Overcoming Silence, part 5: "Feeling" Vision

          Nicholas Humphrey (see Overcoming Silence, part 2: Perception, re A History of the Mind) spoke of the basic purpose of animal senses - that they originally provided an organism with the means to feel stimulus from the outside world in order to generate a survival reaction from its body. The senses humans retain have become more sophisticated in their ability to generate a survival reaction but are still capable of generating a rudimentary response.

          In other words, the sophistication of my eyes protects me from having to feel every threat to my body. I can move myself out of harms way before a thorny plant or object penetrates the surface of my skin. However, we have not been stripped of the capacity to feel.

          The eyes act now as an intercessor giving us the option of responding with feeling to the information they provide. This feeling response, when aroused, is generated in a different part of the brain, no longer integral to the activity of the eye's perceptive channel.

          Feeling something about what we see is no longer a survival necessity but in most cases is a luxury; it too is a leisure activity. Is this not why art is considered a luxury by our culture, and its production a leisurely activity engaged in by someone with disposable time on their hands? Isn’t it assumed we have the option of feeling something about it?

          What do we loose by not "feeling" vision? Are there ways to preserve some qualities of the original animal sensations? Are there circumstances where some of these qualities are preserved, and if so is there a pattern them - threatening or otherwise? Do we need new words to describe these circumstances, or an incentive to identify them?

          On a train ride through an urban setting I am exposed to a plethora of decaying, rusting, atrophying, and deserted properties. I will also pass by some of the wealthiest properties in the country – the vast majority bounded by closely spaced 20 foot tall Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) used to create “living fences.” One set of properties is bounded by plants, the other by broken fences. Both settings provide visual fodder.

          Is there not an education failure here – one maintained over the 100 year life-span of the train? Which costs more – a fence or a few potted plants? Which lasts longer, cleans the air, provides shelter for wild life, and muffles sound?

          Visual deprivation is systemic.  Generally our understanding of it is defensive not introspective;  its pernicious affects utterly muffled.