You're assuming,' said Dr. Robert, 'that the brain produces
consciousness. I'm assuming that it transmits consciousness. And my
explanation is no more farfetched than yours. How on earth can a set of
events belonging to one order be experienced as a set of events belonging
to an entirely different and incommensurable order? Nobody has the
faintest idea. All one can do is to accept the facts and concoct hypotheses.
And one hypothesis is just about as good, philosophically speaking, as
another. You say that the moksha-medicine does something to the silent
areas of the brain which causes them to produce a set of subjective events
to which people have given the name 'mystical experience.' I say that the
moksha-medicine does something to the silent areas of the brain which
opens some kind of neurological sluice and so allows a larger volume of
Mind with a large 'M' to flow into your mind with a small 'm.' You can't
demonstrate the truth of your hypothesis, and I can't demonstrate the truth
of mine. And even if you could prove that I'm wrong, would it make any
practical difference?
Author: Aldous Huxley