Rethinking the Process of Vision

This new explanation of vision teaches that, as opposed to what has been historically believed, the process functions in two distinct and separate regimes in separate regions of the retina.

These regions are: 1) the newly defined nanostructure of the plane formed by the array of receptor outer segments that functions in the fast (femtosecond or 10^-15 sec) time domain¹ and in the near field of light. A fundamental physics transition from classical light wave to quantized electron particle occurs at each of the millions of discrete light detection sites that form this plane, and, 2) all subsequent processes in other regions of the retinal structure that function to thermalize the absorbed light energy and render  the  electron particle compatible with the biochemical time scale (milliseconds) of the  human nervous system for use in forming the visual image.

To summarize, the eye evolved to fundamentally detect light as the wave of classical physics at sites immediately adjacent to spaces where absorbing electrons are defined by quantum considerations ( at least the “electron-in-a-box” approximation of quantum physics).

The outer region comprising the plane of retinal outer segments is essentially the subject of (fundamental) physics and is to some degree the province of perhaps a new discipline termed “femtosecond near-field electronics”. The remainder of the retina can be described in the usual, traditional (i.e.,slow)  biochemical terms.

The new physics of the first  classical-to-quantum transition region is the sole subject of this work.

With this finding it is inescapable that vision functions at the juncture of the classical and quantum regimes of physics and that it forms a linkage with an, as yet certainly unclear, idea of a quantum reality that exists “out there”, i.e., beyond the eye.

It would follow that the historically accepted view of the eye as a “passive” optical imaging device is incorrect. With this new insight I increasingly like the idea (described in previous comments) that the eye actually radiates (or “re- radiates”) the information content of the visual scene. This follows logically from identification of the retina as the Fourier plane of the eye and the attendant ability to form a “phase-conjugate mirror” of that scene.

I believe that consideration of the juxtaposition of the meaning of the widely disparate time regimes of the two regions described – the 10^-15 sec “quantum transitive” region and the 10^-3 sec “biological human system” time characteristic of sub-retinal regions - will perhaps yield new insights. I will be thinking about this.

^1. There has long been evidence for association of the vision process with this time domain in spectroscopic findings that isomerization of the electron signal-producing retinal molecule occurs in this order of time.

GCH

Ojai, CA

12.02.09