What our senses pick up – light, sound, taste, smell, sensations – isn’t piped straight to the brain. Instead this information is converted into electrical signals, transmitted to the brain, sifted through to identify patterns and then re-assembled. What results is a version of reality that’s less about what’s happening around us and is far more a constructed product of the mind itself.
Data from the senses each runs at slightly different timings so light, for example, is processed slower than sound as its more complex. The brain conceals the effect but there is around a 0.5 second delay between an event occurring and our conscious experience of it. So, we live in the past; by the time you think the moment NOW is occurring, it’s already long gone.
Source: Dr David Eagleman, The brain with David Eagleman, Blink films 2016
