If you believe that the body or some part of the body is you, that the body is the self or some part of the brain is the self, is you, then you cannot explain perception because there is no material self. There is no material perceiver. They cannot find the perceiver.
Even if someone were able to explain the technicalities of how certain forms, are seen as those forms, they still would not be able to answer the question, “Who is looking at that information?” You’ve got that information coming, whether it’s in the form of electrical impulses, or whatever. You’ve got that coming, but where is the seer who is sitting there watching it? Where is that material seer if a person is material? Which is what most people believe they are. If a person is the body or some part of the body, then why can they not find that person? Why don’t they find that person by following the information? I mean I… we know that Mr. A or Mr. Jones sees. So why don’t… and we know how he sees basically. We know that somehow the information gets translated or somehow it goes to this… gets to the optic nerve and turns into some kind of electrical impulses and starts going somewhere. Why don’t we follow that and we’ll find the person who is perceiving it? Right? They’ve tried. They follow it, but all they do is just go around in circles throughout the brain, you see? There’s still no one in there who’s looking at it. Plus, we have to remember that for those people who like to identify some part of the brain as the person, we have to remember that the brain is constantly changing. The matter which makes up the brain is not the same. It’s like, for example, each of you at home, you have a brain, but the brain you have today is not the same brain. It’s not the same mass of matter that you had in your skull one week ago. The turnover of atoms and molecules is so complete. So if there’s a little molecule that’s the self, the seer, it’s gone already. There’s a new one in there now.
So, anyway, this is an interesting… your point is an interesting question and that’s the one, that’s the main one they like to work on. Because they have some possibility of explaining it. But this other one they don’t want to even touch. Looking for the self. Because they know that they can’t answer it already. The point is, you are the seer. You are the perceiver. Yet there is no material seer or perceiver who has been discovered or found in the body. So this means that you, your essence is non-material. There’s no other conclusion. You exist. You’re a seer. You are the perceiver, yet there is no material perceiver. Therefore you are non-material. The perceiver is non-material in essence.
Siddhaswarupananda - founder of Science of Identity Foundation 
