If we listen carefully to how we describe what is taking place, then an inconsistency begins to emerge. Let's go back to figure 3.
P does not actually see the objects M, C, and F. What P sees is the Light L emanating from or reflecting off these objects. This Light enters P’s eyes (e), moves down the optic nerve to the visual centers of B and thus P (or more precisely, B) sees M, C, and F.
B is the receptacle for all sensory inputs. B sees the objects. The Monitor M and images C and F are outside, the Brain B is inside the Head H. Light L is the medium of exchange. No surprises or tricks.
The inconsistency begins to emerge when we say that B is the only thing that can experience reality but that the actual experiencing of the reality is taking place externally to B. Where is the actual experience of M, C, and F taking place? In front of P. Where is the experiencer located? In B, inside H which is on the shoulders of P.
X1 things are external, objective, and material. X2 things are internal, “subjective”, and representational P = Person H = Head B = Brain e = eye L = Light M = Monitor C = Candle F = Flame
At the present time we accept that the experiencer is the electro-chemical activity of B1 and nothing more. There are no souls, spirits, minds, or consciousness dwelling somewhere inside B. Thus the experiencer and B are the same. We are also not arguing that B1 creates a reality that is not connected to something external and independent. M1 causes M2 to appear as a representation in B1. However, what we are trying to established is the status of the thing in front of P1.
As you can see from Figure 4, two events or realities are taking place simultaneously: X1 and X2. At this moment P1 is actually experiencing one not two events. P1 is not experiencing two Ms, M1 and M2. Look closely at the monitor; there is only one there. If there are two event realities taking place – M1 and M2 - and only one event reality is actually being experienced by you and P, then which event reality are you directly experiencing – M1 or M2.
Stated this way and given this choice, it is not unreasonable to argue that what you, P1 or B1 experinece or are directly aware of is M2, C2, F2 etc. not M1, C1, F1 etc. Again, M1 is here considered the cause of M2. This is not in dispute. What we are trying to establish is which of the two - X1 or X2 - is the object of your direct experience.
This is a very critical point. The language of explanation used from Thales to Carl Sagan strongly suggests that what B1 experiences is its own representational reality M2. Yet at the most fundamental level of our existential lives we naturally assume that M2 is literally, objectively, concretely M1. In fact, in the discussion of Figures 1, 2, and 3 we were in a sense playing a metaphysical trick on you afterall. You were being shown truths about the world which seemed obvious, universal, natural, and belabored. If you listen very closely to Sagan or any science program on the brain, then it is obvious that this is a universally shared understanding of reality. We all take the internal representational X2 and push it out into the world and objectify it into X1. Everyone who has ever listened to an explanation of the Metaphysics of Blue has assumed that the object in front of them is the object in the world. Before Blue this is what I assumed.
This may seem repetitive and it is. But it is crucial that you really grasp this key point. The monitor in front of you is NOT M1 but rather it is M2. Because the monitor in front of you and P is M2 rather than M1, then the monitor M2 in front of you is not really in front of you, rather it is inside of you because it is in B1. B1 never sees any X1, it only sees, experiences, is aware of representations, i.e. any X2. You and P1 exist experientially only in B1. In a very real sense, then, the you that you have always experienced is only an avatar.
Let’s do a couple of exercises to pin this down some more. Ask yourself where is my brain in the most literal, concrete, existential sense. If you are like everyone else at this point in the argument you will still immediately point to your head and snicker. It is like asking who is buried in Grant’s tomb. But think about the question and what we have been belaboring here, and take a closer look at Figure 4.
Try this. Stretch out your right arm between you and the monitor. Bend your hand inward and point your finger so that you are pointing parallel to you and the monitor. As you are pointing at this space say to yourself “my literal, concrete, existential, in the world B1 Brain is right here”. Remember, the finger you are directly experiencing is F2 not F1. F2, as you may surmise from Figure 4, is a representation existing in B1. For perhaps the first time, you are consciously looking at and experiencing representational reality as literally that.
Let’s take another example. There is probably a wall behind the monitor or somewhere else pretty close by. Look at that wall. Now REALLY look at the wall! Ask yourself: where is my skull; where is my real, concrete, existential, in the X1 world skull? If you are pointing at your head (H2) you are still not getting it. So go ahead and guess again. Read the question carefully this time (no make-believe skim/speed reading). Now, where do you say your skull (or H1) is? If you are hesitantly saying “on the other side of that wall” then you are finally beginning to get what is truly outside and what is truly inside.
Again, an argument for solipsism is not being made. All the X1s in the external world are probably causing all the internal X2 representations. Further, as you can see from Figure 4, there is no trick being played on you. In fact if there has been any subtle trick, it has been in the opposite direction. We universally share a habit of externalizing what is inherently an internal event.
In Figure 5 we can add one or more other people to the picture. Either P1 or P2 can say that if X3 is an internal representation then obviously P2 cannot be directly experiencing P1’s X3 event. Rather P2 is experiencing the X2 representation caused by the external physical object X1 which is a shared cause of what is experienced by P1 and P2.
No one ever has or can ever have a direct experience of any X1 object/event. They can only know and directly experience representational reality since X1’s are always mediated by senses and brains. In fact we can only infer that X1 reality exists since it makes X2 events much easier to explain. But in the strictest empirical sense, there is no, and perhaps cannot be, any direct or verifiable evidence that X1 reality exists. What is objectively and empirically verifiable is not Thales water itself but only the B1 representation of the water. Then too it is only verifiable by the particular P that is directly experiencing it. Ironically, then, we seem at this point to have turned Thales world inside out.
