The Brain is a Tool not the Agent of Perception This great...

The Brain is a Tool not the Agent of Perception This great error has fallen to the materialists because they do not distinguish between a tool and the agent of an act. We accept the fact that the brain, nerve cells and physical senses are tools used by our sense of perception but we do not believe them to be the agents for our sense of perception. Pay attention to the following which clarifies this point.

Until the time when Galileo Galilei discovered a change in the study of the heavens, the human being did not have any means greater than human eyesight to discover the secrets of the heavens and the cosmological system. Galileo Galilei with the help of an optician was able to build a small lens which was the first step for human beings to become more familiar with the heavens.

One night when Galileo Galilei looked through that lens at the heavens and bore witness to a wondrous scene which had never been seen by a human being before, he was very excited. He understood the extent of his discovery. After that, telescopes developed and daily became more sophisticated until a telescope was built whose diameter is five meters or more wide which shows a part of the heavens to the human eye, which the human eye is incapable of viewing.

Now, if someone were to say that it is the telescope which sees the wonders of the heavens and other than these great telescopes no agent exists, would you believe it? Would you not think that person to be joking? Without doubt, telescopes which can help us see the heavens are very useful. Without them, our eyes do not have the power to see the wonders of the heavens. In other words, the extent of our vision depends on the power of those telescopes.

Here, again, there is no doubt that we are the real viewers. A telescope only helps us to perceive a small number of the multitude of cosmological entities. A telescope plays the role of a tool or an instrument. Now if we carefully study the relationship between the senses, nerves, brain and the agent of perception, we will clearly realize that this relationship is that very relationship which exists between the telescope and the person who perceives by means of the telescope.

The senses, nerves and brain are in reality, means or instruments for perception and the agent who perceives is really and truly another. Of course, if these tools were not to exist, we would not perceive but this does not mean that the telescopes perceive.