Thanks, Graham. To be honest, I don't now if the second version is actually an alternative or an improvement. As I see it, neither of those versions, yours included, contradict each other. Each has merely a different predisposition in which way it can be misunderstood. The images are mediated and are products of our brains, but I'm quite certain that what gets processed are our boring five senses, memory, thinking, etc. As for what is mediated (which, I guess, is the crux of the problem), again, it appears as it's those pesky "uncaring" and "horrible" natural forces such as gravity or electromagnetism, etc. And as for the brain itself (whatever it is), if it has real material substance or if it's just a though within a though, either way it's hard to disagree that it obeys some rules which science has pretty much nailed down (at least in basic shapes).

Here’s a part of one of my responses to Benjamin Cain. Hopefully it will shed more light on what I mean:

As you’ve mentioned many times throughout your writings, we, no doubt, perceive several times more than we are aware of. That, however, does not mean only information that directly triggers our senses, but also various kinds of noises and disturbances. It’s quite plausible that brain, being a bio-mechanic electromagnetic “computation” device consisting of 80% water, would be susceptible to all kinds of extrasensory interference. After all, Moon’s gravitation moves tides (and its influence on menstrual cycle seems legit even as far as science goes), solar flares can wreak havoc on our electronics, etc. Thus, you may say that under proper conditions (manipulated perception or shifted awareness) we can “communicate” with Sun, Moon, and who knows what other forces that are normally outside of our awareness. This communication of course would be bidirectional as physics tells us, it’s just a matter of relative strength. It’s also worth to notice that this communication would take place no matter if we are aware of it or not. And these are only the “external” impulses.

Filter it all through the vocabulary (or set of patterns) of an average hunter-gatherer or “primitive” agriculturalist, and you should see the reason why we are left with zoomorphic, or, when no other pattern can be meaningfully constructed, abstract geometric imagery. Of course, I don’t try to imply that our ancestors were aware of electromagnetism, gravity, or air pressure in the sense we are, but they were definitely much more aware of how they directly influence us. Naive naturalists, indeed.

Seen in that light, and don’t ignoring what does not seem to fit into our current understanding no mater if it’s subjective experience or scientific evidence, it’s even more mind-boggling and mysterious that we e.g. can have a conversation with something so seemingly indifferent and non-intelligent as a giant ball of burning gas that is our Sun, even though it really seems to be so. In which case we are, and in a very palpable and concrete way, with our literal skin in the game, quite in the thick of this whole interconnected existence no matter what we mean by matter.

I don’t know about you, but for me that’s what makes the whole difference between illusion and reality.