Rethinking the Process of Vision

As we enter the era of defining and understanding nanostructures,  light interaction with the retina of the eye can be seen in the purely spatial and temporal terms of physics.

Spatially, light interacts as the wave of classical physics in the sub-optical wavelength spaces between adjacent retinal receptors and immediately adjacent to the far smaller quantum spatial regime of the confined electron wave.  This latter region represents the ‘absorbing mass’. The wave nature of light implies ‘antenna’ behavior and it is the spatial antenna dimensionality of the inter-receptor spaces (generally the distance between adjacent electron quantum confinement centers) that defines the wavelength absorbed at a specific site. The overall nanostructural interaction can then be seen in terms of either classical and quantum physics. From the quantum view, rather than imagining that a photon is involved one might more properly describe the interaction in more general terms as “quantized”.

Temporally, as defined in this work, light interaction and the fundamental basis of the vision process must occur in the very fast time regime – times of the order of 10^-15 seconds (femtoseconds) or less. Considering the temporal reduction of signal-obscuring electronic noise as I propose is the only way to explain the extraordinary  ability of  vision to detect and process the signal from single photon (or quantized) interactions. Additionally, this proposal is in consonance with the measured isomerization time of the retinal molecule within receptors that has been shown to occur on this time scale.

Going forward, any understanding of the vision process therefore will encompass the sub-optical wavelength spatial and very fast quantum time domains. This defines the realm of quantum physics and any real understanding of vision will involve, and always has involved, this discipline. Further, I believe that such study will lead to a new and fundamental understanding of brain function. The brain functions on the principles of quantum physics.

All of the above is in contrast to traditional thinking where light has been thought to interact within the cones and rods themselves leading to such historic misunderstanding as the dogmatic statements that  “cones detect color”,  “rods detect black and white”, the “photon catch” hypothesis etc. none of which is consistent with the long accepted organization of retinal receptors.

It can now be seen that the receptors themselves are merely spatially-defining molecular assemblages and that the retina is organized as a geometrically-defined spatial construction. Three spaces (or inter receptor dimensionalities) are uniquely specified that define the three primary wavelengths detected by the retina that have been historically characterized as the “three primary colors” (the hues of color are determined by a blending of these three primaries in the same way that this is accomplished technologically). The retina as I have said so often does not detect “color”

GCH

1/8/08

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 10:20 am and is filed under Running Commentary . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.