Casual Metaphysics of Sight

The following tract is not designed as a fully rigorous treatment – instead it is meant concisely to bring perspective above and beyond objective materialist based approaches.

The objective materialist approach indicates that the perceptions in our eyes and other senses more or less line up with the objective reality beyond the viewer’s perception/consciousness. Items that directly contradict this:

We do not consciously see blood vessels and other visual artifacts most of the time, despite the fact that we clearly can see (e.g. through mirrors) their existence.

Your nose is mostly removed as an obstacle despite both eyes being able to see it. From a human factors standpoint, you could argue it either way, but when the combined vision ignores what either eye (with the other eye closed) clearly can see and what all other senses and indications confirm, what you are seeing clearly is not the objective reality.

Close your eyes. Here is a more subtle aspect of sensor interpretation. Your eyes can continue to sense some light, but there also are some artifacts that clearly have nothing to do with the obvious state of the eyelids or the outside world they screen. You see artifacts in this case, but you don’t see your nose? And why, when your eyes are open, do you not have this noise when it’s dark outside? Why are these artifacts only appearing to your vision in this state, and only sometimes/randomly when in this state?