There is indeed no such thing in life as absolute darkness; one's eyes revolt and hasten to fill the vacuum by floating in sparks, dream patterns, figures whimsical and figures grotesque, shifting and clad in complementary colors, to appease the indignant cups and rods of the retina.
There are several ways we can know what a dog, a bird or, indeed, any other organism can see, for example either by looking at the structure of the eye and comparing it with other species, or by behavioural tests.
In the study of this membrane [the retina] I for the first time felt my faith in Darwinism (hypothesis of natural selection) weakened, being amazed and confounded by the supreme constructive ingenuity revealed not only in the retina and in the dioptric apparatus of the vertebrates but even in the meanest insect eye. ... I felt more profoundly than in any other subject of study the shuddering sensation of the unfathomable mystery of life.
Thus there is no doubt the eye was intended for us to see with.
In the eye, there is a type of junk that accumulates in the back of the retina that eventually causes us to go blind. It's called age-related macular degeneration.
My eyes are fine.
If we can map the retina, that will help us understand how it functions in vision, as well as devise new ways of repairing its malfunctions. And if we can really figure out the retina, perhaps we will have a shot at figuring out the vastly more complicated brain.
The human eye has long fascinated lovers, artists and physicians. The ancient Greeks dissected eyes, but struggled to understand how they worked, unclear as to whether they received or emanated light.
At Oculus, we're now looking at eye specialists, people who really understand how the human eye works, and how that affects human emotion.
'Impressionism' was the name given to a certain form of observation when Monet, not content with using his eyes to see what things were or what they looked like as everybody had done before him, turned his attention to noting what took place on his own retina (as an oculist would test his own vision).
The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
The eye sees what it brings the power to see.
The eyeball is contained in the cavity of the orbit. In this situation, it is securely protected from injury, whilst its position is such as to ensure the most extensive range of sight.
The eye is a very quick instrument, much quicker than the ear. The eye gets it immediately.
Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.
If you look at how beautiful the eye can be, it has its own inside patterns and colors.
In the 19th century the anatomy of the eye was known in great detail and the sophisticated mechanisms it employs to deliver an accurate picture of the outside world astounded everyone who was familiar with them.
The eye - which sees all objects reversed - retains the images for some time.
It is only when light is reduced that the pupil opens and feeling goes out of the eyes like touch.
The least touchable object in the world is the eye.
If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from the physical life-process.
The eye is the most refined of our senses, the one which communicates most directly with our mind, our consciousness.
If you look at landscape in historical terms, you realize that most of the time we have been on Earth as a species, what has fallen on our retina is landscape, not images of buildings and cars and street lights.
The fruit flies we work with have the equivalent of about a 25 by 25 pixel camera. But that camera is very, very fast, about 10 times faster than the human visual system.
