Human beings are still evolving, and chances are that there is a reality out there which our senses can detect, perceive and interact with, for without such being the case how could we have had the entire architecture of existence?

Read on and have your say

Chances are, there is indeed a reality out there which our senses can detect, perceive and interact with because, without such being the case, how could we have had the entire architecture of existence?

Therefore, chances also are that it’s not all a figment in the mind of some super being that’s being played out like a shot of virtual reality or ultra complex computer game in which we’re merely shadow participants. And, finally, chances pretty definitely are that if a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one to hear it, a sound is actually produced in the form of a compression wave which, if cognisant ears were around, would be recognised as a crash.

At the same time it’s also dawning upon neuroscientists that there’s something not totally complete about the reality we seem to be immersed in. They’re discovering that the brain creates for us only a partial perception of what’s actually out there and that our consciousness, sense of free will and personality are just constructs that come into being subsequent to events.

In other words, our psyche or mind, and all the stuff it does as part of its ongoing internal activity, is an after-the-fact structure created by neural circuits which then generates in us a sense of participation — or even control. Obviously it’s a false sense of control we pride ourselves with possessing.

Now it’s also true that our brains would drown in a mass of sensory information if they had to process all the incoming data from all our senses at all times. Therefore it’s necessary that a lot of it gets either filtered out, filed away or handled at an automatic unconscious level.

At the same time our minds too would begin to melt down if they had to exercise their free-will kind of decision making power on every bit of stimulus impinging on them. There’s simply too much out there to internalise and act upon purposively. Perhaps our brains have not had time to evolve enough in order to handle so much information.

But evolution hasn’t stopped; we, and our brains, are still evolving. Else why do we hear of so many people who during so-called near-death experiences, out of body events or even during deep meditation and prayer report a sudden enhancement in their perception of reality?

When, for instance, things look terribly more real than they ever did earlier and which they don’t often have the language to describe? Could such transcendent and ineffable states they speak of be the next step in the evolution of our experience of the true nature of reality?

The article above was found on Google and was published originally on The Economic Times