PJ Hari

“Our assumption that we are directly interacting with physical reality closely parallels the way we respond to the image on a computer screen. Moving a computer’s mouse appears to move the cursor around the screen. In reality, the mouse is sending a stream of data to the central processor, which calculates a new position for the cursor and then updates the image on the screen. In early computers there was a noticeable delay between issuing a command and seeing the effects on the screen. Today computers are so fast they can recalculate the image on a screen in a fraction of a second, and there is no visible delay between the movement of the mouse and the cursor on the screen. We experience moving the cursor across the screen. Our experience of daily life is similar. When I kick a stone, my intention to move my foot is communicated to my body, and my foot in the physical world moves to meet the physical stone. But I do not experience the interaction directly. The brain receives the information sent back by the eyes and body and updates my image of reality appropriately.”
― Peter Russell, From Science to God: A Physicist?s Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness