March 15, 2008
As I write this with extremely dry eyes and uncomfortable contacts, I am squinting to see the screen. As Roger Carpenter stated, the eye truly is the slave and master of vision. Granted, there are several ways to interpret this. In my opinion, however, I understand the importance of good sight, and am fully aware of how powerful this perceptive process is. My eyesight is horrible, worse than most people. In fact, I am a point away from being legally blind. Not only am I unreasonably near-sighted, but I have an annoying form of astigmatism that only one in 1,000 people have, due to the manner in which it ruins your visual perception. Without my contacts or glasses, the world is completely different in my eyes. It is a blur of colors. Shapes that are even fairly close to me are generally unable for my eyes to define. I absolutely cannot start my day off without glasses or contacts. My eyes are dry, so I have to constantly carry eyedrops (which petrify me). It is amazing to think that a slight stretch of the eyeball can cause this poor vision. This shows how important every component of perceptual processes are, on a microscopic scale. I can go on about my poor vision, but it is safe to say that many people reading this know precisely what I am speaking of, and how much it can effect one’s life. On that note, as Roger Carpenter said, the eye is the master and slave to vision. He meant this in a different light than the aforementioned elements. This statement can, in this regard, be interpreted in the aspect of vision being a component of the brain. The brain will lock its attention on something, and thereby cause the eye to remain looking at whatever it is looking at. This is the element of the eye being placed in the role of the slave to vision. The eye can also randomly search about, as in the case of when one is daydreaming or is in a daze. The eye focuses on, in a way, whatever it chooses to, or whatever it falls upon. It is, in this instance, the master of vision. Vision, however, can have many meanings, depending on who one may be speaking to. To some, it may mean the actual processing, through the brain, of visual stimuli, from the reception of photons in photoreceptors all the way to the transmission of the neural signal to the occipital lobe at the back of the brain. To others, it may mean piecing things together in one’s mind, in the sense of putting together what you see with emotions, reminders, conversation, and essentially all other parts of your life. In this sense, Roger Carpenter may not have estimated the many ways that his statement could be interpreted, despite its truth.
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