Rethinking the Process of Vision

I have received numerous requests for a DVD copy of the 1988 BBC Documentary “Colourful Notions”. I originally obtained the film quite out of the blue from a Swedish friend of my wife who somehow know of my interest in color vision. It is my fervent wish that the BBC would make copies available!

In looking at the film anew today I was struck with the statement of the well known fact that Thomas Young in 1801 correctly discerned the trichromicity of vision. The statement on the film is that (paraphrased) “the eye sees only three primary colors…”. I could not have stated it better….this is exactly the crucial difference between my explanation and the historically inaccurate version. I geometrically and specifically show where these wavelengths interact on the retinal surface…and this is NOT as purported in the film!

Following Thomas Young’s correct bit of intuition over 200 years ago the field of vision ‘picked the wrong trichromatic model’ which it persists in, and teaches to students, to this day! So much experimental data has been acquired in the intervening years (the Nobelist George Wald’s ’blue-blind’ fovea, for example) that does not fit this mode (but is explained by mine!). The three RGB receptor response curves shown in the film - that are suspiciously and glaringly not RGB at all! - these same curves have been reprinted over and over in vision papers and textbooks..compunding the error for two centuries!

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A necessary digression into science. Each retinal receptor (both cone AND rod) has two functions: 1.) to act as a sub-optical wavelength- dimensioned quantum confined electron (EQC) site that accepts the energy of the discrete optical interaction, and 2.) it’s dimension (set primarily by the rhodopsin protein of the retinal/rhodopsin complex) defines the interreceptor spacing and,. according to this explanation, the wavelength of the interaction surrounding the EQC central site. The retina in it’s living state suspends all receptors in an almost crystalline order .. not at all as the ‘dead’ floppy receptor remnants measured in the film. It is this living state retinal order that is at the basis of the light interaction that I describe. One should envision the retina as a highly ordered and spaced array of generic ‘nanowire’, energy accepting, elements - the receptors. Regarding the spectrophotometric measurements shown in the film of dead retinal fragments - the central electron quantum confinement centers remain in such fragments but the crucial and exacting surround of the refractive index medium is altered and is certainly not the same as in the retinal living state.

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I have previously critiqued the BBC film (see in the body of the website) noting that, beyond the beautiful exposition of his theory by Edwin Land, I believe that the remainder perpetuates the incorrect ideas about retinal light interaction. It is maddening to see the purported response of a blue ‘cone’ being acquired in real time is actually not a ‘curve’ at all but noise raised to the ‘100’ level. I have written expensively on the subject of the ‘blue cone fallacy’ - again, see the body of the website. Short wavelength (blue) response occurs at rod-to-rod appositions!GCH
2/27/07

Current thoughts concern: 1.) the geometrical motif that forms the basis for the organization of the retina and leads to the idea that perhaps a fundamental, rigid, geometry is at the heart of all biological structures, (See my Comment of 10/28/06 “Recycled: A Geometric Symmetry at the Heart of Biology”)and, 2.) thoughts that follow from the realization that retinal light detecting devices are sensitive to single quanta (photon) interactions that lead into the very fast quantal realm of time and space… toward the ‘instant’ of time or, ultimately, the absence of time! (See my Comments of 12/14/06 “Does the Eye Interrogate Space-Time? and of 12/08/06 “Quantal Image Formation on the Retina Isn’t Quite Instantaneous!”

1.) Descriptions of the human eye….the organ of vision…..the extension of the brain that interfaces with the outside world. It becomes apparent in this explanation that this biological organ represents, not a ‘laboratory device for sorting out optical wavelengths and forming an image’ but rather is an actual materialization of the fundamental physics principles of the refraction and absorption of light. It is nothing less than this. The eye evolved as a ‘biological mass’ to conform directly to , and purposely effect, understood physical principles! There is thus no need for any concept of ‘design’ as some propose. I have come to believe, however, that there actually is something very fundamental, and heretofore unrecognized, in the evolution of the eye and vision….a rigorous geometric principle that underlies (or is at the basis of) the certainly non-rigid biological mass that evolved to effect the function of vision.

For anyone not bothering to read the above referenced Comments or the body of this work this principle states that ‘an admixture of circles of two sizes (the cones and rods of the retina) uniquely defines three geometric, i.e., center-to-center, lengths. And…the’middle’ length (corresponding on the retina to the center-to-center cone/rod dimension) forms an exact geometrically defined wavelength interaction to which all wavelengths on either side can be referenced (Edwin Land’s ‘ fulcrum’).

Thus if one seeks divine intervention in biological forms they should step back from the eye and ask: “who designed geometry?

I must add the thought (discussed in the above Comments) that if the visual image from the retina (my ‘quantal image’) is transferred coherently through the optic bundle of nerves to the visual centers of the brain it would seem that this same geometric principle would be transferred (it is the basis of the image) and that this may shed some new light on our ideas about subsequent neural organization.

2.) I’ll not go too far into the time/quantum realm aspects of my ideas regarding formation of the visual image. If one has read the work it becomes clear that I believe that the image formed on the retina touches aspects of fundamental quantum physics with discrete light interactions occurring in nanometer, electron quantum confinement spatial dimensions and in heretofore unrecognized fast intervals of time..probably less than 10-15 seconds (the experimentally measured isomerization time of the retinal molecule). I have proposed that the function of the transition of the image through the optic nerve is to ‘slow down’ (or integrate) image information to human nerve sensibility.

My intent has not been to go into this initially attempting to articulate the basic principles of the idea to the vision science community who I believe are biologically-oriented. But…. I am being drawn into it!

I am currently interested in the subject of ‘quantum chaos’ and with some fascination find that these concepts have rotational aspects. I have written in the past (buried in the archives of the web page) that I sensed something rotational in the the ‘eight-around-one’ motif of rods-around -cones that occurs at 7-8 degrees of retinal angle. In addition to the fact that the ratio of dimensions of cones to rods that leads to this motif corresponds to the visual bandwidth (!) this same ratio applies uniquely to the formation a specific shape - the epitrochoid. It is this shape formed by ‘revolving an outer small circle around a central larger one’ that Felix Wankel used in his famous internal combustion engine. It also shows a spatial symmetry that is not present in the hexagonal arrays (cones and rods) on either side of this geometrically crucial 70-8 degree retinal angle.

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

GCH