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THE REAL ESSENCE OF MATTER The Real Absolute BeingWe are brought face to face with a very significant question: If the world we confront is comprised of our soul's perceptions, then what is the source of these perceptions? For an answer, consider that we perceive matter only in our imaginations, but can never directly experience of its counterparts outside. Since matter is actually a perception to us, it is something "constructed." That is, it must have been caused by another power—which means that in fact, it must have been created. Moreover, this creation must be continuous. If not, then these perceptions would quickly disappear and be lost. Similarly, a television picture is displayed only as long as the signal continues to be broadcast. So, who makes our soul that continuously watches the stars, the earth, the plants, the people, our body and everything else that we see? Very evidently, there exists a supreme Creator Who has created the entire material universe, and Who ceaselessly continues His creation. Since this Creator displays such a magnificent creation, surely He has eternal power and might. This Creator describes Himself, the universe and the reason of our existence for us through the book He has sent down. This Creator is God, and His book is the Qur’an. The fact is, the heavens and the Earth—that is, the universe—are not stable. Their presence is made possible only by God's creation, and that they will disappear when He ends this creation. This is revealed in a verse as follows:
This verse is describing how the material universe is maintained under the might of God. God created the universe, the Earth, mountains, and all living and non-living things, and maintains all these under His power at every moment. God manifests His name al-Khaliq in this material universe. God is al-Khaliq, in other words, the Creator of all things, the Creator from nothing. This shows that there is a material universe, outside our brains, consisting of entities created by God. However, as a miracle and manifestation of the superior nature of His creation and His omniscience, God shows us this material universe in the form of an “illusion,” “shadow,” or “image.” As a consequence of the perfection in His creation, human beings can never reach the world outside their brains. Only God knows this real material universe. Another interpretation of the above verse is that God constantly maintains the images of the material universe that people see. (God knows best.) If God did not wish to show the image of the world to our minds, the entire universe would cease to exist for us, and we could never reach it. That we can never directly contact the material universe also answers the question of "Where is God?" that preoccupies a great many people. As mentioned at the start, many cannot comprehend God's power and so, imagine Him as present somewhere in the heavens and not really intervening in worldly affairs. (God is certainly beyond that.) This logic is based on the assumptions that the universe is an assembly of matter and God is "outside" this material world. However, just as we can never reach the material universe, neither can we have full knowledge of its true essence. All we know is the existence of the Creator Who brought all these things into being—in other words, God. To express that truth, great Islamic scholars like Imam Rabbani have said that the only absolute being is God; and that all the rest, except Him, are shadow entities. That is because the world we see is entirely in our minds, and to directly experience its counterpart in the external world is totally impossible. That being so, it would be wrong to imagine that God is "outside" of a material universe that we can never attain. God is surely "everywhere" and encompasses all. This reality is explained in the Qur'an as follows:
The fact that God is not bound with space and that He encompasses everything roundabout is stated in another verse as follows:
Material beings cannot see God; but God sees the matter He created in all its forms. In the Qur'an, this fact is stated thus: “No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision.” (Surat al-An‘am: 103)That is, we cannot perceive God's existence with our eyes, but God has thoroughly encompassed our inside and outside, our vision and thoughts. We cannot utter any word except with His knowledge, nor can we even draw breath. In the course of our lives, while we watch perceptions we assume to be the "external world," the closest being to us is God Himself. The secret of the following verse in the Qur'an is concealed in this reality: "It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." (Surah Qaf: 16) When a person thinks that his body is made up of "matter," he cannot comprehend this important fact. If he takes his brain to be himself, then what he accepts as the "outside world" will begin at about 20 to 30 centimetres away. But when he conceives that everything he thinks of as matter is only perceptions in his mind, any notions such as outside or inside, far or near lose all their meaning. God has encompassed him and He is infinitely close to him. God informs men that He is "infinitely close" to them with the verse “If My servants ask you about Me, I am near…” (Surat al-Baqara: 186). Another verse relates the same fact: “Surely your Lord encompasses the people.” (Surat al-Isra: 60) Man is misled if he thinks that the being closest to him is himself. God, in truth, is even closer to us than ourselves. He has called our attention to this point in the verse "Why is it not then that when it (soul) comes up to the throat, and you at that time look on, We are nearer to him than you, but you see not." (Surat al-Waqi‘a: 83-85) People, however, remain unaware of this phenomenal fact because they cannot see it with their eyes, as revealed in the verse. On the other hand, it is impossible for man—who is nothing but a shadow being, as Imam Rabbani put it,— to have any power independent of God. The verse "But God has created you and your handwork!" (Surat as-Saffat: 96) shows that everything we experience takes place under God's control. In the Qur'an, this reality is stated in the verse "When you threw, it was not your act, but God's." (Surat al-Anfal: 17) whereby it is emphasised that no act is independent of God. Since we humans are shadow beings, we ourselves cannot be the ones who perform any act. However, God gives us shadow beings the feeling that we act by ourselves. In reality, it is God Who performs all acts. A person may not want to concede this reality and may keep thinking of himself as independent of God; but this changes nothing. Everything You Possess Is Intrinsically IllusoryIt is clear, scientific, and logical that we are not in direct contact with the "external world," only with a copy of it that God perpetually presents to our soul. Nevertheless, people are unwilling to think of this. If you consider this issue sincerely and boldly, you'll soon realize that your house, the furniture in it, your car, your office, jewels, your bank account, wardrobe, spouse, children, your colleagues—in fact, all else that you possess—resides in your mind. Everything around you that you see, hear, or smell—in short, perceive with your five senses— is a part of this "replica world," including the voice of your favourite singer, the hardness of the chair you sit on, a perfume whose smell you like, the sun that warms you, a flower's beautiful colours, a bird flying past your window, a speedboat moving swiftly on the water, your fertile garden, the computer you use at your job, your hi-fi with the most advanced technology in the world... This is the reality, because the world is created only to test man. All through our limited lives, we are tested with perceptions whose original sources we can never reach, which are intentionally presented as appealing and attractive. This fact is mentioned in the Qur'an:
Most people cast away religion for the lure of property, heaped-up wealth, hoards of gold and silver, jewels, bank accounts, credit cards, designer clothes, late-model cars—in short, all the forms of prosperity they either possess or strive to. They concentrate on this world only, forgetting the Hereafter. They are deceived by the fair and alluring face of the world, and fail to keep up prayer, give charity to the poor, and perform worship that will make them prosper in the Hereafter. They make excuses, saying, "I have things to do," "I have ideals," "I have responsibilities," "I haven't enough time," "I have tasks to complete," "I will do them in the future." They devote their entire lives to trying to prosper in this world only. In the verse, "They know but the outer (things) in the life of this world: but of the End of things they are heedless." (Surat ar-Rum: 7), this misconception is described. The reality dealt with in this chapter is very important, for it renders meaningless all lusts and boundaries. Verifying this fact makes it clear that everything people toil to possess, their wealth amassed with greed, their children they boast of, their spouses they consider to be closest to them, their dearest friends, their bodies, their superior rank which they hold, the schools they have attended, the holidays they celebrate—all are nothing but mere shadows. Therefore, all the efforts they expended and the time they spent proves unavailing. Some people unwittingly make fools of themselves when they boast of their wealth and properties, or of their yachts, helicopters, factories, holdings, manors and lands as if they can ever have direct contact with their original possessions. Those well-to-do who cruise ostentatiously up and down in their yachts, show off with their cars, keep hinting at their wealth, suppose that they rank higher than everyone else. In what kind of state would they find themselves, once they realize that they are boasting of nothing but images in their own minds? In many of their dreams, they in fact find themselves possessed of grand houses, fast cars, precious jewels, rolls of banknotes, and loads of gold and silver. In their dreams, too, they enjoy a high rank, own factories with thousands of workers, possess the power to rule over thousands, and wear clothes that command everyone's admiration. But just as boasting about one's possessions in a dream often subjects one to ridicule, he is sure to be equally ridiculed in this world for boasting of images he relates to. After all, what he sees in his dreams and what he relates to in this world are both merely images in his mind. Similarly, when people realize the reality, the way they react to the worldly events they experience should make them feel ashamed. Those who fight fiercely with each other, swindle, take bribes, commit forgery, lie, covetously withhold their money; who do wrong to others, who curse and beat them, who are full of passion for office and high rank, who envy and try to show off, who exalt themselves above all others—all will feel disgrace when they realize that they have committed all of these deeds in an illusion. Since God creates the entire universe and reveals it to every human being individually, the Ultimate Owner of all possessions in the world is God alone. This fact is revealed in the Qur'an:
It is hugely foolish to cast away religion for the sake of passions whose original objects one can never reach, and thus lose eternal life. At this point, it's important to grasp that the truth we are considering does not mean that all the possessions, wealth, children, spouses, rank and position one possesses and longs for will vanish in the future, and so are meaningless. Rather, it predicates that in fact, people have no direct contact with any of their possessions. They are merely perceptions they watch from within their brains, composed of images that God shows to test them. As you see, there's a big difference between those two propositions. Although someone might not want to acknowledge this fact right away and would prefer to deceive himself by assuming that all his possessions really exist, he must finally to die. When he is resurrected in the Hereafter, everything will become clear, and “sight will be sharp.” (Surah Qaf: 22) On that day, he is apt to see everything much more clearly. If he has spent his life chasing after imaginary aims, however, he will wish he had never lived, and say "Ah! Would that [Death] had made an end of me! Of no profit to me has been my wealth! My power has perished from me!" (Surat al-Haqqa: 27-29) On the other hand, a wise man should try to understand the great reality of the universe here on this world, while he still has time. Otherwise, he will spend all his life running after dreams and face a grievous penalty in the end. In the Qur'an, the final state of those people who run after illusions (or mirages) on this world and forget God, our Creator, is stated as follows:
Logical Deficiencies of the MaterialistsFrom the start, this chapter has clearly stated that matter is not absolute, as materialists claim, but rather a shadow that God creates out of nothing and whose original we can never reach. In an extremely dogmatic manner, materialists resist this evident reality which destroys their philosophy, and bring forward baseless counterclaims to refute it. George Politzer, for example, an ardent Marxist and one of the twentieth century's biggest advocates of the materialist philosophy, gave the "bus example" as the greatest evidence proving that he could reach the original of matter. According to Politzer, even idealist philosophers run away when they see a bus about to run them over, and this proves that they do confront the actuality of matter.208 Samuel Johnson, another famous materialist, was told that one can never reach essential matter, and tried to "prove" that he could make contact with the essence of stones by giving one of them a kick.209 A similar example is given by Friedrich Engels, the mentor of Politzer and along with Marx, the founder of dialectic materialism. He wrote that "if the cakes we eat were mere perceptions, they would not stop our hunger."210 There are similar examples in the books of famous materialists such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others along with impetuous sentences such as, "You understand the existence of matter when you are slapped in the face." The disordered comprehension that engenders such examples arises from materialists' interpreting the explanation "We cannot reach the original of matter" as involving the sense of sight only. They think that perception is limited to sight, and that touching can get us directly to the essence of matter. A bus knocking a man down makes people say, "Look, it hit him! Therefore, he confronted the original." They don't understand that all the perceptions experienced during a crash—hard metal, the force of collision, pain—are in fact formed in the brain. The Example of DreamsThe fact is, whichever of the five senses we take as a starting point, we can't ever actually reach the original of the external world that exists outside. A significant evidence of this is the way we imagine the existence of things that in fact do not exist in our dreams. In dreams, we can experience very realistic events. We can fall down the stairs and break a leg, have a serious car accident, get stuck under a bus, or eat a heavy meal and feel satiated. Events similar to those experienced in daily life are experienced in dreams too, with the same persuasiveness and rousing the same emotions. A person who dreams of being knocked down by a bus can open his eyes in a hospital—again in his dream—and realize that he is disabled. But all this would remain a dream. Also, he can dream of dying in a car crash, that angels of death retrieve his soul, and his life in the Hereafter begins. The images, sounds, feeling of hardness, pain, light, colours—all the feelings pertaining to the event he experiences in his dream—are perceived very sharply. They seem as natural as the ones in real life. The cake he eats in his dream satiates him, although it is a mere perception, because feeling satisfied is a perception too. At that moment, however, this person is lying in his bed. There are really no stairs, no traffic, no buses, no cake, because the dreamer experiences perceptions and feelings that don't exist in the external world. The fact that our dreams give us events with no physical, external correlates clearly reveals that the "world out there" is one whose true essence we can never know. We can learn the true nature of that world only from the revelation of Almighty God, Who created it. Those who believe in the materialist philosophy, the Marxists in particular, are enraged when informed of this reality. They quote examples from the superficial, ignorant reasoning of Marx, Engels, or Lenin and else make emotional declarations. However, they should realize that they can make these declarations in a dream as well. They can dream of reading Das Kapital, participating in meetings, and even feel the pain of getting involved in a fistfight. When asked—in their dream—they will think that what they see is absolute reality, just as they assume that everything they see while awake is absolutely real. But they should know that everything they experience—be it in a dream or in their daily lives—consists of only perceptions whose "real" source they can never reach. The Example of a Shared Nervous SystemLet us consider Politzer's car crash example: If the injured victim's nerves travelling from his five senses to his brain, were connected in parallel to another person's—Politzer's, for instance—then at the instant the bus hit that person, Politzer, sitting at his home at that same time, would feel the impact too. Politzer would experience all the sensations experienced by the person undergoing the accident, just as the same song will issue from two different loudspeakers connected to the same tape recorder. Politzer will hear the braking of the bus, feel its impact on his body, see the sights of a broken arm and spreading blood, suffer the aching fractures, experience entering the operation room, the hardness of the plaster cast, and the feebleness of his healing arm. Just like Politzer, every other person connected to that man's nerves would experience the accident from beginning to end. If the man in the accident fell into a coma, so would everyone. Moreover, if all the perceptions pertaining to the car accident were recorded in some device, and repeatedly transmitted to someone, the bus would knock this person down again and again. But which one of these two buses hitting those people is real? To this question, materialist philosophers have no consistent answer. The correct answer is that all of them experience the car accident, in all its details, in their own minds. The same principle applies to our other examples. If the sensory nerves of Engels, who felt the fullness in his stomach after eating a cake, were connected to a second person's brain, that person would also feel full after Engels finished the cake. If the nerves of materialist Johnson, who felt pain in his foot after delivering a sound kick to a stone, were connected to a second individual, that person too would feel himself kick the same stone and feel the same pain. So, which cake or stone is the real one? Again, materialist philosophy falls short of giving a consistent answer. The correct, consistent answer is that Engels and the second person have both eaten the cake and are satiated in their minds; both Johnson and the second person have fully experienced kicking the stone—again, in their minds. In our previous example, let's make an exchange: Connecting the nerves of the man hit by the bus to Politzer's brain, and the nerves of Politzer, sitting in his house, to brain of that accident victim. In this case, Politzer will think that a bus has hit him, but the man actually hit by the bus will never feel the impact and think that he is sitting in Politzer's house. The very same logic can be applied to the examples involving the cake and the stone. All this reveals how dogmatic materialism actually is. Its philosophy is founded on the assumption that nothing exists except matter. The fact is, however, that no one can ever experience any direct contact with matter and thus be justified in claiming that everything consists of it. The universe we contact is the universe that we perceive in our minds. The famous British philosopher David Hume expressed his thoughts on this point: For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.211 We can never step outside these perceptions and encounter matter as it "really" is, so it is wholly nonsensical to construct any philosophy regarding matter as an absolute entity we can experience directly. As a theory, materialism is totally unfounded, right from the outset. The Formation of Perceptions in the Brain Is Not Philosophy, But Scientific FactMaterialists claim that what we have stated here is a philosophical view. But the plain scientific fact is, we cannot interact with the "external" material world, but only with a world in our brain. This is not a matter of philosophy. All medical schools teach in detail how images and feelings form in the brain. Facts proven by twentieth-century science, and by physics in particular, clearly show that we can never reach the originals of physical matter; and that in a sense, everyone is watching the "monitor" in his brain. Everyone who believes in science, be he an atheist, Buddhist, or of any other belief, must accept this fact. Even the materialist who denies the existence of God cannot deny scientific reality. That Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, George Politzer and others were never able to comprehend such a simple, evident fact is still startling, even though their level of scientific understanding was primitive and insufficient. Our highly advanced science and technology make it even easier to comprehend this explicit fact. Materialists, on the other hand, are paralyzed with their fears of even partially comprehending this fact and thereby, realizing how completely it demolishes their philosophy. The Materialists' Great FearFor a while, Turkish materialist circles mounted no substantial backlash against the subject examined in this book—that matter is perceived in the brain. This gave us the impression that we hadn't made our point clearly enough, that it needed further explanation. Yet before long, it became apparent that materialists did feel quite uneasy about the popularity of this topic and moreover, felt a great fear about it all. After a while, materialists started loudly publicizing their fear and panic in their publications, conferences and panels. Their agitated, hopeless discourse implied that they were suffering a severe intellectual crisis. The collapse of the theory of evolution—the basis of their so-called scientific philosophy—had already come as a great shock. Now they experienced an even greater one, as they realized that they were losing their belief in the absolute supremacy of matter, which for them was a greater mainstay than even Darwinism. They declared that for them, this issue is a tremendous threat that totally demolishes their cultural fabric. One who expressed the materialist circles' anxiety and panic in a most outspoken way was Renan Pekunlu, an academician and writer in the periodical Bilim ve Utopya (Science and Utopia) which has assumed the task of defending materialism. Both in his articles in Bilim ve Utopya and in the panels he attended, Pekunlu presented our book The Evolution Deceit as the number-one threat. What disturbed Pekunlu even more than the chapters invalidating Darwinism was the section you are currently reading. Pekunlu admonished his handful of readers not to let themselves be carried away by the indoctrination of idealism and to keep their faith in materialism. He used Vladimir I. Lenin, leader of Russia's bloody communist revolution, as a reference. Advising everyone to read Lenin's century-old book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Pekunlu only repeated Lenin's counsel to "not think over this issue, or you will lose track of materialism and be carried away by religion." In an article for the aforementioned periodical, Pekunlu quoted the following lines from Lenin: Once you deny the objective reality [that is] given us in sensation, you have already lost every weapon against fideism [reliance on faith alone], for you have slipped into agnosticism or subjectivism—and that is all that fideism requires. A single claw ensnared, and the bird is lost. And our Machists [an adherent of Machism, a modern positivist philosophy], have all become ensnared in idealism, that is, in a diluted, subtle fideism; They became ensnared from the moment they took "sensation" not as an image of the external world, but as a special "element." It is nobody's sensation, nobody's mind, nobody's spirit, nobody's will.212 These words explicitly demonstrate the fact that Lenin found alarming and wanted to expunge, both from his own mind and the minds of his "comrades." It disturbs contemporary materialists too, in a similar way. But Pekunlu and other materialists suffer a yet greater distress because they know that this certain fact is now being advanced in a way that's far more explicit convincing than a hundred years ago. For the first time, this subject is being explained in a truly irrefutable way. Still, nevertheless, a great number of materialist scientists take a superficial stand against the fact that no one can reach matter in and of itself. The subject covered in this chapter is one of the most important and most exciting that a person can ever run across. It's fairly unlikely that these scientists would have faced such a crucial subject before, but the reactions and the stance they employ in their speeches and articles still hint at how shallow and superficial their comprehension really is. Some materialists' reactions show that their blind adherence to materialism has somehow impaired their logic, making them far removed from comprehending the subject. For instance, Alaeddin Senel—like Rennan Pekunlu, an academician and a writer for Bilim ve Utopya—said, "Forget the collapse of Darwinism, the real threatening subject is this one," and made demands implying " prove what you tell," sensing that his own philosophy has no basis. More interestingly, this writer has written lines revealing that he can by no means grasp this very fact which he considers such a menace. For instance, in one article where Senel discussed this subject exclusively, he accepts that the brain perceives the external world as an image. But then he goes on to claim that images are divided into two categories: those having physical correlates and those with none; and that we can indeed reach the physical correlates of images pertaining to the external world. In support of this assertion, he writes, "I do not know whether or not the images in my brain have correlates in the external world, but the same thing applies when I speak on the phone. When I speak on the telephone, I cannot see the person I am speaking to, but I can have this conversation confirmed later, when I see him face to face."213 By this, he actually means that if we doubt our perceptions, we can look at their origin and check its reality. This is an evident misconception, however, since it's impossible for us to reach matter itself. We can never get outside of our minds to reach what is "outside." Does the voice on the phone have an objective correlate or not? We can confirm that by meeting the person we spoke with. However, this confirmation too is experienced in the mind! In fact, these writers also experience the same events in their dreams. For instance, Senel may dream that he speaks on the phone, then have this conversation confirmed by the person he spoke to. Or Pekunlu may, in his dream, feel he's facing a serious threat and advise others to read century-old books by Lenin. But no matter what they do, these materialists can never deny that the events they've experienced and the people they talked to were nothing but perceptions to them. Who, then, can confirm the correlates of the images in the brain? The shadow beings whom people watch in their visual centres? It is impossible for materialists to find any "outside" source that can confirm information outside of the brain. If someone concedes that all perceptions are formed in the brain, but still assumes that one can step "out" of this world of perceptions and have them confirmed by the "real" external world, this reveals this person's limited perceptive capacity and distorted reasoning. However, the facts related here can easily be grasped by anyone of normal understanding and reasoning. In relation to everything we have said, every unbiased person will understand that it isn't possible for one's senses to reach the external world. Yet blind adherence to materialism apparently distorts people's reasoning capability. Contemporary materialists display severe logical flaws just like their mentors who tried to "prove" that they could reach the original of matter by kicking stones or eating cake. This is no astonishing situation. The inability to understand—that is, interpret the world and events with decent reasoning—is a trait common to unbelievers. In the Qur'an, God particularly states that they are "a people without understanding." (Surat al-Ma’ida: 58)
208 George
Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions
Sociales, Paris 1954, p.53 |
