Perception: Who and Where Is the Seer?

-This is a Transcript of the Above Video-

Here's the TV set, okay, and here's your brain. Okay, here's your eye. So figure I'm staying at home with you on your couch, next to you, we're taking it sideways here. We got a side shot of your head, your brain there, your eye, and the TV set. And this is supposed to be me right in here right, alright? What happens? The physiological or, physiology of sight, the mechanics of sight doesn't really explain anything about the seer, about the self, about you. It doesn't really explain much.

Show more

Let me describe here. Basically all that happens with sight or the mechanics of sight, as modern science knows it, is the following: light somehow comes off of the television or whatever it is you're seeing, in this case the television, okay? And it stimulates the retina, which is here, okay. So somehow light stimulates, goes through here, stimulates the retina, and when it stimulates the retina, this causes a type of chemical reaction. Okay? And this chemical reaction in the retina stimulates this here, the optic nerve, okay? So it stimulates the optic nerve and that sends electrical impulses; so it sends electrical impulses here. So electrical impulses start going beep beep beep beebeep beebeep, whatever. These little electrical impulses start cruising through here. Into the brain stem, okay? So into the brain, brain stem here. And then the electrical impulses go then back to the visual cortex, somewhere back here. And then back around somehow back to the brain stem, somewhere. That's all they know is that they have these electrical impulses starting here, going here, going back here somewhere, and coming back here somewhere. So you can follow these, and where are you? Where is the seer? In other words, here is some information, right? Here is some information, in the form of electrical impulses, going back here. In other words, the point is, you would imagine somewhere back here, there'd be a little guy sitting ther e watching this information that's coming. Okay, you got all this information going somewhere, but where's the person sitting, looking at it? Where's the perceiver? Where's the seer, where is the self who's looking at the world? Who's looking at me on TV right now? Where are you? You're the one looking at me. You're the one looking at your TV. But where are you, what are you? What are you? Where are you? Okay, do you understand this? You are the seer. You are sitting there, watching the world. But where are you? What part of the body are you? If you were the body or some part of the body, then what part of the body is that? You are the perceiver, okay? Do you understand this? Do we need this anymore you think? Okay, we'll put this away then here. Let me just drop that. Take that thing.

Try to understand that you as the seer, as the person, the entity who is seeing the world, okay, are not in your brain. In other words, there's no molecule in the brain or part of your brain, the visual cortex, or in the brain stem or anywhere else, that can be considered the seer which is sitting there looking at the TV set right now. There is no material seer. The information comes from the world, not just through your eyes. There's hearing also, for example, the different senses: smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing, seeing. They're all basically like seeing - there's some kind of outside stimulus from the environment, stimulates somehow some part of the body and that makes some electrical things go into the brain somewhere, right? There's nowhere that you can trace that information going. You can't, there's nowhere you can... there's no way you can follow that, those impulses. You can't follow it to the person who is sitting there receiving it. Yet you know that you are the receiver, you are sitting there receiving it. Right? I mean you're sitting here right now receiving information. You are sitting there looking out to the world. The world is coming at you like this. And I'm sitting here looking out to the world and the world is coming at me like this, and we've each got our own little, you know, situation in the world coming at us in this way. Where are we? What are we?

Materialists are those who identify themselves as being the body or some part of the body. And the reason they do this is because they deny the existence of any energy other than matter. Therefore they are forced to conclude that they are material in essence. And since they are the seer, they are the perceiver, they conclude that the perceiver, the seer must be material in essence. So they've searched throughout the brain, dissecting brains, and so on, trying to find the seer, the self, the perceiver, trying to find you. But they've not found you. They've not found the self in the brain. There is no material self. There's no part of the body which can be considered you. And the body as a whole cannot be considered you. Do you understand this?

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - founder of Science of Identity Foundation