This work, put very simply, reinterprets the long accepted (i.e., appears in almost every vision textbook!) 1935 retinal morphology data of Osterberg in terms of modern physics and nanotechnology and arrives at an entirely new paradigm for the vision process. An example of vision science being stuck in the past - it was noted for me even within the past week that a contemporary view is that retinal receptors “act as waveguides”. Receptors do act as waveguides, but, in modern terms. When the diameter of such a guide is reduced to the micron and sub-micron dimensions of retinal receptors light travels outside of the guide instead of internally as in larger diameter fiber optic light guides that we now use in the optical communication field (see references in previous comments). This single point validates my explanation for light interaction with the retina! Please…. bring physics, and more precisely quantum and nano technological thought, into vision science!
Any new paradigm, theory, hypothesis etc. must be predictive to be valid. I have sketched out over the history of this work how this new view opens many new lines of thought into the vision and even plant photosynthetic processes and, further, into more esoteric areas of physics and biology. One of these is a provisional linkage of the vision process with the physics of quantum reality in my proposal that an actual physical mechanism exists linking the observer to emerging concepts of an external quantum environment. A physics overview emerges that encompasses the fast time domain characteristic of the quantized interaction of light with the outer segments of the retina and subsequent, slower, biological processes that operate within the human nervous system and brain. These thoughts I believe will ultimately have implications to the conundrum of human consciousness. I will outline in the following a number of these areas here but be clear that this certainly does not constitute a complete or even prioritized listing:
1.) It becomes clear that the eye forms images in the Fourier frequency domain, i.e., that the retina is a diffractive surface that processes both the intensity and phase of incoming light. This opens up many new lines of thought. We have no comparable imaging technology in the visible range of wavelengths to accomplish this. The recent discovery in the solid state of a visible light interactive silicon nanostructure (“porous silicon”) that uses the same light interaction mechanism as the retina provides a starting point for development of a series of new imaging technologies. At this stage of it’s development the technology of porous silicon provides only the high efficiency initial light interaction function and not the comparator (phase decoding) ability of the retina of the eye. It should certainly be possible with development to add the necessary microcircuitry in the sub-porous silicon substrate to replicate this capability.
2.) The diffractive retina explains Edwin Land’s body of experimental work on color vision. It will now be possible with this new understanding, that Land could not have known, to expand our knowledge of how the hues of color are really perceived.
3.) The truly fundamental finding of a geometrically determined reference point at 7-8 degrees of retinal eccentricity that defines the exact center of the visual band! It is nanostructural geometry that determines light wavelength in the vision process. Nothing like this has been seen before. This for the first time provides a logical explanation for the color constancy of the vision process.
4.) The many aspects of fundamental geometry leads to the ability to predict the characteristics of the visual system of any species photosynthetic plant or animal. For example, I have proposed that if two sizes of photosensitive receptors are present in a photosynthetic morphology the bandwidth (as shown in the human retina) will be determined by the ratio of their diameters. The absolute size of the receptors themselves will determine the position of the band of light interaction. I have shown that this seems true for species as varied as fish and insects.
5.) This paradigm predicts that at least two diameters of receptors are necessary to provide the imaging (or sensation) of color. Only an admixture of two sizes can produce the three “primary” wavelength peaks necessary (Land again!) to process the hues of color.
6.) The strange finding that the same octagonal symmetry (rods-around-cones at 7-8 degrees of eccentricity) is characteristic of the retinal morphology of seemingly all species from honeybees to crabs (the references of Snyder et al).
7.) The concept that the eye may not be the passive “camera receiver” that has for so long been assumed, but, may actually radiate a light signal back into the environment. This follows from the fact that antennas – as light interacts with “optical antennas” on the retina – transmit equally well as they receive signals (information). Following this, I have proposed that the well understood principles of optical phase conjugation are involved that would result in the radiation of this signal back along the exact path upon which it entered the eye. This insight leads to a “connectedness” between the observer and the observed that may, in the view of the author, have relevence to the subject of consciousness.
8.) It becomes evident that quantum physics must be introduced structurally into the science of vision. I believe that I demonstrate, for example, that light interaction with retinal outer segments occurs in femtosecond time (there is really a great deal of experimental data corroborating this) and that this forms the basis for the, again understood but never explained, ability of the eye to process single photon (or as I would term “quantized interactions”). It would seem, and has been proposed that information exists and is processed in vision in this (quantum) time domain, i.e, the time domain associated with the frequency of light. I would believe that the “Heisenberg cut” that defines the point of demarcation between quantum and classical physics may occur at the retinal outer segments of the eye. The function of the processes of vision that follow this interaction are, in my view, to “slow down” visual information to the slower time domain of classical physics, or in other words, to human nervous system proportions.
9.) I believe that it is possible to replicate the diffractive pattern of light interaction of the retina on silicon using the above mentioned technological discovery of visible light interactive “porous silicon”. This would be accomplished in experimentation imaging the longitudinal chromatic aberration of the solar spectrum passing through a condensing lens onto a silicon surface while it is undergoing the porous silicon electro-etch process. Such an experiment using the solar spectrum would provide a fundamental demonstration of how a primordial photosensitive organ of vision evolved simply as a physical embodiment of the principles of the diffraction of light and not through any concept of “design”. I believe that this will be a very fundamental experiment and I hope that someone will carry it out.
10.)….and much more……
GCH
5/23/08
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