<title>Six Eyes Of Man</title>

Abstract

AbstractThe human visual system generates many dimensions of orthogonality and utilizes the out-put of eight orthogonal systems to generate hypersensitivity, color and depth. Each systemcan be regarded as a sense in itself and the outputs of all or any can be placed in apposi-tion to give a multiply populated class of conjoint information. Each system has two kindsof independence: (1) each acts alone in the acquisition, utilization and rendition of thatarray of information for which its own mechanisms are suigeneris; (2) each has an indepen-dence manifested only as a consequence of having its informational output placed in apposi-tion to the output of one or many of the other systems. * ** One of the most impressive aspects of the human visual system is its competence forgenerating many dimensions of orthogonality and its powerful use of a variety of kinds ofapposition of the output of these orthogonal systems. Here I wish to outline the interplayof all of these systems with each other to generate hypersensitivity, color and depth.Each of the systems has two kinds of independence: Each in its own right, outside ofjoint domains with the others, acts independently in the acquisition, utilization andrendition of that array of information for which its own mechanisms are suigeneris whileeach has, also, an independence manifested only as a consequence of having its information-al output placed in apposition to the output of one or many of the other systems. For thissecond kind of information, no system is independently revelatory nor does it contain thesecond kind of information until it is joined in apposition with one or more of the othersystems. (One of the most delightful adventures on this intellectual front is Bela Julesz'scomputerized reduction to zero of the pertinent information of the first kind, thus creat-ing a unique class of systems in which the only information is the conjoint information,information of the second kind.)Systems of inner independence require independent channels for relating the individualto the environment in which his species has evolved. Some of these channels are calledsenses and others which I shall describe have not yet been named. There is the sense ofsound, using waves in the air for transmission to the ear as receptor; the sense of smell,using fantastically small numbers of molecules with the nose as receptor; and the sense ofsight, using three bands of electromagnetic radiation with the retina as the external recep-