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Information technology promises us virtual reality, with games that mimic “reality”. Yet, most of us fail to realise, we already live in a perfect virtual reality - that created by our own nervous systems. So you have no need to buy other ones. Nothing yet manufactured can create as convincing a reality as the brain in your head, with the help of a good memory and a few rules of course.

This lecture considers some of the features of the human perceptual system and why they are important in health care.

In the 6th century, an Indian philosopher wrote the following description of the centrality of perception to life:

“Whatever on thinks within oneself, that alone is experienced by him. To a man in great pain, a night is an epoch; and a night of revelry passes in a moment.”

Vasishthaya. 6th Century AD.