TO THE READER

TOKO ALHAROMAIN MENJUAL PAKAIAN JADI D 54-D55 AND B19-B20 PASAR TANJUNG MOJOKERTO

To the reader

A special chapter is assigned to the collapse of the theory of evolution because this theory constitutes the basis of all anti-spiritual philosophies. Since Darwinism rejects the fact of creation—and therefore, God's Existence—over the last 140 years it has caused many people to abandon their faith or fall into doubt. It is therefore an imperative service, a very important duty to show everyone that this theory is a deception. Since some readers may find the chance to read only one of our book, we think it appropriate to devote a chapter to summarize this subject.

All the author's books explain faith-related issues in light of Qur'anic verses, and invite readers to learn God's words and to live by them. All the subjects concerning God's verses are explained so as to leave no doubt or room for questions in the reader's mind. The books' sincere, plain, and fluent style ensure that everyone of every age and from every social group can easily understand them. Thanks to their effective, lucid narrative, they can be read at a one sitting. Even those who rigorously reject spirituality are influenced by the facts these books document and cannot refute the truthfulness of their contents.

This and all the other books by the author can be read individually, or discussed in a group. Readers eager to profit from the books will find discussion very useful, letting them relate their reflections and experiences to one another.

In addition, it will be a great service to Islam to contribute to the publication and reading of these books, written solely for the pleasure of God. The author's books are all extremely convincing. For this reason, to communicate true religion to others, one of the most effective methods is encouraging them to read these books.

We hope the reader will look through the reviews of his other books at the back of this book. His rich source material on faith-related issues is very useful, and a pleasure to read.

In these books, unlike some other books, you will not find the author's personal views, explanations based on dubious sources, styles that are unobservant of the respect and reverence due to sacred subjects, nor hopeless, pessimistic arguments that create doubts in the mind and deviations in the heart.

ABOUT THE READER

Now writing under the pen-name of HARUN YAHYA, he was born in Ankara in 1956. Having completed his primary and secondary education in Ankara, he studied arts at Istanbul's Mimar Sinan University and philosophy at Istanbul University. Since the 1980s, he has published many books on political, scientific, and faith-related issues. Harun Yahya is well-known as the author of important works disclosing the imposture of evolutionists, their invalid claims, and the dark liaisons between Darwinism and such bloody ideologies as fascism and communism.

His pen-name is a composite of the names Harun (Aaron) and Yahya (John), in memory of the two esteemed Prophets who fought against their people's lack of faith. The Prophet's seal on the his books' covers is symbolic and is linked to the their contents. It represents the Qur'an (the final scripture) and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), last of the prophets. Under the guidance of the Qur'an and the Sunnah (teachings of the Prophet), the author makes it his purpose to disprove each fundamental tenet of godless ideologies and to have the "last word," so as to completely silence the objections raised against religion. He uses the seal of the final Prophet, who attained ultimate wisdom and moral perfection, as a sign of his intention to offer the last word.

All of Harun Yahya's works share one single goal: to convey the Qur' an's message, encourage readers to consider basic faith-related issues such as God's Existence and Unity and the hereafter; and to expose godless systems' feeble foundations and perverted ideologies.

Harun Yahya enjoys a wide readership in many countries, from India to America, England to Indonesia, Poland to Bosnia, and Spain to Brazil. Some of his books are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Urdu, Arabic, Albanian, Russian, Serbo-Croat (Bosnian), Polish, Malay, Uygur Turkish, and Indonesian.

Greatly appreciated all around the world, these works have been instrumental in many people recovering faith in God and gaining deeper insights into their faith. His books' wisdom and sincerity, together with a distinct style that's easy to understand, directly affect anyone who reads them. Those who seriously consider these books, can no longer advocate atheism or any other perverted ideology or materialistic philosophy, since these books are characterized by rapid effectiveness, definite results, and irrefutability. Even if they continue to do so, it will be only a sentimental insistence, since these books refute such ideologies from their very foundations. All contemporary movements of denial are now ideologically defeated, thanks to the books written by Harun Yahya.

This is no doubt a result of the Qur'an's wisdom and lucidity. The author modestly intends to serve as a means in humanity's search for God's right path. No material gain is sought in the publication of these works.

Those who encourage others to read these books, to open their minds and hearts and guide them to become more devoted servants of God, render an invaluable service.

Meanwhile, it would only be a waste of time and energy to propagate other books that create confusion in people's minds, lead them into ideological chaos, and that clearly have no strong and precise effects in removing the doubts in people's hearts, as also verified from previous experience. It is impossible for books devised to emphasize the author's literary power rather than the noble goal of saving people from loss of faith, to have such a great effect. Those who doubt this can readily see that the sole aim of Harun Yahya's books is to overcome disbelief and to disseminate the Qur'an's moral values. The success and impact of this service are manifested in the readers' conviction.

One point should be kept in mind: The main reason for the continuing cruelty, conflict, and other ordeals endured by the vast majority of people is the ideological prevalence of disbelief. This can be ended only with the ideological defeat of disbelief and by conveying the wonders of creation and Qur'anic morality so that people can live by it. Considering the state of the world today, leading into a downward spiral of violence, corruption and conflict, clearly this service must be provided speedily and effectively, or it may be too late.

In this effort, the books of Harun Yahya assume a leading role. By the will of God, these books will be a means through which people in the twentyfirst century will attain the peace, justice, and happiness promised in the Qur'an.

FOREWORD

Many of the movies that have hit the big screen over the last few years share a common subject as part of their storyline. These films question reality—or the real world, as we know it—pointing out that artificially created dream worlds or worlds produced by simulations can actually be quite realistic.

Movies, sequels and TV series like The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Thirteenth Floor, Harsh Realm, Vanilla Sky, Total Recall, The Truman Show, Strange Days, Dark City, Open Your Eyes, The Frequency, Existenz, and The One all examine the theme of just how seriously wrong we might be about what is reality and what is imagination.

These films also deal with suggestions, thus far represented only as food for thought at scientific gatherings, of how these questions could affect our lives. In The Matrix, for instance, the following dialogue takes place:

What is real? How do you define "real"? If you're talking about your senses—what you feel, taste, smell, or see—then all you're talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Doubtless one of the foremost reasons why these films, based on scientific explanations, captivate the attention of millions is the fact that people now question the reliability of the external world's assumptions and preconditions.

These movies' themes had been the focus of philosophical research in the past, though not until the end of the 20th century did they receive the attention they deserved. But now, science has proven the subject this book discusses to be scientific fact, rather than a philosophical hypothesis.

The truth about the true the reality of matter had been kept quiet until recently, even though for over ten years, we had been publishing books about matter's true origin, along with the scientific evidence supporting it. This issue has been dealt with extensively in our previous books: Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, Timelessness and the Reality of Fate, Eternity Has Already Begun, Knowing the Truth, The Little Man in the Tower, Assuming That Matter Exists We are Still Watching an Illusion and The Secret Beyond Matter. Besides all the above titles, many other publications like our book, The Evolution Deceit, have special chapters analyzing this issue.

These books are read and appreciated in many countries around the world from India to the United States, from United Kingdom to Indonesia, Poland to Bosnia Herzegovina, Spain to Brazil and are available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Urdu, Arabic, Albanian, Russian, Kazak, Azeri, Bosnian, Uyghur, Persian, and the Malaysian and Indonesian languages. They are valued and read with great interest by a large readership around the globe. The positive response they receive from outside Turkey increases every day, and many people are making use of these books' subject matter and the linguistic style they use.

Our efforts in this respect are continuing. Many audio and video tapes and CDs provide scientific explanations on the subject alongside a stunning commentary, as do the following websites: www.harunyahya.com and www.secretbeyondmatter.com.

The two controversial Matrix films were received with great interest for their views on the origins of matter. With the publication of our book, The Evolution Deceit in English, Matrix scriptwriters Andy and Larry Waschoski obtained a copy and expressed their thanks for it. The effects of our efforts at bringing this subject to public attention for over ten years, can be seen in many of today's films, TV programs, newspapers, magazines as well as on over 1000 websites.

This book deals with several of those movies that make people reflect on the views printed in our earlier publications, and also touch on some ideas these publications included, which prove quite similar to the concepts expressed in those films. In this way, we'll reveal once again that this book's explanations describe scientific facts, acknowledged around the globe. People's individual complaints or disapproval can't alter the reality of the true origins of matter.

INTRODUCTION: WE ARE WATCHING

A COPY OF OUR LIVES

Right now, the book you believe you are holding, together with its printed text and illustrations in bright, vivid colors, is in reality a three-dimensional image in your brain. Similarly, the embossed logo you feel when you touch the book's cover is something you are "touching" only in your brain.

When you look at this book, the light reflected from its pages is converted into electrical impulses by the cells of your eye's retina. These signals, carrying details of the book's shape, color and thickness, are transmitted to your brain's visual center via the optic nerves, where they are interpreted into a concise whole. In this way, the book's appearance is recreated inside the darkness of your brain. Therefore, statements like, "I'm seeing with my eyes," or, "This book's in front of me" do not reflect true reality. Your eye only converts the light it receives into electrical impulses. The image of the book you behold doesn't lie outside you, as you have always thought, but on the contrary, inside your skull. Furthermore, never can you know for certain whether the visualizations in your mind reflect the actual reality "outside," or even if there are material correlates for them.

You could be thinking that this book lies outside you simply because you can feel the smoothness of its pages under your fingers. But this sensation of smoothness, just like the phenomenon of "seeing," is formed in your brain. When the touch-sensitive nerve cells on your fingertips are stimulated, they transmit stimuli to your brain in the form of electrical signals. Receiving these messages, your brain's touch center interprets them into such sensations as touch, pressure, softness or hardness, coldness or warmth. And you, inside your brain, come to sense the hardness of the book, the smoothness of its pages or its embossed logo when your hand touches them. In reality though, you never can touch the actual book. When you think you're doing so, in reality you're only turning its pages in your brain and—again, in your brain—feeling the thinness and smoothness of its pages.

The same is true for all your other senses. In the air, the vibrating string of a guitar creates pressure waves, which then stimulate the hairlike structures in the inner ear. The vibrations thus created are converted into electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the relevant center in the brain and interpreted there—whereupon you experience the sensation of hearing the sounds of the guitar.

Likewise, your sense of smell is formed in the brain. Chemical molecules, escaping a lemon's peel stimulate receptors in the nose, are converted into electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain for interpretation.

In short, all that you can perceive—what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell—is all recreated specially for you in your brain. Therefore, when we speak of our perception of the surrounding environment, we are talking only about our inner "copies" of those same colors, shapes, sounds and smells.

We perceive the world in so perfect a way that we believe in an external reality. But that "reality" is not so very different from the dreams we experience at night, inside our heads. In dreams, we are aware of the external events, sounds and sights; even our own bodies. We think and ponder. We feel the emotions of fear and anger, pleasure and love. We speak with other people, whom we believe we are observing the same things as they are, and even discuss them with them. Even in our dreams, we are convinced that a material world exists around us. But upon awakening, suddenly we realize that everything we thought we experienced took place only in our minds.

When we wake up and say, "It was only a dream," we mean that our experiences were not physical or "real," but only the products of our minds. While awake, on the other hand, we believe that there's a one-to-one correspondence between our perception and the physical world. But in fact, the experiences in our wakeful state are lived out in our minds, just as our dreams are.

Why do you think that you are awake now? Probably because you feel this book in your hands. You can comment on what you read; and everything around you displays a consistent continuity. But these perceptions—the hand with which you hold this book, the pages you're turning, the furniture surrounding you and your location in the room— all these are only replicas observed within your brain. Were you asked, "Right now, are you awake or are you dreaming?" surely you would answer, "Of course I'm awake!"

Possibly you've asked yourself this question in your dreams, many times. Of course, the answer you gave then—"Of course I am!"—would be exactly the same as you'd give right now. But only now, when you're truly awake, do you realize that your answer then was wrong.

So could it be that you're making the same mistake now? Who can guarantee that you're not actually dreaming right now—or even that your entire life has not been a dream? How can you be at all certain of the reality of the world in which you live?

In the following pages, you'll see that this certainty can never be possible. First, let's examine some movies that deal with the scientific facts revealing this "reality" and the explanations we've given in various earlier publications.

FROM THE MATERIALISTS ANXIETY,

WE CAN DEDUCE HOW SIGNIFICANT

THIS SUBJECT IS

Looking at the materialists around us, we see that they're uneasy about the various concepts of matter's true nature. They receive with haughty arrogance the public's interest in the possibility that, just like dreams, the world we experience is imaginary. They send out messages like, "Don't be fooled by idealistic suggestions. Remain true to materialism." But this kind of response reveals their nervousness over seeing this subject being brought to public attention.

Their own philosophies are inherited from Vladimir I. Lenin, leader of Russia's bloody Communist revolution. In Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, written a century ago, we find the following passage:

Once you deny objective reality, given us in sensation, you have already lost every weapon against fideism [reliance on faith alone], for you have slipped into agnosticism or subjectivism—and that is all that fideism requires. A single claw ensnared, and the bird is lost. And our Machists [adherents of Machism, developed by the Austrian philosopher Mach, one of the leaders of modern positivism] have all become ensnared in idealism, that is, in a diluted, subtle fideism; they became ensnared from the moment they took "sensation" not as an image of the external world, but as a special "element." It is nobody's sensation, nobody's mind, nobody's spirit, nobody's will.1

This passage betrays the great apprehension with which Lenin discovered the reality that he wished to erase from his colleagues' minds as well as his own. It continues to cause apprehension among present-day materialists, but with one difference: Today's materialists are a lot more nervous than Lenin ever was. They are only too aware that this reality is now understood with much greater certainty and clarity than it was, a century ago for the first time in history, this subject is being related in an irresistible way.

The materialists warn, "Do not reflect on this issue, or else you'll lose your materialism and you'll be lost to religion." The reason why is that the truth, now being explained in context with the origin of matter, is destroying the materialist philosophy, leaving it in such a discredited state that there's nothing left to discuss. The materialists' nervousness at seeing the world of matter disintegrate is a result of their blind belief in matter, and their inability to come to terms with the impossibility of experiencing matter direclty—which means that materialism has no reason to be.

In the following words, science writer Lincoln Barnett expresses the materialist scientists' paranoia of this subject at even being just sensed:

Along with philosophers' reduction of all objective reality to a shadow-world of perceptions, scientists have become aware of the alarming limitations of man's senses.2

In every materialist coming face to face with this subject, the fear and worry is clearly visible.

The 21st century is a turning point in history; once this reality reaches all people, then materialism will be wiped off the face of the Earth. For people who come to understand this reality, it's irrelevant what they used to believe or what they advocated before. The only important thing is not resist once this reality has been recognized; to understand this truth before it is too late—because death will make it understood, for sure.

Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you, for what you portray! (Qur'an, 21: 18)

1. V. I. Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970, pp. 334-335.

2. Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948, pp. 17-18.

THE MATRIX

Two of the most popular and acclaimed films of the last few years were The Matrix and its recent sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, released in 2003. These movies' storyline presupposes a world conquered by machines, running on artificial intelligence, which are keeping the human race in an imaginary world, using them as an energy source. Reaching a huge audience, the Matrix movies portray a very advanced virtual-reality program.

The movies' hero, nicknamed Neo and played by Keanu Reeves, is a computer programmer within this system. He believes himself to be working for a large software firm and living during the last remaining years of the 20th century. But in reality, the year is 2199, and his body is being maintained in a liquid-filled capsule, in which he sees only what he is shown and can experience only what he's made to feel. He "knows" himself to be a software engineer, going to work among all the other people, while in reality, he exists in a totally different environment and a totally different century. In short, he exists in a virtual-reality environment called "the Matrix," believing that he's living an actual life.

The character called Morpheus knows the truth, that Neo lives in an imaginary world—and throughout the film, he tells Neo the reality of things. He reveals, for instance, that so far, everything Neo has seen, heard, smelled, tasted and felt had no physical reality; and proves to him that all his experiences were imaginary impressions created in his brain. Later in this chapter, we'll give examples of dialogue from the movie.

Virtual Reality and a World

Composed of Electrical Signals

Thanks to present technological developments, it's possible to have realistic experiences without the need for an "external world" or "matter." The incredible advancement in virtual reality technology has come up with some especially convincing proofs.

To put it simply, virtual reality is the projection of computer-generated three-dimensional images that appear to be real with the aid of some devices. This technology, with its diverse range of applications, is known as "virtual reality," "virtual world," or "virtual environment." Its most important feature is that by the use of some purposely constructed devices, it misleads the person experiencing it into believing the experience to be real. In recent years, the word "immersive'' has begun to be used in front of the term "virtual reality," reflecting the way that witnesses are literally immersed in the experience.

The rationale of any virtual reality system is based on our five human senses. For instance, when the user puts on a special glove, devices inside transmit signals to the fingertips. When these signals are relayed to and interpreted by the brain, the user experiences the sensation of touching a silk fabric or ornate vase, complete with all of its surface details—without any such thing actually existing in the environment.

One of virtual reality's foremost applications is in medicine. Michigan University has developed a technology that trains assistant practitioners—in particular, the personnel of emergency wards—to learn their skills in a virtual reality lab, in which environment is created by projecting the details of an operating room onto the floor, walls, and ceiling of a room. The "picture" is completed by projecting an operating table, complete with the patient to be operated on, onto the center of the room. The surgeons-to-be put on their 3-D glasses and begin their "virtual" operation. As the pictures on the next page show, anyone viewing these images cannot distinguish a real operating room from this virtual one.

In The Matrix, too, once the movie's two heroes are seated in special armchairs and get their nervous systems connected up to a computer, each one envisions himself in a totally different environment. In one scene, they are seen practicing martial arts; in another; they walk down a crowded street dressed in different clothes. When Neo expresses his disbelief that that these experiences are only computer generated, the simulations are suddenly frozen. He is forced to concede that what he thought to be real was, in fact, only an image.

Another scene finds Neo stretched out on an old chair, badly dressed in old clothes, with wires attached to his head. But when the software is loaded, he finds himself in a wholly new, simulated environment where his worn clothes are gone, his hair is longer, and he looks altogether different from his real appearance.

Morpheus       : It is our loading program. We can load anything from clothing to equipment, weapons, training simulations. Anything we need.

Neo               : Right now, we're inside a computer program?

Morpheus       : Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your body are gone. Your hair has changed. Your appearance is now what we call "residual self-image." It is the mental rejection of your digital self.

From this dialogue, it's evident that Neo is reluctant to admit that his experiences are imaginary, because they are so wholly realistic. Consequently, the following dialogue ensues between him and Morpheus, who is aware of the truth:

Neo               : This isn't real? (Indicating the chair)

Morpheus       : What is real? How do you define "real"? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste and see, then "real" is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

The wise Morpheus shows Neo that the world that he thought to be real is actually only a simulation. Every detail of his experiences—including cars, the noises of city traffic, the ocean, skyscrapers, people and everything else—is a computer generated impression in his mind. Notice how Morpheus' words quoted above explain scientifically how images believed to be real are formed by the brain's interpretating the electrical impulses it receives.

Below are some extracts from our previously published books on the subject:

 All the information we have about the world we live in is conveyed to us by our five senses. The world we know consists of what our eye sees, our hand feels, our nose smells, our tongue tastes, and our ears hear. We never think that the "external" world can be other than what our senses present to us, since we've been depending on only those senses since the day we were born.

However, modern scientific research in many different fields points to a wholly different understanding, creating serious doubt about our senses and the world we perceive with them.

This approach's starting point is the notion that any "external world" is only a response created in our brain by electrical signals. The red hue of an apple, the hardness of wood, your mother, father, your family, and everything that you own—your house, your job,—and even the lines of this book, are composed of electrical signals only. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.216)

 When we say that we "see," in fact we are perceiving the effects of impulses reaching our eyes, after they're transformed into electrical signals in our brain. That is, when we say that "we see," we are actually observing electrical signals in our mind. All the images we view in our lives are formed in our center of vision, which takes up only a few cubic centimeters of the brain's volume. Both the book you are now reading and the boundless horizon you see when you gaze out the window fit into this tiny space. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.218)

 Everything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as matter—"the world" and "the universe"—is nothing but electrical signals occurring in our brain. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.222)

 At this point, we encounter another surprising fact: that there are actually no colors, shapes, or voices inside our brain. All that can be detected within brains are electrical signals. This is no philosophical speculation, but simply a scientific description of the functions of our perceptions. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.18)

 The act of seeing is realized in a progressive way. Photons of light, traveling from the object, pass through the lens at the front of the eye, where they are focused and fall, reversed, on the retina. Here, the impinging light is converted into electrical signals transmitted by neurons to a tiny spot in the back part of the brain, called the center of vision. After a series of processes, this brain center perceives these signals as images. The actual act of seeing takes place in this tiny spot at the rear of the brain in pitch darkness, completely insulated from light. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, pp.217-218)

As we have seen, the subject matter of The Matrix conforms to the scientific realities published in our books. As the above quotations and dialogue from the film explain, we always deal only with the images forming in our brains. No matter how realistic our perceptions, they are our minds' interpretations. Therefore, we can never be sure that the images we perceive are not created by artificial signals. In other words, we can never distinguish between reality and imagination.

We'll examine the subject in more detail with scenes from the films.

The Impossibility of Distinguishing Between

Reality and Imagination

In this scene, Morpheus teaches Neo about reality by using the images on the TV screen to show him that he's living in an imaginary world he considers to be real. The modern world and all its skyscrapers, cars, and details he sees within Matrix; are all images created in his mind for him to experience. At that time, the true state of the world is altogether different: It is a destroyed, decayed planet. But until Neo was told this, he thought he was existing in the real world, without ever questioning its reality of it, having been fooled by it for all those years.

Morpheus       : This is the world you know. The world as it was at the end of the Twentieth Century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call Matrix. You have been living in a dream world, Neo. . . This is world as it exists today... Welcome to the "desert of the real"…

The following passages, published in our earlier books, are relevant to this section of the film:

 Since we can never actually reach the "external world," how can we be sure that such a world really exists?

Actually, we cannot. Since each object is only a collection of perceptions, and those perceptions exist only in the mind, it is more accurate to say that the only world that really exists is the world of perceptions. The only world we know is the world that exists in our mind: the one that is designed, recorded, and made vivid there—in short, the one that is created within our mind. This is the only world we can be sure of.

We can never prove that the perceptions we observe in our brain have material correlations. Those perceptions may well be coming from an "artificial" source.

. . . False stimulations can produce in our brain an entirely imaginary "material world." For example, let us think of a very highly developed recording instrument that can record all kinds of electrical signals. First, let us transform all the data related to a setting (including body image) into electrical signals and transmit to this instrument. Second, let us imagine that your brain can survive apart from your body. Finally, let us connect the recording instrument to the brain with electrodes that function as nerves and send the pre-recorded data to the brain. In this state, you will feel as if you are living in this artificially created setting. For instance, you can easily believe that you are driving fast on a highway. It never becomes possible for you to understand that you consist of nothing but your brain, because what is needed to form a world within your brain is not the existence of a real world but rather, the availability of stimulations. It is perfectly possible that these stimulations could be coming from some artificial source, such as a recorder. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.225)

If Our Perceptions Seem Realistic, That

Doesn't Prove that Their Material

Equivalents Exist in the External World

We'll never be able to prove the existence of our perceptions' material equivalents, because our brains don't need an external world for perceptions to occur. Present technologies like simulators are some of the proofs of this, as pointed out earlier. When Neo enters a simulated environment for training purposes, he finds it totally realistic, to the extent that he believes he's breathing that environment's air, and that his success in the fight depends on the strength of his muscles. In reality, his body is stretched out on the chair and connected to the computer.

Tank : How about some combat training?

Neo : Jujitsu? I'm going to learn jujitsu?

(After the downloading ends:)

Neo               : I know kung fu.

Morpheus       : Show me.

Morpheus       : This is a sparring program, similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. It has the same basic rules. Rules like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken.

Technologies similar to those seen in the film can now give people the impression that they're existing in a completely different environment. In this case, they'll respond as if what they see, hear or do was utterly real. It's possible to project stereo images onto the floor, walls and ceiling of a room-sized cube. Entering the cube, people wearing stereo glasses can walk around and see themselves at the edge of a waterfall, on a mountain summit, in the middle of the ocean, on board a ship, or in other different environments. The headsets worn create the illusion of depth and space, and the images thus created are proportionate and life-sized. Special devices worn like gloves recreate the sensation of touch. Anyone using these devices can touch objects in the virtual environment and even move them around. These environments' sounds are also very realistic, because they can be produced from different directions and distances. Some applications can display the same virtual environment to different people around the world. With this technology, for instance, three people on three different continents can see themselves together on a speedboat or discussing issues in a meeting.

These examples show that in order to see ourselves in a certain environment, we do not require the external world. We can't possibly discern whether what we feel, see, taste, and smell is real or whether it comes from an artificial source. In all cases, we live in our minds and will never be able to reach the original substance.

Don't be Deceived by a Picture's Quality or

Wealth of Detail!

In one scene, Neo is introduced to the virtual world of the Matrix in a simulated environment. Everything looks perfectly realistic. Neo sees people walking down the street and waiting for the traffic lights; when the lights turn green, they cross the road. He even feels the knock to his body when someone walks into him.

Morpheus        : The Matrix is a system, Neo . . . But when you're inside, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are a part of that system...You have to understand most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it . . .

At a moment when Neo is looking around, taking it all in, Morpheus says: "freeze it" and at once the image of their environment freezes as it was. The people frozen as they were, the fountain's water is frozen in time, the bird hangs in the air on the very spot. Only Neo and Morpheus continue their conversation in an otherwise frozen image. Neo is stunned but he begins to realize that everything around him is part of the imaginary world he lives in, that it has no actual reality.

Morpheus       : Freeze it.

Neo               : This isn't the Matrix?

Morpheus       : It's another training program designed to teach you one thing...

It's impossible to prove that human life does not occur in a way similar to what we see in the film. No matter how realistic all the details of one's environment, they are experienced only in one's mind. Even if the originals of these people, places, and events actually exist in the "outside" world, we can never reach them. Some of our explanations on this question are given below:

 On a three-dimensional, high quality screen, an individual watches a film being projected. Since he is almost attached to this screen, he cannot succeed in detaching himself from it, so that he may grasp the situation he is in. (Eternity has Already Begun, p.101)

 … Regardless of whether there is a material world or not, a human being watches only the world of perceptions in his brain. No one can ever come across the true original of anything. Furthermore, it's enough for everyone to perceive the copy. For example, someone who wanders around a garden with colorful flowers is not seeing the original, actual garden, but the copy of it in his brain. But this copy of the garden is so realistic that everyone receives some pleasure from it, as if the garden were real, when strictly speaking, it is imaginary. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.50)

 At every moment, God creates the universe with its numberless details, perfect and without defect. Moreover, this creation is so flawless that the billions who have lived on the Earth up until now have never understood that the universe and everything they see is an illusion, and that they have no connection with the reality of matter. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.94)

 Some people think a fast-moving bus on the highway—or an accident caused by that bus—are striking proofs of that they're dealing with the physical existence of matter, because the image they're dealing with is seen and felt as deceivingly real. For instance, the surrounding images, the perspective and depth of the highway; the perfection of their colors, shapes and shadows; the vividness of sound, smell and hardness; and the complete logic within that image can fool some people. Because of this vividness, some forget that these are actually only perceptions. Yet no matter how complete and flawless they may be, that doesn't alter the fact that they are still perceptions in the mind. (Matter : The Other Name for Illusion, p.180)

Laws of Physics are

Interpretations of Our Perception

Morpheus tries many methods to help Neo understand the reality of matter and provides much evidence in support. Previously, we saw that as part of Neo's training, the image in a copy of the Matrix was suddenly frozen, thus making it evident to Neo that everything appearing real is in fact, a virtual reality. Neo's education continues with the following conversation:

Neo               : What are they?

Morpheus       : Sentient programs. They can move in and out of any software still hardwired to their system. That means that anyone we haven't unplugged is potentially an agent. Inside the Matrix, they are everyone and they are no one. We have survived by hiding and running from them, but they are the gatekeepers. They're guarding all the doors and holding all the keys. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them.

Neo               : Someone?

Morpheus       : I won't lie to you, Neo. Every single man or woman who has fought an agent has died. But where they have failed, you will succeed.

Neo               : Why?

Morpheus       : I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit noting but air. Yet their strength and speed are still based in a world built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.

Neo               : What are you telling me? That I can dodge bullets?

Morpheus        : No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

In this conversation, Morpheus advises Neo not to think with the laws of physics always in mind. In the Matrix system, the "agents" are security officers who can control everything by using people's virtual bodies. But because this system is only a virtual world displayed to people's minds, Neo can achieve "the impossible."

In subsequent scenes of the film, characters demonstrate supernatural powers when they have to. Although they experience them in a perfectly realistic manner, in reality these experiences are created in their brains, by the computer. Neo believes himself to be living through these nerve-racking situations, whereas in reality he remains stretched out on his chair.

Morpheus, on the other hand—to use the expression from the film—wants to "free Neo's mind" by rescuing it from all the conditioning it's been subjected to throughout his life. To achieve this, both characters get connected to a jumping program. Morpheus leaps from skyscraper to skyscraper, bridging vast distances between them almost as if he could fly. He says that if Neo frees his mind (rids himself of prejudices), he can do the same. But even though he knows that he's inside a computer program, Neo can't manage to escape what he knows in his mind about the laws of physics. He takes his unreal environment so seriously that he's afraid of falling when he jumps.

In the following sequence, Neo is seen falling onto the concrete floor because when trying to jump from one building to another, he could not overcome his doubts and fears.

Despite the film's obvious science fiction elements, the messages it contains are truly thought-provoking. For example, anyone who realizes matter and space are imaginary, discovers another secret that other people don't know: Cause-and-effect reality does not occur because of matter's physical attributes or as a result of people's relationship with one another. Since matter is only a perception, it can't have any physical effect. Each physical cause is created separately. For instance, a thrown stone, does not break the glass. The perception of the stone being thrown, and the perception of the glass breaking, are each created separately. What makes a ship float is its buoyancy, and what keeps a bird in the air is aerodynamics, but both are created as perceptions. In reality, therefore, all such "powers" belong to God, Who creates them.

Neo, having learned this reality, realizes that while actually stretched out on a chair and connected to the computer, he can move outside the laws of physics upon entering the virtual world of the Matrix. As shown in the accompanying stills from the film, he finds himself ducking and moving at such incredible speed as to evade the bullets fired at him. Furthermore, everything is so realistic that when he opens his eyes on the chair, he is still in a state of great agitation. This is an important demonstration that for a person to experience a certain environment, it's not necessary for it to exist in external reality.

We have written about this subject in our books dealing with the nature of matter, explaining that the laws of physics are formed in the mind, in the following way:

 God shows us the images we experience within ourselves as united by a network of cause-and-effect relationships, all linked by the laws of physics. As for the images of night and day that form in our brains, we perceive night and day as linked to the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. When, in our minds, the image of the Sun is at its height, we know that it is noon; and when it sets, we witness the fall of night. God created perceptions of the universe, together with a cause-and-effect relationship. We never experience daytime immediately after the Sun has gone down. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.201)

 In the illusion within our minds, whenever we drop a pen, it falls to the ground. As a result of researching the cause-and-effect relationship governing this kind of occurrences, we discover the "law of gravity." God presents the images He shows us in our minds as linked to particular causes and laws. One of the reasons for His creating these causes and laws is that life is created as a test. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.201-202)

 We must remember that God possesses the power to create all these perceptions without the need for any cause or law. For example, God can create a rose without a seed, or rain without the need for clouds, or day and night without the Sun. God reveals this fact in the verses 45, 46 and 47 of Surat al-Furqan, declaring that He created shadow first, then the Sun as a cause of it.

Dreams are an example that can help us to better understand this process of creation. Although our dreams have no material counterpart, still we perceive the Sun's light and warmth in our dreams. From that point of view, dreams indicate that perceptions of the Sun can be created in our minds, without its actually being there.

However, God has also provided humans with reasons for everything. Daylight is caused by the Sun, and rain by clouds; yet all of these are images that God creates individually in our minds. By creating a cause before an effect, God lets us believe that everything functions within specific rules, thus enabling us to carry out scientific enquiry. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.203-204)

 God shows the images He creates as linked to particular causes and effects. When an apple drops off a tree, for instance, it always falls to earth. It never goes upwards or remains suspended in the air. The study of these effects and the laws that God has created form fields of study in science. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.203)

 God possesses the power to create effects without any causes. One proof of this is the way we can feel the heat of the Sun in a dream at night, even though the Sun is not actually shining down on us. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.204)

We Cannot Go Beyond

the Images in Our Brains

Since we've been using our five senses since the day we were born, we may never have thought that the "external" world could be different from what our senses show us.

Human knowledge is formed by the sensory perceptions we acquire through what we see with our eyes, what hear with our ears, and feel with our hands. In other words, each man lives in his "personal world." Thousands of times, we have met with millions of details like the stars in the firmament, the Earth we walk on, the billions who populate the world, every living creature in our environment, the furniture in our homes, house, the chair you are sitting on right now and the book you hold in our hand. But all of these are perceptions of your own personal world. No human being has ever been able to step outside the world he's experiencing. Whatever a man does, he cannot alter the fact that his entire life, even his body too, are perceptions and that he cannot deal with their originals.

The frames from the film shown opposite show Morpheus explaining to Neo what the Matrix is. During their dialogue, Morpheus compares this system to a screen that prevents Neo from seeing:

Morpheus       : Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, felt that something is wrong with the world. You don't know what, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Neo               : The Matrix?

Morpheus       : Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It's all around us. Even now, even in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work . . . when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Until Neo is awakened and rescued from the capsule he was in, he remains unaware of the imaginary world that's been imposed on him. Every aspect of his life was part of this system; and feedback from all those around him suggested that this life was reality. For this reason, it takes Neo a while to become persuaded and comprehend that his life, which he thought real until then, was really a dream.

Today, the same is true for some of those who are made aware of the true nature of matter. People who believe in matter's absolute existence are positive that they are dealing with "real things" in the external world and dismiss this theory as illogical. But what has been revealed here is as certain as the laws of physics, regardless of the objections that other people may raise.

Some of our explanations are compatible with these scenes from The Matrix:

 All events and objects that we encounter in real life—buildings, people, cities, cars, places—in fact, everything we see, hold, touch, smell, taste and hear—come into existence as visions and feelings in our brains.

We are taught to think that these images and feelings are caused by a solid world outside, where material things exist. In reality, however, we never see or touch real, existing materials. In other words, every material entity in our lives that we believe exists is in fact, only a vision created in our brains. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.10)

 If you think heedfully, you can sense that the intelligent being that sees, hears, touches and thinks, reading this book at this moment, is only a soul who watches the perceptions called "matter" on a screen. One who comprehends this is considered to have moved away from the domain of the material world that deceives a major part of humanity, and to have entered the domain of true existence. . . . (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.247)

Our Eyes Cannot See—

Vision Occurs in the Brain

In line with our lifelong conditioning, we believe that we regard the whole world through our eyes. We could say that our eyes are the windows that open up the world for us. But according to the scientific explanation for vision, the truth is not so! We do not see with our eyes. The millions of optic nerve cells only fulfill their role as a "cable," transmitting to our brain the signals which then become "vision."

The hero of The Matrix is misled to believe that he's living a truly vivid life, whereas he is really stretched out on a chair, his eyes closed, with wires connecting him to the machine. All the bright, colorful, vivid images he's ever seen were shown to him without the need for physical eyes. Likewise, he experiences the sensations of moving, running, and fighting without using any of his muscles. He just thinks he's doing so, while actually lying on his chair.

When Neo returns to real life, he is shocked to realize that until then, he's been living in a glass cylinder, albeit in an imaginary world created by electrical impulses to the brain. In that virtual world, he was a computer programmer, whereas he was actually sleeping in the room, as shown in the accompanying photographs. In other words, everything he thought to be real life was actually an illusion.

Neo               : What are you doing?

Morpheus       : Your muscles have atrophied. We're rebuilding them.

Neo               : Why do my eyes hurt?

Morpheus       : You've never used them before.

As this dialogue shows, Neo was under the impression of living a real life without his ever using his eyes or muscles, thanks to artificial signals being transmitted to his brain. In spite of never having used his vision, he experienced a truly bright and vivid and colorful world. Likewise, without ever using his muscles, he always thought himself to be on the move.

This situation is more or less the same for every human being. For instance, when you watch people shopping in a supermarket, you do not see them or the supermarket with your eyes:This sight is formed not in front of your eyes, but in the vision center at the back of your brain. Therefore, it will be possible for you to see the same sight by stimulating the relevant area of your brain with artificial impulses, with no need for using your eyes.

Some passages from our books are relevant to the frames from the film shown above:

 When you look out of the window, you think that you see an image with your eyes, as this is the way that you have been taught to think. However, in reality this is not how it works, because you do not see the world with your eyes. You see the image created in your brain. This is not a prediction, nor a philosophical speculation, but the scientific truth. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.12)

 As we know, the electric signals coming from cells in our retinas are transformed into an image in our brains. For example, the brain interprets some electrical signals coming to the visual center in the brain as a field filled with sunflowers. In reality, it is not the eye that is "seeing."

Therefore, if we are not seeing with our eyes, what is it that does see the electrical signals as a sunflower field, at the back of our brain, in a pitch dark place, without any need for any eyes, retina, lens, visual nerves or pupil—and still enjoys the view?

. . . Who is it, then, that perceives the sights in a brain as if watching television, and becomes excited, happy, sad, nervous, or feels pleasure, anxiety or curiosity while watching them? Who is responsible for the consciousness that can interpret everything seen and everything felt?

. . . What is the entity in the brain that has consciousness and, throughout life, can see all the sights before him in a dark, quiet head; that can think, reach conclusions, and make final decisions?

It is obvious that the brain, made up of unconscious water, lipids, proteins and atoms, does not perceive all this and is responsible for consciousness. There must be a being beyond the brain.

. . . That entity inside the brain that says, "I am seeing" sights inside the brain, and "I am hearing" sounds inside the brain and aware of its own existence; and which says, "I am me," is the soul God has given to human beings. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion: 81-82)

All Flavors are Formed in the Brain

As with all the other senses, taste can be explained in a similar way. In the small bumps of the tongue are the taste receptors, which respond to the flavors of salty, sweet, sour and bitter. Following various processes, these stimuli are converted into electrical signals and transmitted to the brain, where they are perceived as tastes. The taste of cheese, an orange, or a cake you like to eat is in reality the brain's interpretation of electrical signals.

In The Matrix, this point is dramatized in a conversation taking place at the table:

Apoc              : Breakfast of champions, Neo. (Neo is served a wheat-like food)

Mouse           : Close your eyes, it feels like you're eating runny eggs. You know what it reminds me of? Tastee Wheat. Did you ever eat Tastee Wheat?

Switch           : No, but technically neither did you.

Mouse           : That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder how do the machines really know what Tastee Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tastee Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal or tuna fish. That makes you wonder. Take chicken, for example. Maybe they didn't know what to make it taste like which is why it tastes like everything.

Dozer            : It's a single-celled protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins and minerals. Everything the body needs.

In another scene, one character who knows the reality—that the Matrix system keeps them in an artificially created world—describes the food he's eating:

Mr. Reagan      : You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious.

He knows that a computer program makes his whole life appear to him as if it was real. Therefore, he says that the taste of the beefsteak he's eating doesn't exist in reality, that his brain only perceives this is so. But he also says that he enjoys it, just as if it was real. Some of the similar passages in our books are as follows:

 Everything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as "matter," "the world" or "the universe" is nothing but electrical signals occurring in our brain.

Someone eating a fruit, in fact confronts not the actual fruit but its perception in the brain. Actually, the object the person considers to be a "fruit" consists of an electrical impression in the brain concerning that fruit's shape, taste, smell, and texture. If the visual nerves to the brain were suddenly severed, the image of the fruit would suddenly disappear. Any disconnection in the nerves from the receptors in the nose to the brain would completely interrupt the sense of smell. Simply put, the fruit is nothing but the brain's interpretation of electrical signals. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.222)

 An image of a cake will be linked with the taste of the sugar, all of which occurs in the brain. Everything sensed is related to the cake you like so much. The taste you are conscious of after eating your cake, with a full appetite, is nothing more than an effect generated in your brain caused by electrical signals. You are aware of only what your brain interprets from the external stimuli, and can never reach the original object. For example you cannot see, smell, or taste the actual chocolate itself. If the nerves from your tongue to your brain were severed, it would be impossible for the taste of foods to reach your brain, and you would lose your sense of taste entirely. Certainly the tastes you are aware of seem extraordinarily real, but that should not deceive you. This is the scientific explanation of the matter. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.40-41)

 In the same way, nobody has been able to taste original mint. The taste someone would sense as mint is only a perception which occurs in the brain. This is because the person cannot touch the original of the mint, see the original of the mint or smell or taste the actual mint. In conclusion, throughout our lives, we live with copy-perceptions that are shown to us. However, these copies are so realistic that we never realize that they are copies. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.48)

 The taste you get when you eat fruit or a chocolate is the brain's interpretation of electrical signals. You can never reach the object outside; you can never see, smell or taste the chocolate itself. For instance, if nerves from your tongue that travel to your brain are cut, no flavors you eat will reach your brain; you will completely lose your sense of taste. At this point, we come across another point: We can never be sure that a food tastes the same to us as it does to another person, or that a voice we hear sounds the same as when another person hears it. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, pp.220-221)

All Smells Form in the Brain

The smells you perceive do not reach you from any distance. You mistake the effects taking place in your olfactory center are the smells of some external matter. Just as the sight of a rose occurs inside your vision center, likewise the rose's smell "happens" in the brain's center for smell. You cannot know the outside existence of a rose or its scent: The external world that our senses present to us is really nothing more than the totality of electrical signals reaching our brains. The brain interprets these signals throughout our lives, and so throughout our lives, we never realize that we're wrong to believe that we're interacting with actual matter "out there."

One scene of The Matrix questions the reality of smell, but on the other hand, notes its overpowering presence:

 Agent  : I hate this place, this zoo, this prison—this reality, whatever you want to call it. I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell. If there is such a thing, I feel saturated by it.

From this statement from the Matrix system's agent, we can deduce that it's impossible to determine whether or not smell, just like all our other senses, has a reality all its own. Our books also explore this subject:

 Volatile molecules emitted by vanilla or roses reach the receptors in the epithelium of the nose and become involved in an interaction that is transmitted as electrical signals to the brain and perceived as smell. Everything we smell, be it nice or noxious, is nothing but the brain's perception of volatile molecules' interactions, transformed into electrical signals. You perceive the scent of perfume, a flower, a food that you like, the sea, as well as other odors you like or dislike in your brain. The molecules themselves never reach the brain. Just as with sound and vision, what reaches your brain is simply electrical signals. In other words, all the odors that you have assumed, since you were born, to belong to external objects are simply electrical signals that you feel through your sense organs. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.220)

There is no need for any external source to form an image in your mind. This same situation holds true for the sense of smell. Just as in your dreams or imagination, you can become aware of a smell that doesn't really exist, you can't be sure whether the objects you smell in real life really do exist outside of you. Even if you do assume so, you can never deal with the original objects themselves. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.40)

How Can You Prove That You're

Not Dreaming Right Now?

When people awaken from a dream, straightaway they realize what they experienced was a dream, but never question what they call "real life," beginning with the "waking scene." They never consider that for some reason, it might possibly be a dream itself. We perceive what we call "real life'" identically as we do our dreams: Both are visions of the mind. As long as we are not awakened from a dream, we're not aware that it is one. Only on awakening can we say, "Ah, it was only a dream."

How can you ascertain that what you're seeing now is not a dream? Couldn't you be considering this moment as real simply because you haven't yet woken up? It's very possible that one day, we'll waken up following a longer dream than usual and have to face up to this reality. We have no evidence to the contrary!

In your dreams, you hold objects in your hands and see with your eyes, but there are really no hands or eyes, nor anything to behold or hold. There is no material basis for all this outside the brain; clearly you are being fooled. But what separates real life and the dream world? Is real life continuous, and dreams seen only in intervals? Or in the dream world, do perhaps a different set of cause-effect rules operate? Fundamentally, these differences are not significant, because in the end, both lives are lived in the brain. If we can perfectly live an unreal life in our dreams, couldn't the same be true for the so-called "real" world we live in? When we wake up from one dream, we can't be certain that another new, longer-lasting one called real life doesn't begin. Our only basis for concluding that dreams are imaginary and the world is real are habit and conditioning. One day, we might get woken from the life we think we're living in this world, just as when we're woken from a dream.

This important subject is explored in The Matrix, where Neo finds himself in an ongoing confusion between real life and a dream world. In one scene, he sees his face split three ways in a cracked mirror. But then the cracks in the mirror disappear, and he sees himself reflected whole, as he would expect. Still stunned from this experience, he turns and asks the others whether they also saw this transformation. To check the reality of his experience, he touches the mirror—which immediately turns into a sticky substance that starts to cover his body in a metallic coating. He even feels the coolness of this substance on his body. But even though he doesn't consider this to be possible, it's realistic enough for him to lose his equilibrium. The wise Morpheus asks him what the difference is between the real and the dream world, with the intention of helping Neo not be fooled by what he sees and experiences.

Morpheus       : Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Neo? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

Neo               : This can't be . . .

Morpheus       : Be what? Be real?

Below are some extracts from our previous books on this subject:

 A person falling in a dream feels it with all his body, even though he is lying immobile in bed. Even sleeping in a very hot room, one might dream of slipping in a puddle, getting soaked and feeling chilled by a cold wind. But in such a case, there is neither puddle nor wind: One experiences the wetness and cold as if one were awake. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.62)

 A person sleeping in his house can see himself on a rapidly turning wagon in a fair ground while dreaming. He can realistically sense the wind that he would experience on a fast-moving wagon in the real world. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.63)

Another Matrix scene draws attention to the similarity between dreams and the real life, in which Neo addresses customers coming to his front door to buy computer chips. In the adjoining stills, Neo just can't tell whether or not he has woken up. When he does wake up, he hears the alarm clock ringing. He is in his room and he sees his desk and his computer. But what he experienced in his dream was so realistic that he can't be sure it was only a dream. Customers coming to his door tell him that he doesn't look too good, because of Neo's confusion over his contradictory experiences. He tries to share this duality he witnessed by asking them, "Ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or dreaming?"

Actually, the duality Neo experiences is quite natural; every thinking person can become aware of it. Many passages in our books deal with this issue, of which the following are only a few:

 What would happen if we didn't wake up and kept on dreaming? Would we be able to realize that we weren't actually dealing with the originals of anything we lived and saw in our dream?

Of course not. Unless we wake up and discover that we have been sleeping, we can never realize that we have been dreaming, and will spend our entire dream supposing that this is our real life. So how can we prove that our real life is not a dream? Do we have any evidence to the contrary—that one day we'll depart from the currently visible life and find ourselves watching images of our present life from some different location? (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.67)

Morpheus, who is aware of the reality, repeatedly advises Neo not to believe everything he sees, because one must investigate reality in order to understand it. In the following dialogue from the film, Morpheus points out that Neo must question everything he perceives before believing in it:

Morpheus       : I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth.

We too must question the reality of the world we live in. We must come to realize that we'll never be able reach the actual world that we believe exists outside ourselves and from "inside" here, we must find our true purpose in this world.

The reality—that we are not interacting with matter itself—is frequently brought to our attention in the film; below are some excerpts from our books on the subject:

 People usually do not include or rather, do not want to include everything in the concept of the "external world."

. . . If you think sincerely and boldly on this issue, you'll come to realize that in fact, your house and furniture in it, your car—perhaps recently bought, your office, your jewels, bank account, wardrobe, your spouse and children, your colleagues and all else that you possess are included in this imaginary external world projected to you. Everything around you that you perceive with your five senses is part of this "imaginary world"—the voice of your favorite singer, the hard chair you sit on, a perfume whose smell you like, the Sun that keeps you warm, a flower of beautiful colors, a bird flying past your window, a speedboat moving swiftly on the water, your fertile garden, the computer at your job, or your hi-fi with the world's most advanced technology. . .

This is the reality. The world is only a collection of images created to test man. All through their limited lives, people are tested with perceptions bearing no reality. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.232)

 Think for a moment about those who are swept away by material greed: What do they value most? A fine house, luxurious things, ostentatious jewelry, the latest model car, big bank accounts, a yacht . . . These people are afraid that they might be observing on a screen in their brains all the things they possess, and that they will never actually possess these things.

Like it or not, they are living in a world of facsimiles composed in their brains and cannot possibly have any relationship with the external world. Sounds, light and smells cannot enter the skull; but only electrical impulses coming from the sense organs. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.106)

 Everything a person thinks he possesses—house, car, family, job and friends —all are composed of images and sensations that occur in the brain. Anyone who understands this will also understand that the One Who has created these images in his brain is God, to Whom all things belong. For that reason, those who are emotionally attached to the life of this world greatly fear this reality. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.105)

The Reality of Timelessness

Time is a relative concept, based on comparisons we make between the events we experience. For example, someone gets in a car, turns on the ignition and puts his foot on the gas pedal. After driving a certain distance, he parks at the curb. Making comparisons between these actions, he thinks that a certain amount of time has passed between them, and thus he obtains a sense of duration.

Because we perceive everything sequentially, in a certain order, we come to believe that time flows forward. For instance, a leaf always falls down, not up. And raindrops fall from the sky; we never see them moving upwards, drop by drop. In this scenario, a leaf still on the tree is the present. Its falling to the ground is the future.

But if the data in our memories were to be rewound like a film on tape, the future—in other words, the leaf on the ground—would be past, and its being still on the tree would lie in the future. As we can see from this example, time is relative, dependent on the viewer's perception. A great span of thousands of years in our view, can be less than an instant in another dimension.

The Matrix points out that alongside all other perceptions, time is relative too. Neo comes to realize that he was wrong about time. In the frames shown below, Neo finds himself inside an American-ship built in 2060 designed for land and air transport. The fashionable garb he wore in the Matrix is replaced with worn clothing, and the 20th-century world he lived in has made way for a derelict environment.

Neo               : Morpheus, what's happened to me? What is this place?

Morpheus       : More important than "what" is "when."

Neo               : When?

Morpheus       : You believe it's year 1999 when in fact, it's closer to 2199. I can't tell you exactly what year it is, because we honestly don't know. There's nothing I can say that will explain it for you.

As with everything else experienced with artificial stimuli, it is possible to alter someone's perception of time. From our books, here are some passages on the subject of timelessness:

 Since time consists of perception, it depends entirely on the perceiver and is therefore relative.

The speed at which time flows differs, according to the references we use to measure it, because the human body has no natural clock to indicate precisely how fast time passes . . .

Time's relativity is plainly experienced in dreams. Although a dream seems to last for hours, in fact it lasts for only a few minutes, or even a few seconds. (Timelessness and the Reality of Time, p.62)

 . . . that time is a relative notion; that it is not static and unchanging as materialists long believed; and that it is a changing form of perception were also discovered in this century. The relativity of time and space has been proven by Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which laid the basis of today's modern physics.

To sum up, time and space are not absolute concepts. They have a beginning, and God created them from nothing. God, Who has created time and space, is certainly not dependent on them. God has defined, determined and created every moment of time in timelessness . . . (Timelessness and the Reality of Time, p.10)

 . . . Being bound by time, such an incident seems impossible for man. Yet in the sight of God, time does not exist. As stressed earlier, past and present are all one single moment; just as a videotape cassette includes all the action, moment by moment, in a film. After watching a film, it is possible to rewind and re-watch it. The same is likewise true for daily events; by the will of God, it is possible to see past events again. We only need God's making us experience once more the same perceptions belonging to these events. (Eternity Has Already Begun, 95)

Our Memories are Also Imaginary

Upon Neo's return to the virtual environment of the Matrix, after discovering that what he thought to be his life was only imagined, he is simply amazed by this environment. Throughout the car journey, Neo remembers events of his past, but is perplexed to consider that none of it was real. Everything he thought was a memory of his past, had been planted in his memory artificially.

Morpheus       : Unbelievable, isn't it?

Neo               : God . . .

Trinity            : What?

Neo               : used to eat there . . . Really good noodles. I have these memories, from my life. None of them happened.

Our books offer some explanations on this subject:

 Because of suggestions we receive, we believe we live in separate divisions of time called past, present, and future. However, the only reason we have a concept of "past" (as we explained earlier) is that various things have been placed in our memories. For example, the moment we enrolled in primary school is a bit of information in our memory and therefore, we perceive it as an event in the past. Because future events are not in our memories, however, we regard things we don't yet know about as what we'll experience in the future. Just as the past has been experienced from our point of view, so has the future. But because these events have not been given to our memories, we cannot yet know them. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.141)

 Similarly, the sweet taste you discovered in chocolate when you were only five years old, the anxiety you felt on the first day of the primary school, the boredom you felt in one of your high school classes, the difficult equations your physics teacher wrote on the blackboard, the grief you felt on losing a close friend in a traffic accident, the pride you took in your academic accomplishments, the glow of happiness you felt when you succeeded at something you had strived for—in brief, all your experiences and feelings remain just as they were; not simply kept in your memory. You perceive your memory as simply the past. Though these scenes exist right now, the brain does not perceive them… Believing them bound by a steady, unvarying time flow from the past to the future, people assume their lives are divided into distinct sections of past, present and future…However, knowing that every living thing, every event and object is created eternally, frame by frame—just like the frames making up a roll of film—and brought into being simultaneously, will make this easier to comprehend. (Eternity Has Already Begun, pp.79-80)

The Conclusion We Reach from

This Reality

Outside the brain exists a world we call matter, evoking sensations of solidity and visibility. But you can never reach this world with your senses. Every human being watches a world that takes shape in his brain, touches this world in his brain and listens to its sounds in his brain.

God lets every human being watch this material world as a vision in his brain adding to it solidity and hardness, to the point that this vision is perceived as real. Imam Rabbani explained this reality, proven in the twentieth century by scientific evidence, in great detail. In one of his letters, he wrote:

Nothing exists in truth and on the outside except the Almighty God. With His power, He has displayed in the appearance of the beings He created the perfection of His names and attributes. That means that He created matter in the sphere of perception and illusion. Thus matter exists as an illusion and continues to exist in our imaginations. Therefore, matter exists because it appears to be so in the imagination. Because God Almighty allows these images to continue and gives substantiality to the structure of matter, which He keeps from vanishing. Because He made eternal processes dependent on these, illusonary beings continue to seem real. (Imam Rabbani, Maktubat-i Rabbani (Letters of Rabbani), vol. 2, letter 44)

Every human being must reflect most seriously upon the reality revealed here, because everyone who ignores it, is fooled for the duration of his life by a perception appearing on one small area of the brain, which he believes to be real. For example, a man becomes vain and arrogant to think that he owns the buildings appearing on one portion of his brain, forgetting that one day, he too will die. In the brain of someone else, the perception of being destitute leaves him hopeless and depressed. One who loses the visualization of money in his brain becomes instantly devastated. Someone else who sees—in his brain—his car's paintwork scratched becomes angry, and his love of property drives him frantic.

In reality, none of these people is any different, one from the other. Seeing one's self poor or rich, or seeing one's car being scratched, is an image forming in the brain. No one ever can see or know what lies outside his brain. Only God, Who creates the world inside—and also outside—our brains, knows this.

People who are ignorant or unaware of this reality or those do not want to acknowledge the very clear truth, will always live in error. They are comparable to someone watching a play or movie in the belief that it's real and therefore, wants to be part of it. No matter how much the audience around him try to persuade him or show him the truth, he will always pretend not to understand.

Without exception, every human being will understand this truth, comprehend, and acknowledge it one day. This moment will come to everyone upon his death, when his brain's perception of life in this world will give way to the perception of death, judgment day, and the hereafter. As God revealed in the Qur'an, death will be like awaking from sleep, like proceeding from a dream to reality. One will move on to the true, endless life; and the perception of this life will become much clearer too. God, the Lord of all the worlds, reveals this reality in the verses:

They will say, "Alas for us! Who has raised us from our resting-place? This is what the All-Merciful promised us. The Messengers were telling the truth." (Qur'an, 36: 52)

"You were heedless of this, so We have stripped you of your covering, and today your sight is sharp." (Qur'an, 50: 22)

In one of his hadith, our Prophet (peace be upon him)—a role model of trustworthiness, knowledge and wisdom—pointed out this reality when he said, "Humans are asleep, they are awakened with death." (Imam Ghazali)

Reality is the life after death. Earth is an imaginary world shown to us on a little area of our brains, just like a dream. It is an enormous and heedless error to be misled by this imaginary world, forgetting to ponder the real, infinite life to come. Those who refuse to recognize this fact during this life will suffer great remorse in the hereafter. When they realize that the people, properties, ranks and offices—to which they were devotedly attached throughout their lives; which they blindly pursued by believing that they were real;which they associated with God by forgetting Him and the hereafter—are actually only imaginary and images in their minds. They will be devastated to see all the things they thought would exist forever falling, one by one, by the wayside. In the Qur'an, God reveals their confessions in the hereafter:

Then they will be asked, "Where are those besides God you associated with Him?" And they will reply, "They have forsaken us. Or rather, we were not calling to anything at all before." That is how God misguides the disbelievers. (Qur'an, 40: 73-74)

... Such people's portion of the Book will catch up with them, so that when Our messengers come to them to take them in death, saying, "Where are those you called upon besides God?" they will say, "They have left us in the lurch," testifying against themselves that they were disbelieving people. (Quran, 7: 37)

Every single person who refuses to acknowledge and ponder this reality in this life can well be saying these same things, experiencing this same irreversible regret in the hereafter. Those who lose themselves in this worldly life, which God shows us just like a dream; who think that this life is the only real one and that death is its end, will wake from their sleep of ignorance, leave their dreams behind with their death, and see the real truth. On the other hand, every sincere, carefully thinking person will realize the reality while still on Earth and make a genuine effort to win his life to come in the hereafter.

THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR

As in The Matrix, this movie's subject is the amazing similarities between the real and virtual worlds. In the year 1999, the lead characters, Hannon Fuller, and his business associate Douglas Hall, create a computer generated virtual world on the 13th floor of a Los Angeles office building that recreates Los Angeles as it was in 1937.

As the photos on the following pages show, people who want to log on to this computer program stretch out on a bed, and the program's data is then transferred to their brains. Whoever connects to the system acquires a virtual personality back in 1937. When the data is loaded into his brain, for example, Douglas Hall—a wealthy businessman and successful company executive in 1999—becomes a bank cashier named John Ferguson, living in the year 1937.

Once the data is loaded, anyone connecting to the system suddenly finds himself in the 1937 environment, with everything—buildings, cars, clothes—of authentic 1937 vintage. When people enter this simulated world, what surprises most is that both of their lives seem similarly real. In both, they feel the coolness of water and air blown by the wind and experience the same fears and excitement in the situations they encounter.

As the film progresses, people connected to the system begin to realize that the life in 1999 Los Angeles, which they thought was real, is itself a specifically designed program! Everything they thought to be real up until then—their companies, jobs, cars, computer systems, families, friends—are actually imaginary. In reality, the year is 2024, and all the events projected as their "real lives" are part of a simulation. The film's most amazing aspect is that the characters connect to a simulator-within-the-simulator and live lives that, in these successive virtual environments, all have stunningly convincing similarities with reality.

The stills on the opposite page show Douglas connecting to the simulation and the transfer to him of 1937 banker John Ferguson's personality.

Douglas Hall – John Ferguson consciousness transferring

User: Douglas Hall

Scanning Complete

Preparing user for download into simulation.

Program link: John Ferguson

Aligning user to program

Ready for download.

Mr. Grierson, 117 West Whinston, Pasadena.

Consciousness Transferring

Transference beginning.

Download complete.

Even though Douglas's body is motionless, once connected to the simulator, he finds himself alive in the year 1937 as a bank cashier named John Ferguson. Even though every detail appears perfectly realistic, the old-fashioned cars, the people he meets, his own clothes and physical appearance—everything is part of a vision created in his brain by artificial signals.

Despite the fact that Douglas is the designer of this system, he is amazed by his appearances and the realistic environment he is in, as the movie still below demonstrates. Spending a long time in front of a mirror, he even observes his hair, moustache, and the color of his skin.

Because of 1937 John Ferguson's weird behavior, his bank manager tells him that he looks appalling and should take a break. But 1999 Douglas Hall, deeply affected by the realistic quality of his computer-generated life, is proud of designing such a system.

Douglas Hall   : I think I look pretty good.

Simulations and Misleading Reality

As pointed out extensively in the previous chapters, things we perceive as the "external world" are only the effects of electrical impulses on the brain. The blue sky when you look out the window, the soft chair you are sitting on, the scent of the coffee you drink, the ringing of the phone, even your body—all are your brain's interpretation of electrical signals.

Were it possible to send the required electrical signals with the aid of a computer, just as in this film, you could have experienced the same feelings with the same degree of authenticity. As you've seen, artificial stimulation can create a living, convincing world inside our heads, with no need for an external physical reality. With the help of simulators, we can now recreate some aspects of our lives realistically. With a special glove, for example, it's possible to feel the sensations of stroking a cat, shaking someone's hand, washing your own hands under a tap, or touching a hard object—without these actions taking place physically. More sophisticated systems let you feel that you're playing golf, skiing, driving a race car or flying an aircraft. In reality, none of these environments exist. This shows absolutely that humans experience sensations only in their brains and are not interacting with the "originals."

In The Thirteenth Floor, computers create virtual lives, indistinguishable from real ones. Through the simulation machine, characters in the film connect to different times and environments where they live just as in their "real" lives.

In the following dialogue, Whitney, one of the system's designers, explains the simulation they are working on to detective McBain:

Detective McBain     : The whole thing's a giant computer game?

Whitney                   : No, not at all, it doesn't need a user to interact with it to function. Its units are fully-formed, self-learning cyber beings.

Detective McBain     : Units?

Whitney                   : Electronic, simulated characters. They populate the system. They think they work, they eat... Let's just say that they're modeled after us. Right now we have a working prototype: Los Angeles, circa 1937.

Detective McBain : Why '37?

Whitney            : Fuller wanted to start by recreating the era of his youth. You see, while my mind is jacked in, I'm walking around experiencing 1937. My body stays here and holds the consciousness of the program link unit.

As you can gather from this dialogue, in the simulated environment there is no reality whatsoever, only artificial signals. There is no need for eyes to see, ears to hear, or no body to feel. Someone stretched out on the bed can feel himself somewhere else in a different time, simply by some data being transferred through the computer.

Our books on this subject offer some explanations:

 All our senses work more or less in the same way. All the stimuli (sounds, smells, tastes, sight, hardness, etc.) from objects we believe to exist outside of ourselves, are transmitted, via the nervous system, to the brain's perceptual centers. All the stimuli reaching the brain are in the form of electrical impulses. For instance, streams of light—photons—reflected from external objects reach the retina at the back of the eye; in the process of seeing, they are converted into electrical signals, then transmitted by the optic nerve to the brain's visual center where, in an area of a few cubic centimeters, we perceive a vivid, colorful, three-dimensional world.

The same basic process applies to our other senses. Cells in the tongue convert different flavors into electrical signals, scents are transmitted by cells in the epithelium in the nose, feelings of touch (hardness, softness etc.) by receptor cells under the skin; and sound by a special mechanism in the ear. All are then forwarded to be perceived in the relevant areas of the brain.

If you are drinking a cup of tea, special cells under your skin convert the warmth of the cup into electrical signals sent to the brain. Likewise, when you take a sip, the tea's strong scent, sweet taste and the brownish color are all converted into electrical currents transmitted to the brain. When you put the cup down onto the table, the sound of its making contact with the tabletop is received by the ear and sent to the brain as an electrical impulse. All these perceptions are interpreted by separate sensory centers in the brain, in conjunction with one another. As a result of these interpretations, you think you are drinking tea, while everything is really taking place in your brain's sensory centers. You go wrong in thinking your perceptions are for real, because you have no proof whatever that they exist outside your skull. Were there any complications in your optic nerves, vision would instantly disappear. Likewise, if there were a problem with your auditory nerves, the sounds you believe you hear outside of you, would cease to exist. (Articles-II, "Splendid Science Beyond Matter," pp.112-113)

There is No Light Outside

In light of some recent discoveries, scientists have come to an interesting conclusion: In reality, our world is in utter darkness, because today it is known that "light" is a wholly subjective term. In other words, it's an experience taking place in the brain.

There is no light outside, really. Light bulbs do not emit light, neither do your car's headlights, not even our biggest known light source, the Sun. Our experience of light is produced by photons reaching the retina at the back of our eyes, where cells convert them into electrical signals that we come to perceive as "light." If the cells of our eyes perceived photons as heat, we would never have terms like "light," "darkness," or "color" and therefore, would look at objects only in terms of "warm" or "cold."

In The Thirteenth Floor, upon Douglas Hall's return from the artificial but realistic environment of 1937, he has the following exchange:

Whitney         : How's the lighting? Textures?

Douglas Hall   : Colorization needs work, but the units don't notice.

Whitney         : What are they like?

Douglas Hall   : They're as real as you and me.

The "reality" depicted in the film is in fact true. By means of artificially created signals, quantities like color or light can be experienced quite realistically. Some examples from our books on this subject explain:

 The brain is insulated from light;the inside of the skull is absolutely dark. Therefore, the brain itself has no contact with light . . . You can watch a burning candle at length. However, your brain never has direct contact with the candle's original light. Even at the moment you perceive the candle's light, the inside of your brain is pitch dark. We watch a colorful and bright world inside our dark brain. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.218)

 As we all know, light cannot penetrate the skull. In other words, our safely contained brain is in utter darkness. Yet in this darkness, we see the blue ocean waters, the green trees, colorful flowers, brilliant Sun and every shade and hue. . . . If we saw the true state of the objects outside ourselves, we wouldn't perceive this external brilliance, colors and light, because the images would bounce off our skulls and never reach the visual center in our brain. If this is so, then how do we see this brilliant light of the Sun and moon? How do images of the bright chandeliers in our lounge form in the brain, where light can never reach? (Articles-II, "Splendid Science Beyond Matter," pp.112-113)

 The light we know and understand does not reside outside our brains. Light, as we perceive it, is also formed within our brain. What we call light, supposedly in the outside world, consists of electromagnetic waves and energy particles called photons. When these electromagnetic waves reach the retina, only then does light, as we experience it, come into existence.

Consequently, light comes about as a result of the effects caused in us by some electromagnetic waves and particles. In other words, no light outside our bodies creates the "light" we see in our brains. There is only energy; and when it reaches us, we perceive a bright, colorful world. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.27-28)

Just as with light, the experience of colors forms in our brains too. When photons from the Sun hit an object, it reflects these in photons of different wavelengths. Reaching the eye, the retina converts them into electrical impulses. Carried to the visual center in the brain, they are interpreted as colors. But these are personal, specific interpretations within ourselves; there is no light and no colors in the real world. A defect in our eye, or the different eye structures in other creatures, will convert the photons into different electrical signals, resulting in our perceiving the exact same object in a wholly different way.

Below are some passages dealing with this subject from our books:

 Starting from the time we are born, we deal with a colorful environment and see a colorful world. But there isn't one single color in the universe. Colors are formed in our brains. Outside, there are only electromagnetic waves of different amplitudes and frequencies. What reaches our brains is the energy from those waves. We call this "light," although this isn't the bright and shiny light we know. It's merely energy. Our brains interpret this energy by measuring the different frequencies of waves, and we see "colors." In reality, the sea is not blue, the grass is not green, the soil is not brown and fruits are not colorful. They appear as they do because of the way we perceive them in our brains.

Both color and light exist in our brains. We do not actually see a red rose as red simply because it is red. Our brain's interpretation of the energy that reaches our eye leads us to perceive that the rose is red. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.28)

 Color blindness is proof that colors are formed in our brains. A small injury in the retina can lead to color blindness. A person affected by color blindness is unable to differentiate between red and green colors. Whether an external object has colors or not is of no importance, because the reason why we see objects colorful is not their being colorful. This leads us to the conclusion that all of the qualities that we believe belong to the object are not in the outside world, but in our brains. However, since we will never be able to go beyond our perceptions and reach the outside world, we will never be able to prove the existence of materials and colors. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.31)

Flowers That You Smell in Your Brain

Most people believe that they smell the scent of a flower with their noses. Like all our other senses, smell too is an interpretation of the brain and works in a similar way. After entering the nose, a flower's scent molecules are converted in the epithelium into electrical signals. These signals reach the brain's olfactory center, where they are perceived as the scent of a daisy, rose, or some other flowers. Were the relevant signals sent to your brain by artificial means, you could smell these scents without the flowers themselves.

In The Thirteenth Floor's simulated environment, scents are perceived in a perfectly realistic way. . Mr. Grierson, a bookstore keeper in 1937, is a virtual character crafted to resemble the elderly Hannon Fuller, who connects to the simulator and uses this person's body to spend time in Mr. Grierson's virtual environment. He listens to 1930s music, watches the dances of that era and acquires a social circle there. As one of the program's requirements, when he leaves the system, the body he's been using continues its old life. Therefore, Mr. Grierson—bookstore keeper in the virtual year of 1937—can't quite remember what he experienced, or else considers his memories to be only products of his imagination. In one exchange of dialogue, he says:

Mr. Grierson   :When I wake up, I even have a perfume smell all over me.

Douglas Hall   : Real or imagined?

As this scene shows, the units in the virtual environment perceive smells realistically, via computer-generated data transmitted to them, without the existence of any perfume in the real world. Some passages from our books explain this matter:

 You suppose that the end-effects formed in your center of smell are the scents of the objects outside. However, just as the image of a rose exists in your visual center, so its smell resides in your olfactory center … (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, pp.223-224)

 To understand that smell is only a sensation, consider dreams. When people dream, just as all images are seen realistically, smells too are perceived as if they were real. For example, a person who goes to a dream restaurant may choose dinner amid the aroma of the foods on the menu. Someone who dreams of a trip to the seaside senses the distinctive smell of salt water, and someone who dreams of a garden would experience the pleasure of magnificent scents. Likewise, someone who dreams of choosing a perfume would be able to distinguish the smells of the different perfumes, one by one. Everything is so realistic that when people awaken, they are often surprised to realize they were dreaming. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.39)

To Feel that Your Experiences are Real, You Don't

Require the Existence of the "External" World

In the late 19th century, people who faced a movie screen for the first time believed the objects they saw on the screen to be real. They began to panic when they saw a train racing towards them. Much more convincing effects are achieved today by means of special glasses which create holograms (3-D view). People wearing these glasses, believe the imaginary scenes they're watching are real, respond with fear and excitement. Even though they're well aware that they're interacting with a virtual environment, they can't help becoming absorbed in the recreated environments of this new technology.

This situation is also true for our lives: We believe in the real world because of the perfectly realistic appearance.

The Thirteenth Floor points out how technology can mislead. In the virtual year 1937, a character named Ashton reads a letter he wasn't supposed to, written by Hannon Fuller, one of the system's founders. When Ashton finds out that his entire life until then was not real, that he lives in a virtual world, first he thinks it's all a joke. Later, when he sees that this environment, created specifically for him, comes to a predetermined end, he goes berserk. But none of his actions can change the reality that he is living in a virtual environment. Becoming aggressive, he furiously demands that Douglas Hall, one of the system's founders, tell him the truth. The following dialogue takes place between them:

Ashton           : When I read it, I thought it was a gag. The world's a sham. Fat chance! But I'm not stupid, Mr. Hall. I watched you and Ferguson do the old switch-er-oo. And all that stuff about going to "the ends of the earth."

Douglas Hall   : What stuff?

Ashton           : I did exactly what the letter said. I chose a place I'd never go to. I tried to drive to Tucson. I figured, whatever, I've never been to the countryside. And I took that car out on the highway. I was going over 50 through that desert. After a while, it was the only car on the road. It was just me, the heat and the dust. I did exactly what the letter said. "Don't follow any road signs and don't stop for anything. Not even barricades." But just when I should've been getting closer to the city. Something wasn't right. There was no movement, no life. Everything was still and quiet. And then I got out of the car. And what I saw scared me to the depths of my miserable soul. It was true. It was all a sham. It ain't real.

Douglas Hall   :Why would Fuller write about the limitations of the simulation? I know them.

Ashton           : I'm asking the questions now. I want to know why... Now I want you to show me what is real. Is this real? Is that real blood?

When Ashton discovers that his environment is actually virtual, he refuses to acknowledge it. To prove his point, he even shoots Douglas in the leg and asks him if the blood flowing from the wound is real. But when someone gets injured, because the blood from his leg, the pain and fear he feels, are all perceptions. Therefore, nothing changes. The fact of someone experiencing pain or fear can't constitute evidence for the existence of an external, material world.

The same is true for us. We can't prove that material equivalents exist for the perceptions we experience in our brains because we can never step outside of our brains. It's impossible for us to tell whether these perceptions derive from some artificial source, or if they have a material existence in the outside world.

Some people who disagree, without pondering this subject, say things like, "Step in front of a truck, and you'll understand whether or not matter is real." But even when the truck runs us over, still we live in our brains: The sensation of being run over, like the vision of the truck and the anxiety of trying to escape it are all brain-based perceptions. Likewise if someone strikes you, the blow of his hand, the sensation of pain on your face and the reddening of the skin are all experienced in the brain.

Some passages from our books are in line with the subject:

 Objection: "Matter exists outside my brain. The pain when a knife slips and cuts my hand and the blood that flows are not images. Moreover, my friend was with me and saw it happen."

Reply: . . . Those who say this kind of thing ignore the fact that not only sight, but the other senses like hearing, smell and touch, also happen inside the brain. That's why they say, "I may see the knife in my brain, but the sharpness of the blade is a fact. Just look how it has cut my hand." However, the pain in that hand, the warm wet blood, and all the other perceptions are still formed within the brain. That a friend witnessed the incident changes nothing, because the friend is also formed in the same visual center of his brain as the knife. The speaker could experience the exact same feelings in a dream—the way he cut his hand with a knife, the pain in his hand, the image and the warmth of his blood. In that dream, he can also see the friend who saw him cut himself. Yet his friend's existence doesn't imply the physical existence of what he sees in his dream.

What if someone came up in that dream and said, "When you cut your hand, what you saw is just perceptions. That knife isn't real, nor are the blood and the pain. They are just events you're witnessing in your mind"? The person would not believe him and would object. He might even say: "I am a materialist. I do not believe in such claims. There is a physical reality in everything I see now. Look, can't you see the blood?" (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.183-184)

 It's impossible for us to reach the physical world. All objects around us are apprehended through one or more means of perception such as sight, hearing, and touch. Our brain, processing the data in the visual and other sensory centers throughout our lives, confronts not the "original" of the matter existing outside us, but rather the copies formed inside our brain. (Timelessness and the Reality of Fate, p.32)

 We can never prove that the perceptions we observe in our brain have material correlations. Those perceptions may well be coming from an "artificial" source.

We can visualize this with such an example:

First, imagine that we remove your brain from your body and keep it alive artificially in a glass tank. Next to it, let us place a computer that can produce all kinds of electrical signals. Then, let us artificially produce and record in this computer electrical signals of the data related to some physical setting, such as image, sound, odor, hardness-softness, taste, and body image. Finally, let us connect the computer to your brain with electrodes that will function as nerves and send the pre-recorded data to your brain. As your brain (which is literally you) perceives these signals, it will see and experience the corresponding setting.

From this computer, you can also send electrical signals related to your body to your brain. If we sent to your brain the electrical correlates of senses such as sight, hearing, and touch that you perceive while sitting at a table, your brain would think of itself as a businessman sitting in his office.

This imaginary world will continue so long as the computer keeps stimulations coming. It will never become possible for you to understand that you consist of nothing but your brain. This is because what is needed to form a world within your brain is not the existence of a real world but rather the stimuli. It is perfectly possible that these stimuli might be coming from an artificial source, such as a recording device or a different source of perception. (Eternity Has Already Begun, pp.29-30)

In the following dialogue, Douglas's connection to the simulation gets disrupted, returning him to real life. In the virtual world, his friend Whitney—in the person of Ashton—is trying to kill him. In the virtual world, Douglas experiences fear so realistic that upon returning to real life, he's out of breath. Still trying to defend himself, he even punches Whitney.

Douglas Hall   : He tried to kill me.

Whitney         : Who?

Douglas Hall   : Ashton. He found out his world isn't real. This is a mistake. This whole project, this experiment. We are screwing with people's lives!

Whitney         : Now you're talking crazy. I know you just had a bad trip...

Douglas Hall   : "Bad trip?" These people are real. They are as real as you and me.

Whitney         :Yeah, that's because we designed them that way. In the end, they're just a bunch of electronic circuits.

As this scene dramatizes, it's possible to live in an unreal world, believing it to be the real life. Douglas, despite being one of the system's designers, and despite his friend's reminding him that the people he encountered were the sum total of electronic circuits, still has trouble believing his experience wasn't real.

While engaged in this argument about the emulation of reality by a system they designed, they themselves live in an artificial environment. But they aren't aware of this, and so believe their world to be real.

Many passages in our books touch on the possibility of creating the impression of reality by artificial stimulation:

 ... In principle, it's possible to create artificial images and an artificial world with the help of artificial stimuli. We cannot claim that the "real-life images" that we see and deal with all the time are of the original, outside world. Our senses could well be coming from a very different source. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.74)

 When nerves to the brain are severed, no image can form. Then there is no meaning to the sentence, "The originals of the images do exist outside," because we can never perceive these originals—even if they do exist. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.182)

Dreaming Within a Dream

Towards the end of the film, viewers are surprised to learn that the characters who designed the system, living a virtual life when they connect to it, are really with their bodies in 2024. The life of Douglas Hall, who believes himself to be living in Los Angeles in 1999, is itself a dream. He's living a fantasy inside a fantasy.

This can be compared to dreaming within a dream. Even though a dream has no material reality, yet we can experience realistic feelings and even think that we are sleeping and waking as a part of our everyday lives. We can even tell our dream-friends about very realistic dreams we dreamt in our dream.

Consequently, it's possible to experience an artificially created fantasy in which we realize it to be so. Douglas, facing such a situation, can't overcome the shock of this reality.

Douglas Hall   : How many simulated worlds like this are there?

Jane Fuller      : Thousands. Yours is the only one that ever created a simulation within the simulation. Something we never expected!

Your Body is an Image Formed in Your Brain

People think they're interacting with their real bodies, because they can touch it, provide for its needs, and feel pain. Just as with all other "outside" objects, our own body is a perception too, and we can never reach its material reality. The pain when we cut our finger is a perception, as is stilling hunger with a decent meal. It too is a perception. Artificial stimuli can provide the same feelings of satisfaction without us having to eat a meal. For this reason, we can never be certain about the physical reality of our bodies. It's the soul who feels the touch, the pain, and who reads this book.

Consider this subject from another perspective: The book appears to you at an approximate distance of 30 centimeters. You see walls around you, and your being seated on a chair at a certain height from the floor creates the impression that you're located somewhere inside a room. In reality, this environment is an illusion created by your mind. Because of this mistaken belief, you have the sensation of living in the world. Actually, the opposite is true: everything is inside of you.

In the accompanying photos, the virtual character Ashton, who has just learned the truth, is seen speaking with Douglas. Ashton is experiencing the shock of discovering that for all those years, he has lived an illusion he thought to be reality. But Douglas, who created that virtual system, shares his feelings because he is part of yet another virtual environment.

Douglas Hall   : No, Ashton... I'm just like you. Just a bunch of electricity.

Ashton           : What are you talking about?

Douglas Hall   : It's all smoke and mirrors. Just like your world. We're nothing but a simulation on some computer.

Ashton           : But the letter said…

Douglas Hall   :Everything was fake? The letter was meant for me. Fuller was talking about my world.

Ashton           : So what are you saying? You're saying there's another world on top of this one?

Douglas Hall   : That's right.

Ashton           : I don't understand.

Douglas Hall   : Fuller found out about it.

These characters realize they've been living in a virtual environment with illusionary bodies, without the existence of a material reality. Nothing they ever saw or experienced was real. In another scene, Douglas explains, "None of this is real. You pull the plug. I disappear. And nothing I ever say nothing I ever do will ever matter."

When these characters discover that they're part of a virtual reality, they realize that everything they've ever experienced happened outside of their control, determined by whoever developed their virtual world.

Our own situation is very similar to theirs. God controls everything in the world we live in; He has created every detail therein as part of our trial. Someone who realizes that everything he sees and hears is in fact a perception in his mind God has created, trusts in the infinitely merciful and compassionate Creator of us all, instead of suffering from sadness, fear, or panic.

It's appropriate to remind the reader of the some passages from our books on this subject:

 All the events that cause people difficulty and anxiety in their lives actually "happen" in their brains. Someone who realizes this will show patience in the face of whatever happens to him. He will know that God has created everything for a good purpose, and will maintain trust in Him. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.119)

 … God gives everyone the impression that he can change things, making his own choices and decisions. For example, when a person wants a drink of water, he doesn't say, "If it is my fate, I will drink," and sit down without making a move. Instead, he drinks a predetermined amount of water from a predetermined glass. But throughout his life, in everything that he does, he thinks he's acting according to his own desire and will. The person who submits himself to God and to the fate He created, knows that everything he does is according to the will of God, even despite his sense that he's accomplished it all himself. Other people mistakenly assume that they've done everything with their own intelligence, under their own power. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.146-147)

 …Everything in heaven and Earth is God's and a manifestation of God. God is the only absolute Being. The other beings whom He has created are not absolute beings, but appearances. All the individuals observing the appearances that God has created are all spirits from God.

When people grasp the secret of this great knowledge, they will attain great conscious clarity, and the haze enshrouding their spirits will lift. Everyone who understands it will freely submit to God, love Him and fear Him… Those who understand this amazing fact will view things from a different perspective and embark on a totally different life. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.103)

HARSH REALM

The serial "Harsh Realm" is based on the story of a war game simulation developed by the Pentagon, a secret project for testing new developments in training military personnel. People to be part of this system are under the control of the army and kept with their heads and bodies wired up, in a designated area.

This Harsh Realm "game's" most stunning feature is that it recreates a totally realistic virtual environment where soldiers, enemies, weapons, social lives and all other details are indistinguishable from their counterparts in the real world. In this game, there are two types of people: the artificial or virtual characters, and the real players who can enter the game. Like their virtual environment, the virtual characters are indistinguishable from the real thing.

Another character in this TV serial is Omar Santiago, a deserter from the army who secretly manages to hack into the system and gains superiority in this virtual world. But because no one knows how he breaks into the system or where he is, they can't take action against him. Tom Hobbes, the hero, is told to eliminate Santiago and to prevent his evil plans for the world.

A colonel briefs Hobbes about Harsh Realm, informing him that this system was designed to teach war strategies on a virtual-reality war game platform and that his job is to defeat Santiago. In order to persuade the reluctant Hobbes, the colonel gives him a headset and has him watch an introductory video on the Harsh Realm simulator. This video explains that the Harsh Realm project relied on satellite maps, the 1990 census, and some other classified data to create the game's environment, imitating people's real lives. The introductory video is terminated suddenly, and Hobbes realizes that while watching this tape, he was integrated into the game.

Hobbes, now in the virtual world called Harsh Realm, meets a soldier by the name of Pinocchio, who, like himself, was inducted by the army. This virtual world is so realistic that, Tom is fooled throughout the film, to the extent that he ends up even endangering his own life helping and pursuing the game's virtual characters.

As we'll shortly explore in more detail, the quality and details of the images that take place in people's fantasies can fool them into believing these events are real.

Everyone is Interacting with the Images Shown on his

Own Personal Screen or, in Other Words, His Own Soul

3-D films are made by projecting images shot by two cameras, from two different angles, onto one screen. In reality, the viewer is not regarding a 3-D image, but an effect created by a special technique. The viewer wears color filtered or polarized glasses. Each lens of the glasses captures one of the two images, and the viewer's brain recombines the two, creating a 3-D image.

The same is true in our real lives. All the images we see with our eyes are really two-dimensional, having only height and width. Because we have two eyes, similar to the two images we see when watching a 3-D film, we perceive the images as three-dimensional. This phenomenon explains why we're misled that the images on our personal "screens" are real. The depth, color, shadow and light of our three-dimensional visual images formed in our brain seem perfectly realistic. Their endless detail and continuous quality give us the impression of living a real life. However, our perceiving a three-dimensional picture does not prove that it has any counterpart in the external world.

The virtual world depicted in the serial "Harsh Realm," no matter how life-like it may be, is "seen" by players whose wired-up bodies are lying on their beds. All their realistic experiences are induced by artificial electrical impulses received by their brains. In each episode, the introductory scene recaps the subject of the series in this way:

A world exists exactly like ours. You live in this world, your family and your friends. No, you may not know it. I was sent to save you. It's just a game.

In his first few days of his adventure in the virtual world, Tom can't stop himself from thinking that the environment around him is not real, even though he knows it's not.

Tom Hobbes  : Now, I know none of it is real and it is only a virtual world I'm in. I'm living day to day . . . trying to make sense of all this, trying to stay strong trying my best just to stay alive.

Repeatedly, our hero remarks on his virtual environment's stunning resemblance to reality itself. The world he's now part of gives him such a strong sense of reality that he begins to pray that his experience is part of a game.

Tom Hobbes   :We're on the run from Omar Santiago, a renegade soldier who hijacked the computer program that runs this world. It was Santiago the military sent me here to kill. Their fear of him is real and great, though I've yet to understand why all this is imaginary… They say this is a recreation of the real world down to every man, woman and child. Each of us is with a double here who can live or die in the virtual reality of the Harsh Realm… But only those plugged into the program know this and have any consciousness of the truth: that it's only a game. I pray that's all it is.

The scenes from this serial apply to our own lives, because we are watching the images projected onto our souls and interact only with them. Even if a real world existed outside ourselves, we'll never reach it, never meet it. This situation can be summed up in the following passage from our book Evolution Deceit:

 Since matter is a perception, it is something "artificial." If this perception must have been caused by another power, it must have been created. Moreover, if this creation were not continuous and consistent, then what we call matter would vanish and be lost. This may be compared to a television that displays a picture as long as the signal keeps being broadcast.

So, Who makes the stars, the Earth, plants, people, our bodies and all else that our soul sees?

It is very evident that a supreme Creator has created the entire material universe—the sum of perceptions—and He endlessly continues His creation. Since He displays such a magnificent creation, surely He has eternal power and might. This Creator introduces Himself to us. He has sent down the Qur'an, in which He introduces to us the universe, Himself, and the reason for our existence. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.228)

The Human Body is Also an

Interpretation of Perceptions

One reason for our difficulty in realizing matter's true nature is our mistaken belief about our own bodies. We look down, see ourselves, touch everything around it, and get the misinterpreted impression that we live in an "outside world."

In reality, our bodies are copies—images, like all our other perceptions of the external world. Therefore the body we interact with is not the original on the outside but its imagination forming inside our brain by the interpretation of our perceptions.

Below is one of the dialogues from the serial:

Tom Hobbes  : I had orders to win the game.

Major Watters         : It's no game, no getting out, no going home. I've got the same mission.

Tom Hobbes  : Why don't they take Santiago out of the real world?

Pinocchio       : They don't know where he is, where he comes in and out. He has hijacked the whole program . . . If they kill you here, it's not any virtual character, but you. Your brain, your consciousness, your head and your mind will slide back into the real world.

Those playing the Harsh Realm game interact with virtual appearances, as in a computer game. Their real bodies are located somewhere else, and computers transmit the game's images to their brains.

The following page shows Inga Fossa, a member of the armed forces, being transferred to this virtual environment. She is stretched out on an armchair in a high-tech room, putting a special device on her head. Once her body is scanned in, she is then transferred into the simulation Subsequent photos show her inside the government building in the Harsh Realm game's city of Santiago.

The pictures below depict Pinocchio, one of the lead characters of the film, with facial injuries and his body tied up with cables. But inside the Harsh Realm game he has no such wounds. This example shows that by means of artificial signals, someone can perceive his appearance much differently from what it actually is.

On this subject, here are some excerpts from our books:

 One reason why people don't realize that seen images are actually sensed in the brain, is that they see their body within the image. They wrongly conclude that, "I'm in this room, and not the other way around—the room doesn't exist in my brain." They make the mistake of forgetting that their body is an image too. Just as everything we see around us is an image in the brain, so is our body as well. While sitting on an armchair, you can see the rest of your body below the neck, but this image too is produced by the same perceptual system. Put your hand on your thigh, and you'll sense a kinesthetic feeling—in the brain. This means that you see your body, and feel yourself touching your body, in the brain. If your body is an image in the brain, is the room inside you, or are you in the room? The obvious answer is, the room's inside you. You see the image of your body inside the room which, in turn, is in the brain. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.58)

 A person may dream that he is in the middle of a war. He might feel tension and panic as if the war were taking place in the real world. Yet at that time, he is sleeping comfortably at home. The realistic noises and visions of his dream occur in his mind. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.62)

 While you read these lines, you are not truly inside the room you assume you're in. On the contrary, the room's inside you. Seeing your body, you think that you are inside it. However, you must remember that your body, too, is an image formed inside your brain. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.223)

Those are Wrong Who Believe that

the Images in Our Minds Represent

an Outside Reality

When someone sees a tree and thinks it is real, he is deluding himself. It's impossible for us to leave our brains, impossible to reach the real tree. As stated throughout this book, the person is interacting with a tree formed by the interpretation of electrical signals in his brain.

We can compare the assumption that we deal with physical reality itself, to our interaction with the visible images on a computer screen. Touch the keys on the keyboard, and you believe you are moving the cursor on the screen. In reality, the computer sends a data stream to the CPU (central processing unit). This data stream calculates the cursor's new location and refreshes the image on the screen accordingly. In older computers, there was a noticeable delay between typing a command and seeing it appear on the screen. Since then, computers have become much faster and can recalculate image changes in a fraction of a second. Now when you hit a key, the effect on the screen is almost simultaneous. We get the feeling that we are, indeed, moving the cursor.

Our everyday experiences are comparable. When we want to kick a stone, the will to move our foot is transmitted to the relevant muscles, and our shoe is moved to connect with the stone. The brain receives feedback from the body—in this instance, the hardness of the stone's impact and pain in the foot—and updates the perception. In reality there is a delay in our experiences, just as in the computer example. It takes approximately one fifth of a second for the brain to interpret the data sent by our senses but, not being aware of this delay, we assume that we are interacting directly with the physical reality.

If all we can ever know is limited to images forming in our minds, then how can we be sure that a physical reality lies behind our perceptions? Isn't this just an assumption? Yes, and proving it so is impossible, because for those who believe in the existence of a physical world, their only evidence is the visions in their minds.

To say that we are interacting with matter itself is just as untenable as claiming that our experiences in virtual reality environment are authentic. Throughout the serial, Pinocchio points out to Hobbs that it's not logical to act as if their environment were real. In one episode, Tom encounters his fiancée's virtual counterpart and risks his life trying to protect her, even though she has no physical reality. Likewise, a virtual copy of his real-life dog is present in the game, and he endangers himself to keep the dog from harm.

In another scene from the film, he encounters a small child in an area designated—in the game—for warfare training. Feeling concern for the child, he tells him that it is very dangerous to be there, but the soldier with Tom tells him that the child is only a part of the computer game:

Tom Hobbes  : (to the boy) What are you doing here? Go on home.

Eric Sommers : Don't get too fond of him.

Tom Hobbes  : Why not?

Eric Sommers : Look, I've seen this played 100 times. That kid does not pass Day 28 once.

Tom Hobbes  : He is here.

Eric Sommers : He's just a game piece. He is not like you and me. The sim (simulation) resets them so that they can come and die all over again.

Knowing he is in a virtual world, Tom is repeatedly reminded that the virtual characters he interacts with are part of the simulation. Yet he reacts to them, fooled by the environment's realism. When the war escalates, for instance, and they are seeking cover, he sees a child walking towards the enemy positions. He cannot contain himself and risks his life to save the child.

Pinocchio      : What are you doing?

Eric Sommers        : It's just a kid

Pinocchio      : You heard what Sommers said about this place. You can't change anything.

Tom Hobbes : I don't believe that.

In another scene, they are withdrawing from the enemy, when he sees the child coming under fire. He reaches out to the child, but its body disappears. As he had been warned, the child is shot dead as part of the game and won't be reintroduced to it until the game starts over anew.

These examples from the film are illustrative of people who can't accept that the world they're dealing with is a simulation in the brain. Obviously, the world we live in isn't comparable to a film, because it cannot be explained by computer games or technological developments. God created this world and everything it contains, animate or inanimate, and revealed the purpose for our creation in the Qur'an:

[I only created] man to worship Me. (Qur'an, 51: 56)

For this reason, we have an obligation to obey God's commandments and to worship Him.

Many fool themselves by telling themselves, "I see with my eyes, I hear with my ears. Therefore, the world I'm in is real." In actuality, they're thinking those words in the silence of their brains. These technical realities are obvious truths that can be learned in high-school biology textbooks or in any book on human anatomy. All branches of medicine teach in great detail how vision and sensations originate in the brain.

Advancements in quantum physics, psychology, neurology, biology and medicine have shed much light on the technical aspects of this physical reality. At present, therefore, science accepts that we cannot reach the reality of matter. Anyone who claims to be interacting with the real world is ignoring these scientific facts. We have to accept them and live in awareness of our responsibilities to God in our lives, even though we live those lives only in our minds. Following are some passages from our books on this subject:

 The fact of the physical world being formed in our perceptions does not eliminate the secret of the test that God puts us through during our lives in this world. Whether matter exists as a perception or lies outside our minds, what God has said to be forbidden, is forbidden; and what is lawful is lawful. Since God has forbidden the eating of pork, to say, "Pork is only an image in my mind" and then going on to eat it is hypocritical and evidently unintelligent. Alternatively, saying, "Other people are only mental images in my mind, so what does it matter if I lie to them?" is not something that anyone who fears God could ever do. This applies to all the limits, commands and prohibitions that God has imposed. The truth of what we're discussing doesn't do away with giving alms, for instance. The fact that alms exist in the minds of the people to whom we give them doesn't mean we needn't perform this obligation. God has created the whole world as a totality of perceptions, but within these perceptions, we are still charged with abiding by what the Qur'an has revealed.

... Anyone who honestly considers the situation will see that, for the purposes of the test which God gives us, it is not necessary for matter to exist. God has created this test within the world of images. Matter does not need to exist for someone to pray, or to distinguish what is lawful from the unlawful. Furthermore, the important thing is the soul, which will be punished or rewarded with blessings in the hereafter. For that reason, if matter is a perception in our minds, that does not prevent us doing what is lawful and avoiding what is unlawful or carrying out our religious obligations. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.207)

 In the past, some have grasped the truth about the essence of matter. Yet because their faith in God and their understanding of the Qur'an were weak, they have produced deviant ideas. Some have said, "Everything is an illusion, so there is no point in worship." Such ideas are twisted and ignorant. True, everything is an image God presents to us. But it is also true that God charges us to abide by the Qur'an. We have to carefully abide by His commands and prohibitions. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.214)

 Even though God causes us to live in this world of perceptions, He also links the world to all its many causes and effects. When we are hungry, for instance, we eat something. We do not say, "It is all an illusion, so it does not matter," for if we fail to eat, we grow weak and eventually die.

God can remove these causes and effects whenever He wishes, for whoever He wishes, by whatever means He wishes. We can never know when or why He may do this. However, the most important truth is that God charges us with abiding by the whole of the Qur'an, and we continue to live in the world of causality in order to abide by its divine commandments.

. . . In conclusion, everyone must do all he can to carry out the responsibilities laid on his shoulders in the Qur'an. Knowing the true nature of matter—and adopting a view of the world in accord with that nature—further strengthens all our efforts to gain God's good pleasure, and increases our determination many times over. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.220-221)

Watching a Film, Knowing its Beginning

and its End

In an earlier chapter, we pointed out that time is relative, not fixed, dependent on the viewer's perception. Knowing this is very important in comprehending the question of destiny, which represents God's creation of everything—past or future—in one moment. This means that everything in the presence of God, from the creation of the universe to the Judgment Day, has been lived and is already finished.

A great many people cannot comprehend how God can know things that have not yet happened and how it can be that in God's presence, everything past and future has already occurred. They also fail to understand the reality of destiny. In reality, past events are the past only from our perspective, because we live within the boundaries of time that God has created, and cannot know anything unless it is introduced to our memory. God, on the other hand, is unbounded by time and space because, after all, it is He Who has created them from nothing. For this reason, past, present, and future are all the same to God.

The fact is, everything, past or future, has already been created in the presence of God and preserved. The very important truth is that every human being has surrendered unconditionally to his destiny. Just as no one can change his past, he cannot change his future, because both his past and future have already been lived. All his future is fixed: where, when and what he will eat; what he will talk about and with whom; how much money he will earn, what illnesses he will endure; and finally, the circumstances of his death— all these events are fixed. He cannot change any of it, because this has all been lived in God's presence, with His knowledge. Except the knowledge thereof has not been granted to the memory of the person himself.

Therefore, those who are saddened by what they encounter, grow angry, shout and scream, worry about the future, or become overly ambitious, do so in vain. The future they worry about has already been lived. Whatever they may do, they have no means of changing it.

One episode of "Harsh Realm" can help us understand this. In this episode, set in the Second World War, the leading characters walk in the woods but, because of fault in the computer program, suddenly find themselves in a constantly recurring war game simulation.

Tom Hobbes  : What the hell is that? Software glitch?

In this part of the game, the Ardennes offensive of World War II is simulated. German and American advance units are dug in either side of a bridge and are engaged in month long battle between them.

Tom Hobbes  : That bridge out there. I've seen the battle review of the Ardennes campaign, Second World War. There is a siege in Hotten, Belgium between two small advance units, the German and the American armies, lasted over a month. I swear, this is the same bridge.

Pinocchio       : It's a combat sim.

Tom Hobbes  : What?

Pinocchio       : Virtual combat simulation. When they started beta testing in Harsh Realm, they downloaded battle scenarios: Pork Chop Hill, Picket's Charge.

Tom Hobbes  : So, it's another game.

Pinocchio       : It's a battlefield trainer, what Harsh Realm was originally designed for.

Tom Hobbes  : What is it still doing here?

Pinocchio                 : Who knows? Probably oversight. Some pencil neck in the real world probably forgot to "delete."

The serial's heroes find themselves in a different time. Just as they are about to be shot by a German soldier, a unit of American soldiers rescues them. But being from a different era, their speech makes the American soldiers suspect them to be spies and take them as prisoners of war.

In the opening scenes, a soldier named Eric Sommers—who also exists in the real world—draws attention by his cool stance despite the explosions all around him. Because this is a repeating war training simulation, everything occurs as programmed. Aware of this, he lies on the ground and begins a countdown. When he gets to three, a hand grenade lands next to him. He picks it up, throws it back out again, then continues to drink his tea. In short, everything develops as part of the program. Because it repeats itself, with everything occurring in the same way time after time, Eric keeps his cool even under fire.

Eric Sommers        :Three… two...one. (He throws the grenade outside, then takes a glass of tea) Grenade.

Like Hobbes and Pinocchio, Eric Sommers was made part of the game in the real world when he was connected to the computer. Therefore, the soldier also knows that the time and place they live in has no reality. But he was unable to find a way out of this part of the game. He tells Tom and Pinocchio that in this battle field of four square kilometers, everything always occurs as it is programmed to. For example, the siege always lasts 34 days, the counterattack 28 days; and how and when the brigade's soldiers die is also known.

These parts of the serial constitute an analogy that can help explain fate. If we compare our life to a video tape, we are watching it, but without the means of fast-forwarding or rewinding it. No matter how often we watch this tape, we cannot change even its smallest detail. The parts that appear to be changed by us are in reality also predetermined parts of the film.

It is God Who has determined this film in every detail, creating and sustaining it with the feel of reality. He sees and knows the entire filmstrip in the same instant. Just as we can see the beginning, middle, and end of a ruler as a single whole, God has encompassed the time we are subjected to, from the beginning to the end, as one moment. People, on the other hand, live out only what they are meant to when the time has come and witness the destiny God has created for them. This is so for the destinies of all of the people on Earth.

 God has made us perceive events in a definite series, as if time were moving from past to future. He does not inform us of our future or provide this information to our memories. The future does not lie in our memories, but all human pasts and futures are in God's guardianship (hifz). This, again, is like observing a human life as if it were in a film, already wholly depicted and complete. One cannot advance the film and sees his life as the frames pass, one by one. He is mistaken in thinking that the frames he has not yet seen constitute the future. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.144)

 … Anyone who believes in destiny won't be troubled by or despair about things that happen to him. On the contrary, he will have the utmost trust and confidence in his submission to God…God determines the difficulties that human beings experience, together with their wealth and success. All these things are part of the destiny predetermined by our Lord to test not only human beings, but also all things animate and inanimate. The Sun, the Moon, mountains and trees have their destiny determined by God. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.150)

 … It is pointless to be fearful and worry about a life whose every moment has been lived, experienced and is still present in the awareness of God. … Actually, everyone is already in submission to God, created in subservience to Him. No matter whether he likes it or not, he lives subservient to the destiny God created for him… For a person who submits himself to God, knowing that there is nothing better for him than the destiny God created for him, there is nothing to fear or be anxious about. This person will make every effort, but knows that no matter what he does, he won't be able to change what is written in his destiny.

A believer will submit himself to the destiny God created. In the face of what happens to him, he will do his best to understand the purpose of these happenings, take precautions, and make an effort to change things for the better. But he will take comfort in his knowledge that all things come to be according to destiny, and that God had determined the most beneficial things in advance. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.152-153)

Aches and Pains, Too, Are the Interpretation

of Perceptions in Your Brain

The guards of a concentration camp capture Tom Hobbes. He is imprisoned there and made to work in the timber yard. In the virtual environment, he meets his mother's copy. Finding out that she suffers from terminal cancer, he forgets that what he sees here is a virtual reality and tries to help her.

The camp guards have wounded his friend Pinocchio. When Tom tells him his plans, the following conversation takes place:

Tom Hobbes  : How are you feeling?

Pinocchio       : If it ain't real, how come it hurt so much?

Tom Hobbes  : We have to get out of here… It's more complicated than that.

Pinocchio       : How's that?

Tom Hobbes  : I found my mother. She's here.

Pinocchio       : Your mother? Hobbes, I've met people here. People I know in the real world.

Tom Hobbes  : It's her.

Pinocchio       : No. It just looks like her. Everybody in the world has a copy here. That's how the whole thing is set up. But it is VC (virtual character) files not people.

Tom Hobbes  : She recognized me. She knows who I am.

Pinocchio       : She doesn't know. She is part of some game. She doesn't know what's happened to you. She thinks this is all real.

Tom Hobbes  : She's in pain. How different is that from what you feel?

At a later point in the series, the heroes find themselves wounded and in pain, even though in reality they are lying on beds. They think their pains are real, though actually they have been artificially induced.

Our books also explain that people believe they are interacting with real matter because of their feeling fierce pain, aches, fear, and the like. In truth, this is a mistake. Human beings are never interacting with real matter:

 When someone cuts her hand, the pain and wetness all form in the brain. Dreaming that she has cut her hand, that same person might experience the same sensations. Yet in her dream, she is simply seeing an illusion, and there is no real knife or bleeding wound. That being the case, our feelings of pain do not alter the fact that we see all our lives as images within our brains. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.184)

 All sensations—touch, pressure, hardness, pain, heat, cold, and wetness— also form in the human brain, in precisely the same way that visual images are formed. For instance, someone who gets off a bus and feels the cold metal of the door actually "feels" the cold metal in his brain. . . As we have already seen, the sense of touch occurs in a particular section of the brain, through nerve signals. For instance, it is not your fingers that do the feeling.

People accept this because it has been demonstrated scientifically. But when it comes to the bus hitting someone—in other words, when the sensation of touch is violent and more painful—they think that somehow, this fact no longer applies. However, pain or heavy blows are also perceived only in the brain. Someone hit by a bus feels all the violent pain of the event in his brain.

A person may dream of being hit by a bus, of opening his eyes in the hospital, being taken for an operation, the doctors talking, his family's anxious arrival at the hospital; and later, that his being crippled or suffering terrible pain. In his dream, he perceives all the images, sounds, feelings, and other aspects of the incident, very clearly and distinctly—all as natural and believable as in real life. At that moment, if the person were told it was only a dream, he wouldn't believe it. Yet all that he is seeing in his dream is only an illusion, and the bus, hospital and even his own body have no physical counterparts in the real world. Still, he feels as if his real body has been hit by a real bus. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.178)

 A sharp blow, violent slap, or the pain from a dog's bite are not evidence that you are dealing with matter. As we have seen, you can experience the same things in dreams, with no corresponding physical counterparts. Furthermore, the violence of any sensation does not alter the clearly proven scientific fact that the sensation in question occurs in the brain. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.180)

 Events that produce difficulties, worries and fear are illusions occurring in the brain. A person who sees these illusions for what they really are doesn't feel anxious because he finds himself in difficulties, nor does he complain about them. Even if he were confronted by an aggressive and dangerous enemy, he'd know that he is facing illusions in his brain and would not be overcome by fear or hopelessness. He knows that each one of these things is an apparition God formed, which He created for a purpose. No matter what he encounters, he is at peace in his trust and submission to God. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.119)

VANILLA SKY

This film portrays the confusion between a person's real life and his imagination. Both the characters in the movie and the viewer have trouble telling one from the other. David Aames, the lead character, has a life anyone could wish for. He runs a large publishing business inherited from his father, and the people in his environment admire his physical appearance, financial status and social circle.

But one day, a traffic accident leaves him with terrible facial injuries and from then on, his life disintegrates rapidly. His friends all desert him. Feeling particularly lonely and unhappy, he signs a contract with a firm that will "supply" him with "lucid dreams" for the rest of his life. He acquires an artificial life, taking place only in his mind, in which he can be the age he wants, have the looks and be with the people he wants. But as with dreams, he is misled to believe in this daydream's reality, remaining unaware that his experiences are all imaginary.

Dream or Real Life?

In dreams, you have no control over your experiences. Suddenly, during your sleep, you find yourself in the middle of them, without choosing the place, time, or storyline. Despite their surreal sense of logic and incomprehensible laws of nature, many dreams do not appear strange to you. In reality, you don't have the use of your hands or eyes; there is nothing to see or hold on to, but to you, everything is real, solid, and visible.

What, then, is the difference between a dream and the life we acknowledge as real? If you suggest that real life is continuous and dreams come in intervals, or that different cause-effect rules apply in dreams, these assertions are not all that relevant. Both lives take place in the brain. If we can live in an unreal world during a dream, then this should also be possible for the world we're in. There is no rational objection to the suggestion that when we wake from a dream, we begin a new and longer one called real life.

The main theme of Vanilla Sky is this same confusion, which every human can experience. In one of opening scenes, lead character David wakes up to his electronic alarm clock. Noticing that the time is 9:05 AM, he gets up, washes his face, picks out a stray hair from his head, then leaves in his car for work. Strangely, he sees the usually busy New York streets are deserted. Everything—buildings, cars—is in place, but no human being is to be seen anywhere. Just as the anxiety of this situation descend upon him, he wakes up again to his alarm clock. Everything he dreamed before, he experiences this time for real. He looks at the time, sees that it is 9:05, washes his face, looks at the mirror, and plucks out a strand of hair. Then he gets in his car to leave for work. This time, there are people on the street.

As you can see in the accompanying illustrations, it's possible for you to see yourself doing the same things in a dream as you do in real life, never suspecting that the experience is not a real.

Some passages from our books expand on this observation:

 In his dream, one can experience very realistic events. He can fall downstairs and break his leg, have a serious car accident, get stuck under a bus, or eat and feel satiated. Events similar to those experienced in daily life are experienced in dreams too, and their same persuasiveness rouses the same feelings in us.

A person who dreams of being knocked down by a bus can open his eyes in a hospital in his dream and realize he is disabled—but all this would still be a dream. He can also dream that after dying in a car crash, angels of death take his soul, and his life in the hereafter begins. This event will be experienced in the same manner as this life, which is a perception just like the dream.

In a dream, this person perceives very sharply the images, sounds, light, colors, and all other sensations pertaining to the event. These experiences are as natural as the ones in "real" life. The food he eats in his dream satisfies him even though it is merely a perception—because feeling satiated is also a perception. In reality, however, this person is lying in bed at that moment. There are no stairs, no traffic, no buses to consider, because the dreamer experiences perceptions and feelings that don't exist in the external world. The fact that in dreams, we experience events with no physical correlates clearly reveals that the "external world" consists of mere perceptions. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.236)

 Even if someone is attacked by a dog, that doesn't change the fact that he sees it all in his brain. In a dream, one could see the same incident with the same clarity and experience the same excitement and fear. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.180)

In another scene of Vanilla Sky, David relates to his friend Sofia how his dreams affect him:

David   : No, actually, I had a horrible dream… I went downstairs to the car, and my friend…had followed me there… She was upset... about—I don't know. Igot in the car and... she drove off a bridge...

Sofia              : I thought you were going straight to work...

David             : But I survived with my arm and my face reconstructed. And what's worse, is that I can't wake up... My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams, I'm an idiot, who knows he's about to wake up to reality. If I could only avoid sleep. But I can't... It never works.

Why can confusion occur between reality and dream? The main reason is that both experiences take place in the mind. As we mentioned throughout this book, what we call real life is nothing but electrical signals affecting the brain. What we experience as very real can't be taken as evidence; because we are always interacting with the interpretations of perceptions in our brains. We can never be sure whether our perceptions have any material counterparts in the external world.

 An example will further illuminate the subject. Let's say that we see the dream inside our brain, in accord with what's been said so far. In dreams, we have an imaginary body, imaginary arm, imaginary eye, and an imaginary brain as well. If during the dream, we were asked, "Where do you see?," we'd answer, "I see in my brain." Yet actually there is no brain to talk about, only an imaginary head and imaginary brain. The seer of the images is not the imaginary dream brain, but a "being" that is far superior to it.

There is no physical distinction between a dream setting and the setting we call real life. So, in what we call real life, when we're asked, "Where do you see?" it would be just as meaningless to answer, "In my brain." In either case, the entity who sees and perceives is not the brain—which, after all, is only a chunk of tissue.

When a brain is analyzed, it is seen to consist of nothing but lipid and protein molecules, which also exist in other living organisms. Within what we call our "brain"; there is nothing to observe the images, to constitute consciousness, or to create the being we call "myself." (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, pp.226-227)

In the following scene, David's doctor asks him whether he can distinguish between reality and dream. At first, David is adamant that he can. But the more he tries to remember his past memories, the less certain he becomes, until he admits that he can't. (Even better, when this conversation takes place, David is actually living in an imaginary world specially created for him!)

Doctor           : Who is the man in the restaurant? Who is it?

David             : I can't…

Doctor           : Can you tell the difference between dreams and reality?

David             : Of course. Can you?

Doctor           : Think with your head. You signed a contract... did you not?

David             : I signed something.

Doctor           : Was the man in the restaurant there? Accept your body's resistance. Let your head answer.

David             : Yes—that's right. (The paper he signed and the technician suddenly come to mind)

Doctor           : Who is Ellie?

David             : I don't know what's real.

This scene is thought-provoking. It's possible to be fooled by a vision's realism and take an imaginary world for real. David, living within artificially induced dreams, genuinely believes in the reality of his past experiences. The same is true for many people's present lives. No matter how adamant people are that the images, voices or feelings they interact with are real, these are only copies existing in the mind—in other words, imaginary copies of things they can never actually reach.

Below are two explanations from our other books, along the line that we've set forth in this one:

 ... It's very easy to be deceived that perceptions with no material correlates are real. Often in our dreams we experience events, see people, objects and settings that seem completely real. But they are all nothing but mere perceptions. There is no basic difference between the dream and the "real" world; both are experienced in the brain. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, p.226)

 As a result of artificial stimulations, a physical world seemingly as true and realistic as the real, physical one can be formed in our brain. As a result of artificial stimulations, a person may think that he is driving his car, while he is actually sitting at home. (The Evolution Deceit, Second edition, p.223)

Never Forget That You Are the Spectator of

A World You Cannot Reach

Lift your head and look around the room you're in. You feel that you're occupying a certain space in a room outside of you. You are certain that the floor is under your feet, sure that the space around you is filled with air. But this realistic perception misleads you, as it does millions of others, because it is so perfectly concise and three-dimensional.

In reality, your family, home, school, and workplace are all created for you in your mind. The Sun, Moon and stars orbit inside you. In short, you are not in the world, but the world is inside of you.

For a better understanding of this subject, the imaginary world the film calls "lucid dream" can be an eye-opening example. The following paragraph contains an introductory message from the company offering an imaginary world in the form of dreams. Even though these claims are taken from the film, recent advances in technology make them real. For willing candidates, present-day means can create a virtual environment and its illusion of reality.

Advertising Voice-Over       : Ihave a universe inside me. Portrait of a modern human life. American, male... birth and death… continue your own life as you know it now... You will continue in an ageless state . . . preserved, but living in the present... with a future of your choosing. Your life will continue as a realistic work of art . . . painted by you, minute to minute . . . and you'll live it with the romantic abandon of a summer day with the feeling of a great movie or a pop song you always loved, with no memory of how it all occurred . . . save for the knowledge . . . that everything simply improved. In any instance of discontent . . . you'll be visited by technical support. The day after tomorrow, another chapter begins seamlessly. A living dream.

Woman                   : A living dream. The dream of peace. . . the dream of achievement . . . The dream of hearing someone say these words . . . When they really, truly mean them . . . This is a revolution of the mind.

As we've seen, David signs a contract that guarantees him a real quality dream world in which he'll be happy. But one requirement of this dream world is that he won't remember the contract he signed. Consequently, he's led to believe that his happiness is real. However, the reality is different: His body is kept in a dedicated environment where he is shown the realistic visions he so desires.

In one scene, a technical problem forces one of the company's employees to reveal the true state of affairs. David's reaction is explosive—he doesn't want to acknowledge that he's been living in a dream world. The company employee has no other choice but to freeze the images in this virtual reality environment, thereby proving their total control over the visions shown to David.

Technician      : Problems?

David             : I'm in no mood to be messed with, so do yourself a favor—

Technician      : There's an explanation for all this, David… You and I know each other. You found me on the Internet. I'm here to help you, David.

David             : Who are you? Why are you following me?

Technician      : First of all, it's very important that you calm down.

David             : Calm down?

Technician      : Calm down. You must overcome your fears and regain control.

David             : Look, I'm fine. Okay?

Technician      : David, look at all these people. Seems as though they're just all chatting away, doesn't it?

David             : Yeah.

Technician      : Nothing to do with you.

David             : No.

Technician      : And yet... maybe they're only here because you wanted them to be here. You can make them obey you or even destroy you.

David             : Well, what I'd love for them to do is shut up. Especially you.

Technician      : You see? You and I signed a contract, David…

David             : What happened in my real life? Something happened.

Technician      : Do you really want to know?

David             : Tell me everything. . . So all I have to do is imagine something. Like, if I wanted McCabe (the doctor) to come back right now?

It's of utmost importance to understand this reality, because people who become aware of this secret behind matter will enjoy a very different frame of mind. With the realization of matter's true nature, people will easily understand where God is, the existence of paradise and hell, the nature of the soul, life after death, and infinity. Take, for instance, anyone who previously held a materialistic worldview or was raised under its influence and couldn't comprehend these matters. Realizing that matter is perceived as an illusion, he will clearly see that God is the only absolute being.

As a consequence, he'll realize the pointlessness of cravings, passions and everything else one selfishly desires. Vanity and pride will give way to modesty and mildness; tightfistedness and egotism will be replaced with helpfulness and selflessness; distrust and depression with contentment and inner peace. Anyone who understands that matter is an illusion and that we live in a world on the level of feeling and perception God created, is freed from struggling amid events and people. He'll know that every good and every evil is from God and, therefore, will seek God's help in everything he undertakes and pray only to Him. He doesn't value that all the things people crave, such as status, wealth, luxurious cars and designer clothes, because he knows they're only illusions God created for the purpose of testing people.

Also, anyone who realizes that matter and space are illusory is freed from the fear of anything and anyone besides God. He is aware that God created everything he perceives, and that unless He wills it, nothing can harm him in any way. When people realize that those they look up to are actually shadow beings, they'll believe in God without ascribing to Him any partners or associates. They won't be led astray by the illusionary enjoyment of life and will strive to win God's approval.

In our books, we've written extensively about how realizing matter's illusionary nature improves people's frame of mind:

 Certainly God, the Absolute Being, knows every aspect of the human beings whom He has created. This is a very simple thing for God. But some, in their ignorance, may find this hard to understand. However, we observe the impressions that we think belong to the "external world." As we lead our lives, the closest being to us is no illusion, but clearly God. In this fact is hidden the secret of the verse, "We created man and We know what his own self whispers to him. We are nearer to him than his jugular vein." (Qur'an, 50: 16) As long as a person thinks his body is composed of matter, he cannot conceive of this important reality; again because he thinks his body is the nearest thing to him. For example, if he conceives of his existence as being his brain, he doesn't admit the possibility that there is a Being even closer to him. But when he realizes that everything is a facsimile experienced in his mind, then such concepts as "outside," "inside," "far and near" have no meaning. His jugular vein, brain, hands, feet, his house and his car—which he thought to be outside himself; even the Sun, the Moon and the stars that he thought were so far away—are all on the same plane. God has encompassed him all around and is eternally near him. .... (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.97)

 … That everything is an image is a very important implication that renders all lusts and boundaries meaningless. Verifying this makes it clear that everything people toil to possess—their wealth accumulated with greed, their children whom they boast of, their spouses whom they consider closest to them, their dearest friends, their superior rank, the schools they have attended, the holidays they enjoy—have been nothing but mere illusion. Therefore, all their efforts, time spent, and greed felt prove unavailing.

This is why some people make unwitting fools of themselves by boasting of their wealth and the yachts, helicopters, factories, manors and lands they hold—as if they ever really existed.

In fact, these are scenes seen many times in dreams, as well. In dreams, they also own houses, fast cars, precious jewels, rolls of banknotes, and loads of gold and silver. In their dreams also, they are positioned in high rank, own factories with thousands of workers, possess power over many, wear clothes that excite everyone's admiration… Just as boasting about one's possessions in a dream brings him ridicule, he is equally sure to be ridiculed for boasting of the images he sees in this world. After all, what he sees in dreams and in this world are both merely images in his mind. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, pp.232-233)

 Everything a person owns—a large holding company, and houses, the latest model cars, and employees who show him respectful deference—are impressions in his brain. The esteem he enjoys is also in his brain. What he considers serious and important—the work to which he devotes a large amount of time, his meetings with colleagues, the decisions he makes—are all impressions occurring in his brain.

A person who counts his money with great satisfaction is actually counting it in his brain. He doesn't realize that the yacht he sails with so much pride and ostentation, and the people he tries to impress, are all impressions formed in his brain. Were he told the truth, he would forcefully reject it, in order not to lose all the things he owns and the esteem he enjoys. But while dreaming that he owns all these things, he never doubts their reality. In his dream, he would not accept that he isn't these things' real owner. But when he woke, he would grasp that it was all a fantasy. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.110-111)

TOTAL RECALL

In the events of this film, as in Vanilla Sky, neither the lead character nor the viewer knows reality from illusion. Douglas Quaid is—in the life we presume to be his real one—a builder whose biggest dream is to go to Mars.

The film portrays a future era where life on Mars is not only possible, but where terrorist attacks take place. Velos Cohageen, governor of the planet, states that he is open to any offers of cooperation in order to end the rebellion. Douglas daydreams about going to Mars and resolving the conflict, but his wife is against this idea. Finally he applies to a company named Recall, which markets realistic virtual holidays. The company offers tailor-made holidays, where—like a real holiday—the customer can specify every detail of his trip, supposedly no different from the real experience, but significantly cheaper. Customers even have the option of "traveling" as a different person.

In return for a fee, Douglas agrees to have 15 days' worth of memories as a secret service agent on Mars transferred to his mind, while his body rests on a chair. During transfer, a problem occurs and it is discovered that the data downloaded into his mind was tampered with beforehand. Our hero begins to consider himself a secret agent, on duty on Mars—in the life we presume to be his real one.

Throughout the film, never does it become exactly clear which of Douglas Quaid's memories are real and which are artificially created. In many sequences of the film, the inseparability of illusion and reality is frequently brought to our attention.

Someone Traveling in Reality,

Actually Covers the Miles in His Mind

Throughout this book, we have pointed out various examples of how matter—our bodies, objects around us, the ground we stand on, the Sun, stars, and planets—is a perception. If you look into the sky, you see the Sun far away. In reality, the Sun is merely a vision formed within the darkness of your skull. Likewise the planets we think to be millions of miles away are actually perceptions in our the brain's visual center— in other words, they are not far away, but inside us.

In Total Recall, a travel agency supplies customers with artificially created experiences, indistinguishable from real ones. People can experience distant places as if they were really there, believing they're on holiday by means of data transferred to their minds.

The TV ad for the Recall travel agency is recaptured below:

Advertisement         :Would you like to ski in the Antarctic, but you are snowed-under with work? Do you dream of a vacation at the bottom of the ocean, but you can't float the bill? Have you always wanted to climb the mountains of Mars, but now you are over the hill? Then come to RECALL, where you can buy the memory of your ideal vacation cheaper and better than the real thing. So don't let your life pass you by. Call Recall, for the memory of a lifetime.

After seeing the TV ad, Douglas Quaid calls up Recall to find out if he can realize his dream of going to Mars and speaks to a company representative named Bob McClane. In the following dialogue, they agree on the details of his virtual holiday:

McClane         : Okay, you're the boss. Mars it is.... Let's see... The basic Mars package will run you just eight hundred and ninety-nine credits. That's for two full weeks of memories, complete in every detail…

Douglas Quaid          : What's in the two week package?

McClane         : First of all, Doug, when you go Recall, you get nothing but first class memories: private cabin on the shuttle; deluxe suite at the Hilton; plus all the major sights: Mount Pyramid, the Grand Canals…

Douglas Quaid          : How real does it seem?

McClane         : As real as any memory in your head.

Douglas Quaid          : Come on, don't go kidding me.

McClane         : I'm telling you, Doug, your brain won't know the difference. Guaranteed...

Along with the features of the environment, Douglas can also choose the details of his virtual personality. Learning this, he chooses to be a secret agent during his stay on Mars.

Dr. Lull  : Would you like us to integrate some alien stuff?

Douglas Quaid          : Sure, why not?... I've just always been fascinated by Mars.

Assistant        : All systems go.

Dr. Lull  : Ready for dreamland?

As these examples show, there is technically no difference between one's real-life experiences and those in a dream or artificially created environment. We see them all in our brains. Planets we believe to be far away, the world we consider to be huge are in reality the sum total of our perceptions. Some examples from our books on the subject:

 Another point to be considered is the sense of distance. The space between you and these pages is only a sensation of emptiness formed in your brain. Objects seemingly distant also exist in the brain. For instance, someone assumes that stars in the sky are millions of light-years away. Yet the stars he "sees" are really inside himself, in his visual center. (The Evolution Deceit, 7th edition, pp.222-223)

 Everything that we see, hear and feel in our life occurs within the brain. For example, someone sitting on an armchair feels the hardness of the armchair and the fabric's slipperiness in his brain. The smell of coffee occurs in the mind, not in the kitchen some distance away. The view of the sea, birds, and trees he sees through the window are all images formed in the brain. The friend serving the coffee and its taste also exist in the brain. In short, someone sitting in his living room and looking out of the window is in reality seeing his living room and the view on a screen in his brain. What a human being might refer to as "my life" is a collection of all perceptions being put together in a meaningful way and watched from a screen in the brain—and one can never leave one's own brain. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.45-46)

Virtual Worlds in our Brains

It is no longer anything special for people to experience non-existent environments with the aid of computers and simulators that can create realistic 3-D images. High-tech industries are manufacturing a number of devices for entertainment and education. Many use special software, capable of creating 3-D images in their users' brains, which give a real-life feel to the virtual environment by stimulating some, or all of the user's five senses.

Everyone from astronauts in NASA to architects, pilots to engineers, are all using simulators in a 3-D environment. For instance, a pilot cannot distinguish climatic conditions created in a flight-training simulator from the same real-life conditions. Many science-fiction movies deal with the human perception of life and its similarity to virtual reality worlds. In this film, a highly developed application of this technology is used for entertainment. Those on a virtual holiday can go anywhere they like, spending as much time as they like with whomever they want.

In Total Recall, during the data transfer process of a 15-day Martian holiday and the loading of the personality details, the unexpected occurs. Douglas Quaid begins talking about Mars before the data has been transferred successfully. Now he considers himself to be someone else, even in real life. In this part of the film, Douglas is on the travel agent's premises, but believes himself to be an agent on the run.

Dr. Lull  : We hit a memory cap.

Douglas Quaid           : They'll kill you all!

McClane         : What's he talking about?

Douglas Quaid          : My name's not Quaid.

Dr. Lull  : Listen to me! He's been going on and on about Mars. He's really been there.

McClane         : He's acting out the secret agent role from his Ego Trip!

Douglas believes that the data transferred to him is real. His believing a virtual world to be real is comparable to those who believe that they are interacting with matter itself and therefore crave material worldly things. In reality, no one setting out from the images and perceptions copied in his mind can prove that his experiences are real, in a material world existing outside of him. The following are quotations from our books:

 … Take a look at the room in which you are sitting. You see not the room outside of you, but a copy of the room existing in your brain. With your sense organs, you'll never be able to see the original room. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.24)

 … This is not a philosophical speculation, but an empirical fact proven by modern science. Today, when asked how and where we see the world, any scientist specializing in medicine, biology, neurology or any field related to brain research would say that we view the whole world in the visual center located in our brains. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.10)

The Data in Our Memory are

Memories of Our Illusions

You could say that a person's past consists of information stored in his memory. If it were erased, there would be nothing left of his past. The future, on the other hand, is made up of people's speculations. People think about the future and make plans for it. But were you to take away their thoughts, there would be no future either. Take away someone's past and future thoughts, and he has only the present moment.

In Total Recall, it becomes evident that the hero's memory has been tampered with. As a consequence, he perceives time and his environment in a different way. After some of Douglas's previously erased memories return to him, his life changes. He is followed by his enemies, who even make attempts on his life, but it isn't clear if their attacks are real or whether they belong to the imaginary world implanted into his mind.

In some of the film's later scenes, Douglas escapes his pursuers and comes home. After he relates his experiences to his wife, she tries to persuade him that they weren't real.

Lori                : Take it easy. Tell me exactly what happened? Why would "spies" want to kill you?

Douglas Quaid          : I don't know! It had something to do with Mars.

Lori                : Mars? You've never even been to Mars.

Douglas Quaid          : I know it sounds crazy, but I went to this Recall place after work, and...

Lori                : You went to those brain butchers?! What did they do to you? Tell me!

Douglas Quaid          : I got a trip to Mars... Forget Recall, will you! These men were going to kill me...

Lori                : Doug, nobody tried to kill you.

Douglas Quaid          :They did! But I killed them!

Lori                : Sweetheart, listen to me. Those people at Recall have messed up your mind, and you're having paranoid delusions.

Douglas Quaid          : (Holding up his hands, which are covered with blood). You call this a paranoid delusion?!

Douglas suspects his wife is part of some sort of conspiracy and pressurizes her to tell the truth. As the following scenes reveal, we understand that Douglas had been living out an imaginary identity in the life that we, the audience, presumed to be his real one. In reality, Douglas is someone else. But thanks to the data transferred to his mind, he thinks that he is a builder married for eight years. His wife, his friend—in short, his life—all is artificial information put in his memory, and until now, Douglas has lived believing it's all true.

Douglas Quaid          : I said TALK!!

Lori                : I'm not your wife.

Douglas Quaid          : You're not.

Lori                : I never saw you before six weeks ago! Our marriage is just a memory implant.

Douglas Quaid          : Remember our wedding?

Lori                : It was implanted by the Agency.

Douglas Quaid          : Our friends, my job, eight years together, I suppose all this was implanted too?

Lori                : The job's real. But the Agency set it up. They erased your identity and implanted a new one. I was written in as your wife so I could watch you, make sure the erasure took. — Sorry, Quaid. Your whole life is just a dream.

Douglas Quaid          : O.K. then. If I'm not me, then who am I?

Lori                : Beats me. I just work here.

This forces us to wonder: Do we act on the presumption that the information in our memories reflects the truth? Without the information in our memories, on the other hand, we cannot know anything. Some quotes on the subject from our books:

 The past is composed of information given to a person's memory. If a memory is erased, her past is also. The future is composed of ideas. Without them, only the present moment of experience remains. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.132)

 In brief, time comes about as a result of comparing a number of illusions stored in the brain. If man had no memory, his brain would not have made such interpretations; therefore, he would never have formed any perception of time. One determines himself to be thirty years old only because he has accumulated in his mind information pertaining to those thirty years. If his memory did not exist, he could not think of any preceding time, and would only experience the single "moment" he was living in. (Timelessness and the Reality of Fate, p.61)

You Can't Take Your Sense of Touch as

Evidence that You've Reached Matter Itself

From both a scientific and logical point of view, there's no difference between images in your dreams at night and those you see on awakening. While you are dreaming, if someone came into your dream to say, "Don't worry, you're dreaming. None of this is real. Right now, you are in your bed, watching images forming in your brain," you would not want to believe him, because the feelings you have are so realistic.

There is a similar situation in the film. Someone claiming to be a consultant in the virtual holiday company Recall, visits Douglas in his hotel room on Mars to tell him nothing he is experiencing is real. Also, he says, in reality Quaid is still on the Recall's premises, not here. But Douglas is convinced that his experiences are real and cannot accept that it can all be an illusion:

Douglas Quaid          : What do you want?

Dr. Edgemar   : This is going to be very difficult for you at accept, Mr. Quaid.

Douglas Quaid          : I'm listening.

Dr. Edgemar   : I'm afraid you're not really standing here right now.

Douglas Quaid          : Ya know, Doc, you could have fooled me.

Dr. Edgemar   : I'm quite serious. You're not here, and neither am I.

Douglas Quaid          : Amazing. (Quaid squeezes Edgemar's shoulder, verifying its solidity) Amazing. Where are we?

Dr. Edgemar   : At Recall. You're strapped into an implant chair, and I'm monitoring you at a psycho-probe console.

Douglas Quaid          : Oh, I get it; I'm dreaming! And this is all part of that delightful vacation your company sold me.

Dr. Edgemar   : Not exactly. What you're experiencing is a free-form delusion based on our memory tapes. But you're inventing it yourself as you go along.

Douglas Quaid          : Well, if this is my delusion, who invited you?

Dr. Edgemar   : I've been artificially implanted as an emergency measure. I'm sorry to tell you this. Mr Quaid, but you've suffered a schizoid embolism. We can't snap you out of your fantasy. I've been sent in to try to talk you down.

Douglas Quaid          : How much is Cohaagen paying you for this?

Dr. Edgemar   : Think about it. Your dream started in the middle of the implant procedure. Everything after that—the chases, the trip to Mars, your suite here at the Hilton—these are all elements of your Recall Holiday. And Ego Trip: You paid to be a secret agent.

Douglas Quaid          : No, It's all coincidence.

(Dr. .Edgemar reminds him that he chose the person whom he wanted to be his friend in Mars.)

Douglas Quaid          : She's real. I dreamed about her before I even went to Recall.

Dr. Edgemar   : Mr. Quaid, can you hear yourself? "She's real because you dreamed her?"

Douglas Quaid          : That's right.

As we have seen, Douglas tries to prove the reality of what he sees by touching the company representative on the shoulder. But like all our other senses, touch is part of what we experience in our brain. When Douglas sees himself reaching out to the person in front of him and feels the firmness of his shoulder, all these are interpretations taking place in his mind. Just as when someone touches a person's shoulder in a dream, touching is no proof of dealing with matter itself. Anyone seeking such evidence can have no proof other than his own illusions. Below are some of our explanations for this:

 Someone who dreams he is dealing with the material world can be very sure of himself. If a friend tells him, "Matter is an image. It isn't possible to deal with the original of the world," he can then ask, "Am I an image now? Don't you feel my hand on your shoulder? If so, how can you be an image? What makes you think in this way? Explain to me why you believe this." In his deep sleep, the dream he sees is so clear. But suppose his ringing alarm clock wakes him just when he's getting ready to tell his friend that what he's living at that moment can't be a dream. Wouldn't he object in the same manner regardless of whether he was asleep or awake? (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.63)

 Some accept that images occur in the brain, yet they claim that the images' originals are external. But they can never prove this, because nobody can move out of the perceptions that exist in the brain.

Everybody lives in the chamber that is in the brain, and no one can experience anything except what his perceptions show. Consequently, one can never know what happens outside of his perceptions. . . .

An observer will always deal with the images formed in his brain. Consequently, people can never reach the "material equivalents" that they suppose to exist.

. . . Scientific or technological developments cannot change anything, because every such invention occurs in people's minds and consequently, is of no help to them in reaching the outside world. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.48)

Hologram Images Identical to the Originals

More than once, scientists have proven a virtual world can be created in the brain without any need for an external world. With every passing day, it becomes easier to encode the world into electrical signals that people can experience as realistic effects. For example, computer simulations can create 3-D images identical to their originals. Encountering these images, people react in the same way as they do to their originals.

In one scene of the film, hologram technology points out the similarities between the original and the copied images. The wristwatch-like device that Douglas puts on creates holographic images of his body. His enemies, who are constantly trying to capture him, never succeed because they are pursuing copied images.

Adam            :He's got a hologram.

Douglas Quaid       :You think this is the real Quaid? Well it is.

Have You Ever Thought that One Day,

You Could Wake Up from This Life as

You Do from Dreams?

Dreaming is a product of the brain and its activity, like all other mental processes. Whether asleep or awake, the brain is always active, always giving off electrical waves. During REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep when most dreams occur, the pathways that carry nerve impulses from the brain to the muscles are blocked. During dreams, therefore, the body cannot move. Essentially, though, asleep or awake, it is all the same. For instance, when you look at yourself in a dream as you would now, you see a body, complete with arms and legs, that walks and breathes. You can be led to believe that you are living a real life.

In reality, the virtual body in dreams is composed of perceptions in your mind, even though they feel "outside" of your mind. In other words, dreams are the sum total of the interpretation of stimuli reaching the relevant areas of the brain, just as when we are awake.

As examples throughout this book show, events in a dream can be so realistic that on waking, you need have to ask yourself whether it was a dream or reality. Technically, there is no difference between the two. Dreaming, you can do anything you could when awake—talk, eat, breathe, run, laugh, cry, get injured, or drive. Dreams often copy our everyday lives, making everything in the dream seem familiar. This is why we react to dream encounters as if they were real. Sometimes we awaken with a scream; other times, we wish we could never wake up.

In the following dialogue, Douglas reflects on the possibility that everything he experienced might have been a dream.

Melina            : I can't believe it... It's like a dream.

Douglas Quaid          : I just had a terrible thought...What is this—all a dream?

 A person can vividly experience all five senses without the presence of outside stimuli. Dreams are the most obvious example of this...

Even though a person has his eyes closed while dreaming, he senses many things he does in real life, so realistically that he can't distinguish dreams from real-life experience. Everyone reading this book can often bear witness to this. For example, while asleep in a calm, quiet atmosphere, you might dream of being in danger. Experiencing the event as real, you flee in desperation and hide behind a wall. Moreover, the images are so realistic that you feel fear as if you were in real danger. Your heart in your mouth, you shake with fear, your heart beats fast, and you demonstrate other physical effects that the body undergoes in dangerous situations. However, there is no external equivalent to this dream's events. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, pp.61-62)

 You might be observing your life from somewhere else, just as you do when observing your dreams...

A person dreaming of drinking coffee can feel the exact taste of the coffee, when there is nothing there. If someone were to tell him he is only dreaming, the person would reject the idea that there is no coffee. How, he might ask, could it be just a vision when he feels the heat of the coffee on his tongue? How it could remove his thirst if it wasn't real? Only after awakening does he understand that the coffee he thinks he drank was just an image formed in his brain; and that perceptions such as warmth and thirst, which he felt while drinking the coffee, were also formed in his brain.

Our experiences in dreams and in the real world are based on the same logic. We experience both in our minds. The only reason we believe that our dreams are imaginary is that on awakening, we find ourselves in bed, and so believe that we were actually sleeping and saw everything in our dreams. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.67)

THE SIMILARITY OF OUR DREAMS AND REAL LIVES IN THE WORLD OF MUSIC

For her show accompanying her 2001 gig in Las Vegas, pop star Britney Spears chose a really thought-provoking theme. Throughout the show, but especially in the opening, scenes suggested that everything, even the concert her fans were watching, happens only in the mind.

The theme of her show was the provocative thought that what we deem to be reality could very well be only an illusion. As an example from one scene, she dreamed of giving a concert in front of a huge crowd—but then, this also could have been a dream within a dream.

It was all in your mind...

Is all I see or seeing but a dream within a dream?

Have you ever had a dream that felt so real?

You could barely tell the difference between the real world and the dream world?

Which world are you in now?

Last night I dreamt of this very moment.

And I was here with all of you.

Now my dreams come true

It was all in your mind.

These expressions remind us to question the reality of the world we live in. We don't suppose that places and events in our dreams exist somewhere as material counterparts in another dimension, because we know that when we experienced these realistic events, we were fast asleep in our beds. Likewise, we can't claim that we are experiencing and interacting with what we call real life. Just as with our dreams, we don't require objects in the external world—and the body that perceives them—to be the source for our experiences. Even if there were a material world out there, still we are regarding an illusionary world of replica images.

 In your dreams, you see yourself in a wholly imaginary world. There is no reality whatsoever to the objects or people you see around yourself. Everything—the ground you walk on, the sky above, trees, cars—all is just imagination, with no material reality. All is inside your brain, or better, inside of your mind and nowhere else. (Little Man in the Tower, p.28)

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF MATTER

Do We Live in a Holographic Universe?

New Scientist is one of the best-known science magazines. Its March 27, 2002 cover story was written by scientist J.R. Minkel, titled "Hollow Universe." "Why we all live in a hologram" the cover headline reported. To sum up the article, we perceive the world as a single bundle of light. Therefore, it would be a mistake to consider matter as the absolute truth by relying on our perceptions. Admits Minkel:

You're holding a magazine. It feels solid; it seems to have some kind of independent existence in space. Ditto the objects around you—perhaps a cup of coffee, a computer. They all seem real and out there somewhere. But it's all an illusion.

Minkel's article states that some scientists call this idea the "theory of everything," and that scientists consider this theory the first step towards explaining the nature of the universe. This magazine article explains scientifically that we perceive the universe as an illusion in our brains and that, therefore, we are not interacting with matter itself.

Perceptions Lost to the Senses,

Recovered with Artificial Signals

In its March 11, 2002 issue, Time magazine published an article entitled "The Body Electric," revealing an important scientific development. The article reported that scientists melded computer chips with patients' nervous systems to treat permanent damage to their senses.

With their newly developed systems, researchers in the USA, Europe and Japan aimed to give sight to the blind and help paralyzed patients recover. They have already achieved partial success with this new system by planting electrodes into the relevant areas of the body, and silicon chips were used to connect artificial limbs with living tissue.

Following an accident, a Danish patient by the name of Brian Holgersen was paralyzed from the neck down, except for very limited movement in his shoulders, left arm and left hand. As is known, such paralysis is caused by damage to the spinal cord in the neck and back. The nerves are damaged or blocked, disabling neural traffic between brain and muscles, and cutting off communication between the nerves that transmit signals back and forth from the body to the brain. With this patient, the aim was to bridge his spinal cord's damaged area with an implant, letting signals from the brain bring back a little movement to the arms and legs.

They used a system designed to recover basic functions of the left hand, like grasping, holding and releasing objects. In an operation, eight small coin-sized flexible cuff electrodes were implanted into the muscles responsible for those movements in the patient's upper left arm, forearm and shoulder. Later, ultrathin wires connected these electrodes to a stimulator—a kind of pacemaker for the nervous system— implanted in his chest. The stimulator was in turn linked to a position-sensing unit attached to Holgersen's right shoulder—over which he retains some motor control.

Now, when the patient wants to pick up a glass, he moves his right shoulder upward. This movement sends an electrical signal from the position sensor, worn under his clothing, to the stimulator in his chest, which amplifies it and passes it along to appropriate muscles in his arm and hand. They contract in response, and his left hand closes. When he wants to release the glass, he moves his right shoulder downward, and his left hand opens.

The University of Louvain in Brussels used a similar application of technology in relation to eyesight. A patient's rod and cone cells had degenerated, causing the retina to become insensitive to light. Consequently, she became blind. An electrode implanted around her right optic nerve enabled her to regain partial sight.

In this patient's case, the electrode was connected to a stimulator placed inside a cavity in the skull. A video camera, worn on a cap, transmitted the images to the stimulator in the form of radio signals, bypassing the damaged rod and cone cells, and delivered the electric signals directly to the optic nerve. The brain's visual cortex reassembled these signals to form an image. The patient's experience is comparable to watching a miniature stadium billboard, but the quality is nevertheless sufficient to prove that this system is viable.

This system is called a "Microsystem-based Visual Prosthesis," a device permanently implanted into the patient's head. But to make it all work, the patient needs to go to a specially designated room in the University of Louvain and wear what looks like a badly damaged bathing cap. The bathing cap is made of plastic with a standard video camera installed on its front. The more pixels there are to form an image on the screen, the greater the number of electrical stimulations; therefore, the greater the resolution quality of the image.

The same article referred to an interesting show by a performance artist who made use of the same technology:

During one 1998 performance, Stelarc wired himself up directly to the Internet. His body was dotted with electrodes—on his deltoids, biceps, flexors, hamstrings and calf muscles—that delivered gentle electric shocks, just enough to nudge the muscles into involuntary contractions. The electrodes were connected to a computer, which was in turn linked via the Internet to computers in Paris, Helsinki and Amsterdam. By pressing various parts of a rendering of a human body on a touch screen, participants at all three sites could make Stelarc do whatever they wished.

These technologies, provided that they can be sufficiently reduced in size and placed inside the body, will pave the way for radically new developments in medicine. These developments demonstrate another important fact: The external world is a copied image that we watch in our minds…

The Time article showed practical examples of how we can create perceptions like sight or touch by artificially created impulses. The most obvious proof is that a blind person was able to see. Despite the patient's eye not being functional, she could see by means of artificially created signals.

Can the Virtual Worlds of Some Films

Be Duplicated in the Real World?

In "Life is a sim and then you're deleted," an article published in the July 27, 2002 issue of New Scientist magazine, Michael Brooks states that we might well be living in a virtual world not unlike the one in the film Matrix: "No need to wait for Matrix 2 to come out. You could already be living in a giant computer simulation... Of course you thought The Matrix was fiction. But only because you were meant to."

Author Brooks supports his views by quoting philosopher Nick Bostrom of Yale University, who believes that Hollywood movies come much closer to reality than we realize. He calculates, too, that there is some probability that we are living in a simulated or virtual world as some movies depict.

The scientific fact, much better understood in recent years, that we are not interacting with matter itself, causes people to reflect more deeply. This situation, the frequent inspiration for movies, points out that virtual environments recreate reality so realistically that people can be fooled by these illusionary images.

CONCLUSION: THE ONLY ABSOLUTE BEING IS GOD

As we've pointed out throughout this book with examples from films and developments in science and technology, this reality deepens people's world view and exerts a positive influence on their spirituality. It demonstrates that we live without interacting with matter itself and that we live out our lives as if we were watching a film on tape. It also proves that we are the spectators as well as the actors of this film.

Matter, whether we see it or not, exists outside us, but we will never be able to reach it. For us, therefore, it exists only as an illusion. To believe that we deal with real matter external to us, despite clear facts to the contrary, is a situation comparable to a film's or computer game's virtual characters believing that they're living in the real physical world. That approach would have you believe that people and objects in your dreams have their material originals.

So, what do the facts about matter show us? First of all, they should make us reflect on the following:

Who is the one who can see in utter darkness, without requiring an iris, pupil, retina, optic nerve and enjoy electrical signals as a colorful garden?

Who is the one who can hear inside the soundproof brain, without requiring an ear, and enjoy electrical signals as a beloved melody?

Who in the brain, can feel velvet without the need for muscles, a hand, or fingers?

Who experiences the sense of touch and coolness, measure, shape, depth and distance?

Who is inside the brain, which no smell can penetrate, distinguishing between the scents of flowers and the smells of his favorite meal?

Who watches the visions forming inside of his brain, as on a TV screen, and feels happiness, sadness, excitement, pleasure, worry or curiosity about what he sees? Whose is the consciousness that interprets all that he sees or feels? Who is this being who thinks, concludes, and decides?

Obviously, the being who perceives all this and forms the consciousness, cannot be the brain, consisting only of molecules of water, fats and proteins formed by unconscious atoms. Every person of common sense and conscience will realize straightaway that the soul, inside the brain, watches everything that happens through life. Every human being possesses a soul that can see without requiring an eye, can hear without needing an ear, and can think without a brain. The world of perceptions with which the soul interacts has been created, and continues to be created, in every moment by Almighty God.

If Everyone Knew That We are Interacting

With the Copy Images in Our Minds, What

Kind of Environment Would There Be?

Realizing that they are not interacting with matter itself, but with the visions God lets them watch, people will change their views on life, their values, and their entire lives. This change would be for the better on personal and social levels too, because anyone aware of this reality will adopt with no difficulty the noble character that God commands in the Qur'an.

People who do not crave the world, who realize that matter is only an illusion, know that man's most important possession is his spirituality. Anyone who is aware that God sees and hears him at all times, who knows he will be held accountable for all his actions in the hereafter, will naturally be of good character and abide strictly by God's commandments and prohibitions. In this way, everyone in society will respect one another and strive with each other in the race to do right. The values between people will change. Material things will lose their value. And thus the measures of superiority, instead of status and rank, will become good character and consciousness of God. Nobody will chase things that are actually illusions, and everybody will seek truth. People's actions will be based on what is pleasing to God, instead of other people's opinions. Pride, vanity and arrogance caused by wealth and property, rank and status will be replaced by modesty and the comprehension of one's shortcomings. Therefore, people will willingly live by the examples of good character given in the Qur'an. Quietly, naturally, these changes will cure many of the ills of the modern society.

People who get angry, flare up and become aggressive over even small matters will be replaced by those who know that everything they see is an illusion, and that reactions like anger, shouting and screaming are beneath them. Thus, societies will come to be dominated by peace and security; everybody will be happy with their lives and what they have. These are some of the benefits this reality, heretofore kept secret from people, will bring. They will find much more good when they know, ponder and live this truth. People who wish to have all this goodness must reflect on and try to understand this greater reality. In one of His verses, God says:

Clear insights have come to you from your Lord. Whoever sees clearly, does so to his own benefit. Whoever is blind, it is to his own detriment... (Qur'an, 6: 104)

Materialism, Like Every Other

False Philosophy, Has Been Destroyed

The philosophy of materialism has existed throughout history. Its adherents relied on the supposedly absolute existence of matter while denying God, Who has created them from nothing and also created for them the universe they live in. The clear evidence recounted in this book uproots their philosophy and leaves no room for discussion. Consequently, matter disappears—on which they based their lives and thoughts, pride and denial. By their own research, strangely enough, materialist scientists discovered that everything they see is not matter itself, but in reality a copy or image formed in the brain. And thus, they themselves brought down their materialist beliefs.

The twenty-first century is a turning point in history, in which this reality will spread among all peoples, and materialism will be wiped from the face of the Earth. Some, under the influence of the materialist philosophy, who believed that matter is absolute, now have come to realize that they themselves are illusions, that the only absolute being is God, Whose Being encompasses all there is. This reality is revealed in the verses:

God, there is no god but Him, the Living, the Self-Sustaining. He is not subject to drowsiness or sleep. Everything in the heavens and the Earth belongs to Him. Who can intercede with Him, except by His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them, but they cannot grasp any of His knowledge save what He wills. His Footstool encompasses the heavens and the Earth, and their preservation does not tire Him. He is the Most High, the Magnificent. (Qur'an, 2: 255)

God bears witness that there is no god but Him, as do the angels and the people of knowledge, upholding justice. There is no god but Him, the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Qur'an, 3: 18)

He is God. There is no god but Him. Praise be to Him in this world and the hereafter. Judgment belongs to Him. You will be returned to Him. (Qur'an, 28: 70)

THERE IS MATTER OUTSIDE OF US,

BUT WE CANNOT REACH IT

Throughout the book, we have pointed out the reality that we'll never be able to reach matter itself and that therefore, it will remain an illusion for us. However, saying that matter is an illusion does not mean it does not exist. Quiet the contrary: whether we perceive the physical world or not, it does exist. But we see it as a copy in our brain or, in other words, as an interpretation of our senses. For us, therefore, the physical world of matter is an illusion.

The matter outside is seen not just by us, but by other beings too. The angels God delegated to be watchers witness this world as well:

And the two recording angels are recording, sitting on the right and on the left. He does not utter a single word, without a watcher by him, pen in hand! (Qur'an, 50: 17-18)

Most importantly, God sees everything. He created this world with all its details and sees it in all its states. As He informs us in the Qur'an:

… Heed God and know that God sees what you do. (Qur'an, 2: 233)

Say: "God is a sufficient witness between me and you. He is certainly aware of and sees His servants." (Qur'an, 17: 96)

It must not be forgotten that God keeps the records of everything in the book called Lawh Mahfuz (Preserved Tablet). Even if we don't see all things, they are in the Lawh Mahfuz. God reveals that He keeps everything's record in the "Mother of the Book" called Lawh Mahfuz with the following verses:

It is in the Source Book with Us, high-exalted, full of wisdom. (Qur'an, 43: 4)

… We possess an all-preserving Book. (Qur'an, 50: 4)

Certainly there is no hidden thing in either heaven or Earth which is not in a Clear Book. (Qur'an, 27: 75)

THE DECEPTION OF EVOLUTION

D arwinism, in other words the theory of evolution, was put forward with the aim of denying the fact of creation, but is in truth nothing but failed, unscientific nonsense. This theory, which claims that life emerged by chance from inanimate matter, was invalidated by the scientific evidence of clear "design" in the universe and in living things. In this way, science confirmed the fact that God created the universe and the living things in it. The propaganda carried out today in order to keep the theory of evolution alive is based solely on the distortion of the scientific facts, biased interpretation, and lies and falsehoods disguised as science.

Yet this propaganda cannot conceal the truth. The fact that the theory of evolution is the greatest deception in the history of science has been expressed more and more in the scientific world over the last 20-30 years. Research carried out after the 1980s in particular has revealed that the claims of Darwinism are totally unfounded, something that has been stated by a large number of scientists. In the United States in particular, many scientists from such different fields as biology, biochemistry and paleontology recognize the invalidity of Darwinism and employ the concept of intelligent design to account for the origin of life. This "intelligent design" is a scientific expression of the fact that God created all living things.

We have examined the collapse of the theory of evolution and the proofs of creation in great scientific detail in many of our works, and are still continuing to do so. Given the enormous importance of this subject, it will be of great benefit to summarize it here.

The Scientific Collapse of Darwinism

Although this doctrine goes back as far as ancient Greece, the theory of evolution was advanced extensively in the nineteenth century. The most important development that made it the top topic of the world of science was Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, published in 1859. In this book, he denied that God created different living species on Earth separately, for he claimed that all living beings had a common ancestor and had diversified over time through small changes. Darwin's theory was not based on any concrete scientific finding; as he also accepted, it was just an "assumption." Moreover, as Darwin confessed in the long chapter of his book titled "Difficulties of the Theory," the theory failed in the face of many critical questions.

Darwin invested all of his hopes in new scientific discoveries, which he expected to solve these difficulties. However, contrary to his expectations, scientific findings expanded the dimensions of these difficulties. The defeat of Darwinism in the face of science can be reviewed under three basic topics:

1) The theory cannot explain how life originated on Earth.

2) No scientific finding shows that the "evolutionary mechanisms" proposed by the theory have any evolutionary power at all.

3) The fossil record proves the exact opposite of what the theory suggests.

In this section, we will examine these three basic points in general outlines:

The First Insurmountable Step:

The Origin of Life

The theory of evolution posits that all living species evolved from a single living cell that emerged on the primitive Earth 3.8 billion years ago. How a single cell could generate millions of complex living species and, if such an evolution really occurred, why traces of it cannot be observed in the fossil record are some of the questions that the theory cannot answer. However, first and foremost, we need to ask: How did this "first cell" originate?

Since the theory of evolution denies creation and any kind of supernatural intervention, it maintains that the "first cell" originated coincidentally within the laws of nature, without any design, plan or arrangement. According to the theory, inanimate matter must have produced a living cell as a result of coincidences. Such a claim, however, is inconsistent with the most unassailable rules of biology.

"Life Comes from Life"

In his book, Darwin never referred to the origin of life. The primitive understanding of science in his time rested on the assumption that living beings had a very simple structure. Since medieval times, spontaneous generation, which asserts that non-living materials came together to form living organisms, had been widely accepted. It was commonly believed that insects came into being from food leftovers, and mice from wheat. Interesting experiments were conducted to prove this theory. Some wheat was placed on a dirty piece of cloth, and it was believed that mice would originate from it after a while.

Similarly, maggots developing in rotting meat was assumed to be evidence of spontaneous generation. However, it was later understood that worms did not appear on meat spontaneously, but were carried there by flies in the form of larvae, invisible to the naked eye.

Even when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, the belief that bacteria could come into existence from non-living matter was widely accepted in the world of science.

However, five years after the publication of Darwin's book, Louis Pasteur announced his results after long studies and experiments, that disproved spontaneous generation, a cornerstone of Darwin's theory. In his triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said: "Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment."1

For a long time, advocates of the theory of evolution resisted these findings. However, as the development of science unraveled the complex structure of the cell of a living being, the idea that life could come into being coincidentally faced an even greater impasse.

Inconclusive Efforts in the

Twentieth Century

The first evolutionist who took up the subject of the origin of life in the twentieth century was the renowned Russian biologist Alexander Oparin. With various theses he advanced in the 1930s, he tried to prove that a living cell could originate by coincidence. These studies, however, were doomed to failure, and Oparin had to make the following confession:

Unfortunately, however, the problem of the origin of the cell is perhaps the most obscure point in the whole study of the evolution of organisms.2

Evolutionist followers of Oparin tried to carry out experiments to solve this problem. The best known experiment was carried out by the American chemist Stanley Miller in 1953. Combining the gases he alleged to have existed in the primordial Earth's atmosphere in an experiment set-up, and adding energy to the mixture, Miller synthesized several organic molecules (amino acids) present in the structure of proteins.

Barely a few years had passed before it was revealed that this experiment, which was then presented as an important step in the name of evolution, was invalid, for the atmosphere used in the experiment was very different from the real Earth conditions.3

After a long silence, Miller confessed that the atmosphere medium he used was unrealistic.4

All the evolutionists' efforts throughout the twentieth century to explain the origin of life ended in failure. The geochemist Jeffrey Bada, from the San Diego Scripps Institute accepts this fact in an article published in Earth magazine in 1998:

Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth?5

The Complex Structure of Life

The primary reason why the theory of evolution ended up in such a great impasse regarding the origin of life is that even those living organisms deemed to be the simplest have incredibly complex structures. The cell of a living thing is more complex than all of our man-made technological products. Today, even in the most developed laboratories of the world, a living cell cannot be produced by bringing organic chemicals together.

The conditions required for the formation of a cell are too great in quantity to be explained away by coincidences. The probability of proteins, the building blocks of a cell, being synthesized coincidentally, is 1 in 10950 for an average protein made up of 500 amino acids. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 over 1050 is considered to be impossible in practical terms.

The DNA molecule, which is located in the nucleus of a cell and which stores genetic information, is an incredible databank. If the information coded in DNA were written down, it would make a giant library consisting of an estimated 900 volumes of encyclopedias consisting of 500 pages each.

A very interesting dilemma emerges at this point: DNA can replicate itself only with the help of some specialized proteins (enzymes). However, the synthesis of these enzymes can be realized only by the information coded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. This brings the scenario that life originated by itself to a deadlock. Prof. Leslie Orgel, an evolutionist of repute from the University of San Diego, California, confesses this fact in the September 1994 issue of the Scientific American magazine:

It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.6

No doubt, if it is impossible for life to have originated from natural causes, then it has to be accepted that life was "created" in a supernatural way. This fact explicitly invalidates the theory of evolution, whose main purpose is to deny creation.

Imaginary Mechanisms of Evolution

The second important point that negates Darwin's theory is that both concepts put forward by the theory as "evolutionary mechanisms" were understood to have, in reality, no evolutionary power.

Darwin based his evolution allegation entirely on the mechanism of "natural selection." The importance he placed on this mechanism was evident in the name of his book: The Origin of Species, By Means of Natural Selection…

Natural selection holds that those living things that are stronger and more suited to the natural conditions of their habitats will survive in the struggle for life. For example, in a deer herd under the threat of attack by wild animals, those that can run faster will survive. Therefore, the deer herd will be comprised of faster and stronger individuals. However, unquestionably, this mechanism will not cause deer to evolve and transform themselves into another living species, for instance, horses.

Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no evolutionary power. Darwin was also aware of this fact and had to state this in his book The Origin of Species:

Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual differences or variations occur.7

Lamarck's Impact

So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin tried to answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive understanding of science at that time. According to the French biologist Chevalier de Lamarck (1744-1829), who lived before Darwin, living creatures passed on the traits they acquired during their lifetime to the next generation. He asserted that these traits, which accumulated from one generation to another, caused new species to be formed. For instance, he claimed that giraffes evolved from antelopes; as they struggled to eat the leaves of high trees, their necks were extended from generation to generation.

Darwin also gave similar examples. In his book The Origin of Species, for instance, he said that some bears going into water to find food transformed themselves into whales over time.8

However, the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel (1822-84) and verified by the science of genetics, which flourished in the twentieth century, utterly demolished the legend that acquired traits were passed on to subsequent generations. Thus, natural selection fell out of favor as an evolutionary mechanism.

Neo-Darwinism and Mutations

In order to find a solution, Darwinists advanced the "Modern Synthetic Theory," or as it is more commonly known, Neo-Darwinism, at the end of the 1930's. Neo-Darwinism added mutations, which are distortions formed in the genes of living beings due to such external factors as radiation or replication errors, as the "cause of favorable variations" in addition to natural mutation.

Today, the model that stands for evolution in the world is Neo-Darwinism. The theory maintains that millions of living beings formed as a result of a process whereby numerous complex organs of these organisms (e.g., ears, eyes, lungs, and wings) underwent "mutations," that is, genetic disorders. Yet, there is an outright scientific fact that totally undermines this theory: Mutations do not cause living beings to develop; on the contrary, they are always harmful.

The reason for this is very simple: DNA has a very complex structure, and random effects can only harm it. The American geneticist B.G. Ranganathan explains this as follows:

First, genuine mutations are very rare in nature. Secondly, most mutations are harmful since they are random, rather than orderly changes in the structure of genes; any random change in a highly ordered system will be for the worse, not for the better. For example, if an earthquake were to shake a highly ordered structure such as a building, there would be a random change in the framework of the building which, in all probability, would not be an improvement.9

Not surprisingly, no mutation example, which is useful, that is, which is observed to develop the genetic code, has been observed so far. All mutations have proved to be harmful. It was understood that mutation, which is presented as an "evolutionary mechanism," is actually a genetic occurrence that harms living things, and leaves them disabled. (The most common effect of mutation on human beings is cancer.) Of course, a destructive mechanism cannot be an "evolutionary mechanism." Natural selection, on the other hand, "can do nothing by itself," as Darwin also accepted. This fact shows us that there is no "evolutionary mechanism" in nature. Since no evolutionary mechanism exists, no such any imaginary process called "evolution" could have taken place.

The Fossil Record: No Sign of

Intermediate Forms

The clearest evidence that the scenario suggested by the theory of evolution did not take place is the fossil record.

According to this theory, every living species has sprung from a predecessor. A previously existing species turned into something else over time and all species have come into being in this way. In other words, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years.

Had this been the case, numerous intermediary species should have existed and lived within this long transformation period.

For instance, some half-fish/half-reptiles should have lived in the past which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile-birds, which acquired some bird traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already had. Since these would be in a transitional phase, they should be disabled, defective, crippled living beings. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms."

If such animals ever really existed, there should be millions and even billions of them in number and variety. More importantly, the remains of these strange creatures should be present in the fossil record. In The Origin of Species, Darwin explained:

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed.... Consequently, evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.10

Darwin's Hopes Shattered

However, although evolutionists have been making strenuous efforts to find fossils since the middle of the nineteenth century all over the world, no transitional forms have yet been uncovered. All of the fossils, contrary to the evolutionists' expectations, show that life appeared on Earth all of a sudden and fully-formed.

One famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact, even though he is an evolutionist:

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find – over and over again – not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.11

This means that in the fossil record, all living species suddenly emerge as fully formed, without any intermediate forms in between. This is just the opposite of Darwin's assumptions. Also, this is very strong evidence that all living things are created. The only explanation of a living species emerging suddenly and complete in every detail without any evolutionary ancestor is that it was created. This fact is admitted also by the widely known evolutionist biologist Douglas Futuyma:

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.12

Fossils show that living beings emerged fully developed and in a perfect state on the earth. That means that "the origin of species," contrary to Darwin's supposition, is not evolution, but creation.

The Tale of Human Evolution

The subject most often brought up by advocates of the theory of evolution is the subject of the origin of man. The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from ape-like creatures. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is supposed to have started 4-5 million years ago, some "transitional forms" between modern man and his ancestors are supposed to have existed. According to this completely imaginary scenario, four basic "categories" are listed:

1. Australopithecus

2. Homo habilis

3. Homo erectus

4. Homo sapiens

Evolutionists call man's so-called first ape-like ancestors Australopithecus, which means "South African ape." These living beings are actually nothing but an old ape species that has become extinct. Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world famous anatomists from England and the USA, namely, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, shows that these apes belonged to an ordinary ape species that became extinct and bore no resemblance to humans.13

Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as "homo," that is "man." According to their claim, the living beings in the Homo series are more developed than Australopithecus. Evolutionists devise a fanciful evolution scheme by arranging different fossils of these creatures in a particular order. This scheme is imaginary because it has never been proved that there is an evolutionary relation between these different classes. Ernst Mayr, one of the twentieth century's most important evolutionists, contends in his book One Long Argument that "particularly historical [puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are extremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying explanation."14

By outlining the link chain as Australopithecus > Homo habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens, evolutionists imply that each of these species is one another's ancestor. However, recent findings of paleoanthropologists have revealed that Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus lived at different parts of the world at the same time.15

Moreover, a certain segment of humans classified as Homo erectus have lived up until very modern times. Homo sapiens neandarthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) co-existed in the same region.16

This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that they are ancestors of one another. A paleontologist from Harvard University, Stephen Jay Gould, explains this deadlock of the theory of evolution, although he is an evolutionist himself:

What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth.17

Put briefly, the scenario of human evolution, which is "upheld" with the help of various drawings of some "half ape, half human" creatures appearing in the media and course books, that is, frankly, by means of propaganda, is nothing but a tale with no scientific foundation.

Lord Solly Zuckerman, one of the most famous and respected scientists in the U.K., who carried out research on this subject for years and studied Australopithecus fossils for 15 years, finally concluded, despite being an evolutionist himself, that there is, in fact, no such family tree branching out from ape-like creatures to man.

Zuckerman also made an interesting "spectrum of science" ranging from those he considered scientific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's spectrum, the most "scientific"—that is, depending on concrete data—fields of science are chemistry and physics. After them come the biological sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the spectrum, which is the part considered to be most "unscientific," are "extra-sensory perception"—concepts such as telepathy and sixth sense—and finally "human evolution." Zuckerman explains his reasoning:

We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful [evolutionist] anything is possible – and where the ardent believer [in evolution] is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time.18

The tale of human evolution boils down to nothing but the prejudiced interpretations of some fossils unearthed by certain people, who blindly adhere to their theory.

Technology in the Eye and the Ear

Another subject that remains unanswered by evolutionary theory is the excellent quality of perception in the eye and the ear.

Before passing on to the subject of the eye, let us briefly answer the question of how we see. Light rays coming from an object fall oppositely on the eye's retina. Here, these light rays are transmitted into electric signals by cells and reach a tiny spot at the back of the brain, the "center of vision." These electric signals are perceived in this center as an image after a series of processes. With this technical background, let us do some thinking.

The brain is insulated from light. That means that its inside is completely dark, and that no light reaches the place where it is located. Thus, the "center of vision" is never touched by light and may even be the darkest place you have ever known. However, you observe a luminous, bright world in this pitch darkness.

The image formed in the eye is so sharp and distinct that even the technology of the twentieth century has not been able to attain it. For instance, look at the book you are reading, your hands with which you are holding it, and then lift your head and look around you. Have you ever seen such a sharp and distinct image as this one at any other place? Even the most developed television screen produced by the greatest television producer in the world cannot provide such a sharp image for you. This is a three-dimensional, colored, and extremely sharp image. For more than 100 years, thousands of engineers have been trying to achieve this sharpness. Factories, huge premises were established, much research has been done, plans and designs have been made for this purpose. Again, look at a TV screen and the book you hold in your hands. You will see that there is a big difference in sharpness and distinction. Moreover, the TV screen shows you a two-dimensional image, whereas with your eyes, you watch a three-dimensional perspective with depth.

For many years, tens of thousands of engineers have tried to make a three-dimensional TV and achieve the vision quality of the eye. Yes, they have made a three-dimensional television system, but it is not possible to watch it without putting on special 3-D glasses; moreover, it is only an artificial three-dimension. The background is more blurred, the foreground appears like a paper setting. Never has it been possible to produce a sharp and distinct vision like that of the eye. In both the camera and the television, there is a loss of image quality.

Evolutionists claim that the mechanism producing this sharp and distinct image has been formed by chance. Now, if somebody told you that the television in your room was formed as a result of chance, that all of its atoms just happened to come together and make up this device that produces an image, what would you think? How can atoms do what thousands of people cannot?

If a device producing a more primitive image than the eye could not have been formed by chance, then it is very evident that the eye and the image seen by the eye could not have been formed by chance. The same situation applies to the ear. The outer ear picks up the available sounds by the auricle and directs them to the middle ear, the middle ear transmits the sound vibrations by intensifying them, and the inner ear sends these vibrations to the brain by translating them into electric signals. Just as with the eye, the act of hearing finalizes in the center of hearing in the brain.

The situation in the eye is also true for the ear. That is, the brain is insulated from sound just as it is from light. It does not let any sound in. Therefore, no matter how noisy is the outside, the inside of the brain is completely silent. Nevertheless, the sharpest sounds are perceived in the brain. In your completely silent brain, you listen to symphonies, and hear all of the noises in a crowded place. However, were the sound level in your brain was measured by a precise device at that moment, complete silence would be found to be prevailing there.

As is the case with imagery, decades of effort have been spent in trying to generate and reproduce sound that is faithful to the original. The results of these efforts are sound recorders, high-fidelity systems, and systems for sensing sound. Despite all of this technology and the thousands of engineers and experts who have been working on this endeavor, no sound has yet been obtained that has the same sharpness and clarity as the sound perceived by the ear. Think of the highest-quality hi-fi systems produced by the largest company in the music industry. Even in these devices, when sound is recorded some of it is lost; or when you turn on a hi-fi you always hear a hissing sound before the music starts. However, the sounds that are the products of the human body's technology are extremely sharp and clear. A human ear never perceives a sound accompanied by a hissing sound or with atmospherics as does a hi-fi; rather, it perceives sound exactly as it is, sharp and clear. This is the way it has been since the creation of man.

So far, no man-made visual or recording apparatus has been as sensitive and successful in perceiving sensory data as are the eye and the ear. However, as far as seeing and hearing are concerned, a far greater truth lies beyond all this.

To Whom Does the Consciousness That Sees

and Hears within the Brain Belong?

Who watches an alluring world in the brain, listens to symphonies and the twittering of birds, and smells the rose?

The stimulations coming from a person's eyes, ears, and nose travel to the brain as electro-chemical nerve impulses. In biology, physiology, and biochemistry books, you can find many details about how this image forms in the brain. However, you will never come across the most important fact: Who perceives these electro-chemical nerve impulses as images, sounds, odors, and sensory events in the brain? There is a consciousness in the brain that perceives all this without feeling any need for an eye, an ear, and a nose. To whom does this consciousness belong? Of course it does not belong to the nerves, the fat layer, and neurons comprising the brain. This is why Darwinist-materialists, who believe that everything is comprised of matter, cannot answer these questions.

For this consciousness is the spirit created by God, which needs neither the eye to watch the images nor the ear to hear the sounds. Furthermore, it does not need the brain to think.

Everyone who reads this explicit and scientific fact should ponder on Almighty God, and fear and seek refuge in Him, for He squeezes the entire universe in a pitch-dark place of a few cubic centimeters in a three-dimensional, colored, shadowy, and luminous form.

A Materialist Faith

The information we have presented so far shows us that the theory of evolution is a incompatible with scientific findings. The theory's claim regarding the origin of life is inconsistent with science, the evolutionary mechanisms it proposes have no evolutionary power, and fossils demonstrate that the required intermediate forms have never existed. So, it certainly follows that the theory of evolution should be pushed aside as an unscientific idea. This is how many ideas, such as the Earth-centered universe model, have been taken out of the agenda of science throughout history.

However, the theory of evolution is kept on the agenda of science. Some people even try to represent criticisms directed against it as an "attack on science." Why?

The reason is that this theory is an indispensable dogmatic belief for some circles. These circles are blindly devoted to materialist philosophy and adopt Darwinism because it is the only materialist explanation that can be put forward to explain the workings of nature.

Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. A well-known geneticist and an outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "first and foremost a materialist and then a scientist":

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.19

These are explicit statements that Darwinism is a dogma kept alive just for the sake of adherence to materialism. This dogma maintains that there is no being save matter. Therefore, it argues that inanimate, unconscious matter created life. It insists that millions of different living species (e.g., birds, fish, giraffes, tigers, insects, trees, flowers, whales, and human beings) originated as a result of the interactions between matter such as pouring rain, lightning flashes, and so on, out of inanimate matter. This is a precept contrary both to reason and science. Yet Darwinists continue to defend it just so as "not to allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Anyone who does not look at the origin of living beings with a materialist prejudice will see this evident truth: All living beings are works of a Creator, Who is All-Powerful, All-Wise, and All-Knowing. This Creator is God, Who created the whole universe from non-existence, designed it in the most perfect form, and fashioned all living beings.