Rethinking the Process of Vision

I was asked if I know of Karl Pribram’s proposal that consciousness is dependent on holographic structure and is therefore, in some sense, related to the vision process. I have certainly been aware of these ideas for years but felt that they were incomplete in not providing any proposal for a possible mechanism as to how this might actually be effected. I believe that this is the reason why Pribram’s ideas although receiving a great deal of notoriety have  languished.

It occurs to me that this situation is similar Edwin Land’s work on color vision where he identified the fundamental nature of this process but, with the paradigm for light interaction available to him in 1955 could go no further in explaining the mechanism involved. I would believe that Pribram’s prescient ideas about holography are in the same vein.

I believe that I provide a mechanism for a holographic content to the vision process in my explanation for light interaction with the retina. This lies in the, to me unassailable,  geometric proof that the retina forms the Fourier plane of the optics of the eye….and….. the Fourier equation requires that both light intensity and phase be encoded…and these are the necessary elements for any holographic interpretation of vision.

I had not really thought about a holographic interpretation  of vision until chancing upon a reference to the original paper of Gabor first describing the principle of holography. The quote from this reference that caught my attention:

 “Gabor also considered only the case where the illuminating wave also serves as a reference wave”.

Axial holography! I had believed from at least a cursory overview of the holographic process and that generation of a hologram required a separate “reference beam”.  What struck me in the Gabor paper was that  in his initial  experimentation   he used a portion of the incident beam itself to act as a wave reference in a holographic construction. I have discussed this in a previous Comment that the reader might review.

Might a holographic interpretation of vision be developed using my light interaction explanation? The necessary elements seem to be there.

GCH

Tucson, AZ

9.7.08

The first and fundamental interaction of visible light resulting in the formation of an image in the vision process occurs at the plane of the outer segments of retinal receptors. This interaction occurs spatially in light detection centers (“pixels”) that are of dimensions smaller than light wavelength in the nanometer region and in a time frame of femtoseconds (10^-15 seconds). Considering these dimensions of space and time it might appear that the role of vision is to “interrogate the quantum regime”.

I propose therefore that the plane of receptor outer segments is the point where a “quantum reality” with all of the aspects of probability etc. come into consideration.

I further propose that all subsequent biological and neural processes in the retina and the transit of the image information to the visual centers of the brain function to “slow down” the time scale of image information to human nervous system proportions. This is the regime of slower, classical physics. In theory, the existence and placement of such a transition point between quantum and classical physics has long been debated and has even given a name - the “Heisenberg Cut”.

The fundamental light interaction on the retina then occurs in “nanospace”, i.e., in sub-micron quantum confined electron spaces, and, concurrently in the extremely fast femtosecond or less time regime. This interaction then approaches a minimum of spacetime. Might one see in this a “spacetime fulcrum” that somewhat approaches Julian Barbour’s projection of a zero time – or complete absence of time?

GCH

9.5.08