Pascal Wallisch

The din of the tinnitus just constantly going.

It's like man's search for meaning, basically, but in your brain.

My name is Pascal Wallisch, and I serve as a professor of data science, neuroscience, and psychology at New York University.

And I study whether The Matrix, the movie, is a documentary.

So the question is, does your brain basically create a matrix for you?

What is real?

So you're not seeing reality unfiltered.

You're just living in the matrix, like literally.

Correct.

Because everything that you perceive is filtered for your sensory organs and then goes for your brain.

And if we assume that you have a unique brain, which I do, then you're bringing a lot of yourself to what you experience.

In a nutshell, yes.

This is general to all the senses, including smell, including taste.

For instance, if you think about something like neuropathic itch, where you think there's something itching you, but it's in your mind.

But I want to be very clear for those of you listeners who have neuropathic itch.

It is very real in your mind, even though your mind generates it.

I'm sure you have seen faces in clouds that were not there or faces in your wallpaper.

So this is actually very common.

Yes.

You're seeing meaning everywhere.