I had this thought while strolling through the wonderful Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island a few weeks ago. Imagine a world in which all we see is color transforming space into an entirely abstract form with no pathways, no lines, no boundaries, no objects. In other words, a world with nothing to do. A sea of color has an inchoate enveloping power charged with the potency of a genetic eruption, the plenitude of life, yet detached from any antecedently-existing world—an experience both cerebral and ravishing.
Savoring a great wine with eyes closed tuning out that pre-existing world, has much the same effect, a phantasmagoria of swirling sensation requiring nothing of us but attention.
Our brains don’t handle such experiences well. We always slip back into that extant world. To linger too long would be frightening, psychotic.
But experiences such as strolling through gardens or savoring wine creates a fissure in our ordinary lives, an intimation of something inexhaustible, a world of pure sensation resting on life’s endless fertility.
We need a new brain to fully appreciate it.
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 