Medialab Prado

"The brain is not a passive organ that receives information from the sense organs. Instead, perception itself is influenced by the brain and external reality is no more than a cerebral creation based on different types of energy that act on the sense organs. Therefore, colors and flavors do not exist, nor do smells, cold, or heat. They are all produced by the brain. It is as if the brain projected onto the exterior a virtual reality film that we experience as if it was real. In this sense, modern neuroscience approaches what German philosopher Immanuel Kant said long ago: "We can never know things as they really are because we always observe them through the lens of the brain."

The Self is another cerebral fiction which is not located anywhere in the brain. Instead, it is a creation of the brain which lends continuity to our personality, generating the illusion of something that lasts over the course of our entire lives. Recent discoveries indicate that free will is probably yet one more fiction and that the brain is no exception to the rest of the universe and consequently, it is subject to nature's deterministic laws.

These are all the results of research in neuroscience which mean an end to the dualism that separated the mind from the brain, or the soul from the body in past eras, and which has persisted to the present day. Proof that we have overcome that dualism is evident in research showing that spirituality, experiences of ecstasy, and similar phenomena can be provoked by stimulating certain areas of the brain."  By Francisco J. Rubia

(Translation by Karen Neller)