Opinion (Dale Purves, R. Beau Lotto Why We See What We Do Redux): “The First Edition of this provocative book reviewed a broad range of evidence leading to the conclusion that the visual system does not reveal the physical world by an analysis of retinal images and their representation by the visual system. Rather, what we see is based on the history of the species and the individual as a means of contending with the inherent uncertainty of light stimuli. It follows that visual perceptions are reflexive manifestations of past behavioral success rather than the result of a logical processing of present stimuli.

“When Darwin’s skeptics attack his theory of evolution, they often focus on the eye. Darwin himself confessed that it was ‘absurd’ to propose that the human eye evolved through spontaneous mutation and natural selection. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have now tackled Darwin’s major challenge in an evolutionary study published in the journal Science. …

“Researchers in the laboratories of Detlev Arendt and Jochen Wittbrodt have discovered that the light-sensitive cells of our eyes, the rods and cones, are of unexpected evolutionary origin – they come from an ancient population of light-sensitive cells that were initially located in the brain.

“’It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity,’ explains Wittbrodt. ‘Quite possibly, the human eye has originated from light-sensitive cells in the brain. Only later in evolution would such brain cells have relocated into an eye and gained the potential to confer vision.’”

Source: (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041030215105.htm)

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, there is nothing “around” us; everything that we see as existing is an illusion. Everything is felt inside of us: ourselves and the world around us. By changing ourselves, our properties, which Kabbalah allows us to do, we can “change the world around us.” Rather, we begin to feel its relativity, the dependence of the picture of the world on a person’s (observer’s) properties. See “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”
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