If the outer cells can move the basilar membrane, that could in turn move the oval window. The whole process could be reversed so he could be pushed outward. His senses became a transport mechanism converting the inside where he is in to the outside where he is not. The perceived thing exists only in so far as someone is able to perceive it. The innocent eye is blind.
Mental representations are reflections of an internal as well as external reality.
The receptacle and the spectacle. The vision and the ultimately visual. What he knows is what he sees. It is what he is.