Soul Illusion

The Rodney Dangerfield of philosophical questions: When a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, is there a sound? It gets no respect, because it seems to be one of those pointless questions that have no answer. But there is an answer - an answer with profound spiritual and practical implications. There is no sound. When the tree falls, it produces a series of pressure waves in the surrounding air. The ear drum converts these waves into a mechanical signal which is transmitted by 3 small bones to the fluid filled cochlea - the spiral bony canal of the inner ear. Hair cells of the cochlea are the actual receptors. Each is tuned to a particular frequency of the fluid waves. Hair cell vibrations are converted to electrical impulses, and transmitted along the auditory nerve to the auditory cortex where intensity and frequency of the vibrations are mapped. Neither pressure waves, physical movements of body parts [bones, hair], nor electrical signals are sound. What we call sound exists only in the mind of the perceiver.

Perception differs qualitatively from the physical properties of the stimulus. The nervous system extracts only certain information from the natural world. We perceive fluctuations of air pressure not as pressure waves but as sounds that we hear. We perceive electromagnetic waves of different frequency as colors that we see. We perceive chemical compounds dissolved in air or water as specific smells or tastes. In the words of neurologist Sir John Eccles: "I want you to realize that there exists no color in the natural world, and no sound - nothing of this kind; no textures, no patterns, no beauty, no scent." Sounds, colors, patterns, etc., appear to have an independent reality, yet are, in fact, constructed by the mind. All our experience of the natural world is our mind's interpretation of the input it receives.

There is an illusion that causes otherwise competent individuals to voluntarily chose a path that everyone knows will lead to a bad outcome. The lessons learned from painful experience do not prevent us from being taken in again and again.

The Soul Illusion – We perceive the world through lenses that are continually being altered by local conditions, but we believe that we perceive the world as it really is. And, because it is the perceptual system itself that is biased, the distortion is always invisible to the perceiver. Because we are blind to our state-dependent biases, we do not appreciate that our perception and motivation during certain high risk situations will seem crazy or absurd in retrospect. The states of mind that put one at risk of behaving foolishly - relapsing, striking out in anger, giving in to avoidance - are temporary, but the errors they provoke play out in the objective world, and so are irreversible.

If you exhibit a pattern of self-sabotage then (with all due respect) it is likely that you are continuing to use the cognitive strategies you developed as a child. Rising above this mentality of childhood can enable you to over-ride the influence of local conditions so that you can act in accord with your interests and principles. Ahead is one of the important passages of life-span development:

A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

- Nietzsche