The Nature of Experience
Sound waves impinge upon the ear. Delicate instrumentation translates the vibrations into electo-chemical signals. A cacophony of neurons fire, activating each other through charged ions. Only then is there experience; the magic of hearing . The vibrations of molecules and the subsequent activity of brain cells, somehow reflected as music. There is a delay between the time the sound reaches the body to when it is heard . So what is really heard cannot be said to be sound waves. Nor can it be called brain activity, because no conceivable instrument should feel the dance of charged ions inside a head as music originating from outside the head. Every experience is a deeply mysterious echo of activity within the body and the world. It is a ripple in some subtle dimension of spacetime, an afterimage of an event that has already happened, palpably felt through some miraculous law of nature. But the miracle is not just that there is experience. You see, both the body and the world have been