Home Page                                                          Table of Contents

Chapter 14

The Inner World.

XXXX

Twin Realities

Most people feel that they are in the world. Actually our brains generate our world. Colors only exist within our experience.

Within the brain is a world simulator that is so good we think it is real. Think of a blind person's reality. Try to describe colors to this person.

Some people care color blind, and some women can see more colors that other people. These women have an extra cone receptor in their eye.

This is why you like certain foods, art and fashion that other people do not share with you.

You can have two realities within your own body. Get three tubs of water, one cold, one hot, and one room temperature. Hold one hand in the cold water, the other in hot water for about a minute. Then put both hands in the room temperature water. Each hand will feel a different temperature.

You can do this with your eyes. Hold one hand over one eye in a bright room. After a couple of minutes, turn off the lights and uncover the one eye. The eye that was covered will see better in the dim light.

Science focuses on the physical world (distal world) and most of the time we focus on a simulated world (proximal world) which is created with our brain.

Distal and proximal are medical terms. Distal means that two parts of the body are distance from each other, whereas proximal means two parts of the body are close together. The head is distal to the feet. The heart is proximal to lungs.

The Distal World

The distal world is measured by scientific instruments directly. It best described in terms of mathematics. One could visualize it as vast swirl of force fields and quantum particles. There is no color, sound, feel, taste or smell here. It also can be seen as just massive amounts of numbers.

The Proximal World

In the proximal world, the world that closest, things are made into cartoon like images and sensations including color, sound, feel, taste and smell. All this is simulated as signals from the distal world are integrated by our brain. The brain paints a picture that can be understood. What we see is the art generated by a simulator.

The proximal world paints of world that good enough to keep us out of trouble, and can even entertain us. If it did a poor job, we would did not make it through the evolutionary selection process.