to read this book.

Not many people would agree with you about reality. We are in touch with the reality of objects as
they appear to us. The table may really be a bundle of moving molecules but given our perceptual
equipment or the nature of our brain and its complex processing system, what we see is solid. This is
our perceptual reality. A sense-experience is a feeling and when we touch something we feel a
sensation in our finger. You cannot feel with your brain, your brain enables you to feel.

Dreams differ from ordinary intentional perceptual states which are relational. One of the relata — the
external environment is missing in dreams so although contentful, they are not intentional. When the
brain is working on its own, as in dreams, feelings and sensations appear in the same way as when
awake. I'm afraid I don't know what it is that physically stimulates the brain to work on its own, but
dreamt pains and fears have been shown by Freud to have some connection with real anxieties and
physical conditions. For instance, you may be asleep while your body is de-hydrated and you are
likely to dream of drinking water. Real life anxieties can come out in dreams but the true nature of the
anxiety will be hidden. In both cases, the content but not the feeling is out of touch with reality. You
are not drinking water or really anxious that, for instance, the bridge is going to collapse. Dreaming is
like being in an intentional state but there is no state of affairs outside the head responsible for
content.

Although it is easily suggested that each person's sensation of red is different, the way the brain
codes information may have the same patterning in all persons, and neuroscience may be able to
show that this is so.

If we assume that intentional states such as perception are relational then we are assuming that there
is a reality outside the head — we get to this view by ordinary conceptual distinctions between states
such as perception being environmentally related whereas dreams and imaginings are not so.
However, we can imagine a brain in a vat being stimulated by scientists to have a sensation of red or
to have a thought and it may be that is how for you or for me. The reason this is frightening to think
about is that it involves a turning away from reality and you seem to be in the grip of this — yet
unafraid! There are reasons for philosophers to consider possibilities such as the brain in a vat, but to
really believe in possibilities rather than actuality isn't what most people want to do.

Rachel Browne

Okay... first, there are HUGE sources for information on this issue. I recommend you start here:

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/

http://assc.caltech.edu/

http://www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/resources.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~dravita/
http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/links.htm

That should get you started.

Now. Since there are enormous numbers of books, journals, etc., on these questions, all I'm going to
do is skim them to give you some teasers instead of answers. For anything like real answers (as real
as they get, anyway) you'll have to go to the sites I've given you.

"1. For example, you actually see this message in your brain."

Really? Do you? "Light" is electromagnetic radiation, and you have a subjective experiencedue to
just one octaveof the total spectrum of that radiation.

"Then who is the one that sees and perceives the image of this message in the brain?"

You see the image. One problem with your question is the term "message". It is a misconception that
neural impulses are "messages"; then one starts asking, as you are, "messages to whom?" To whom,
indeed. Try to conceive of an entity composedof, generated by, neural impulses, which reacts to
itself, and you might have a better picture of the materialist conception of the mind.

"How do you define the consciousness that can see this image in the brain without the need of an
eye?"

What do you mean by "define the consciousness"? And what good would it do, to "define" it? If all you
want is a definition, try "self-awareness"; that's a perfectly good dictionary-type definition. But of
course, you are not, and should not, be satisfied with that. Why not? Because what you want is not a
definition but an explanation, and further, a reductiveexplanation. Good luck; no one has done that,
but you'll find in the references above many attempts. On the other hand, if you want
phenomenological analyses, check out the phenomenology links above.

Next... "see" "without the need of an eye"? You are assuming a great deal here; for a start, that there
is an actual image to be seen, on a little movie screen, by a little man (a "homunculus") in our brain...
but how does thatlittle man see? Another little man in hisbrain? And that one? Whoops... See my
discussions below.

"2. Brain is a piece of flesh composed of lipids, proteins and other various molecules. Could the
consciousness that sees this image be this piece of flesh?"

"Be"? In what sense are you using that incredibly ambiguous word? Try this: consciousness is
generated by and instantiated in the dynamicsof the brain.

"Or could the brain cells make up a consciousness that sees these electrical signals as a sea view or
an e-mail message?"

I simply don't understand this question. "Sea view"? Neurons do not receive email.

"3. No light penetrates the skull, which means the brain is entirely in darkness. Then how does such
an illuminated, clear image is formed in this pitch-dark place? For instance how are the rays of the
sun seen over the unlit brain cortex?"

They aren't. There is no image. You do not see the "rays of the sun". You are confusing your
subjective experienceof seeing the resultof electromagnetic radiation, impinging on the retina,
transduced into neural impulses which then become an aspect of an enormous system reacting to
itself, with that objectiveradiation per se. Read Kant on this: we constructreality; we generatethe
experience of seeing. Who knows what there "really" is outside the box — the skull (more accurately,
the body) — we live in. We assume that it is similar to our experiences, and, given that there is a
world, we would certainly be dead if it weren't; so it is. But you must remember that whatwe
experience, subjectively, is all a construction.

"4. Also no sound enters the brain. This means there is deep muteness where the brain exists.
However, people listen to all different sounds inside the brain. The sound waves are turned into
electrical signals inside of the ear and then transmitted to the center of hearing. And the