What would a world look like without the focal point of a lens? Our eyes have a lens that gathers the light, focuses it on a plane, so that the retina can receive this focused image—as an image on a plane. The rays of light are captured by receptors and passed on to the brain. This vibration of the nerve cells is transcribed into another vibration, that of consciousness. This principle was copied in the camera obscura and the cinematograph and forms the basis of classical photography and film or video recording.
What, then, would a world look like that is perceived by a consciousness with no lens interposed in visual perception? The space would be flooded with light, colors would probably be visible, but there would be no spatial depth, no objects. How would a consciousness orient itself within it?
Senses
A newborn’s eyes are still closed during the first few days. First, its own body must be perceived, gross and fine motor skills, hunger, pain, tiredness. All of this probably comes first. Only later come sight, touch, hearing. The boundaries between one’s own body and the external world must be explored. Is the object in the hand part of one’s own body or not? How does the feeling of hunger relate to the milk bottle? All these perceptions manage without visual representation. Object recognition takes place to a large extent through motor skills, taste, and touch. So, very directly.
The perception of what is not on the level of direct bodily contact comes later through smell, sight, and hearing. What is far away must somehow present itself to me. The contact is physical: light waves, sound waves, odor substances. They arrive at the sense organs at different speeds and leave an impression there; they inscribe themselves in the senses, a resonance, a rhythm, a fusion or intermission takes place. In smell and hearing, the senses are directly exposed to the vibrations. Admittedly, the organ of hearing, the organ of smell, the organ of taste are quite complex, since the perceived vibrations must be converted so that the brain can process them, but none of these organs is as complicated as the eye.
Are the Problems of Western Philosophy Retinal?
The eye, then, produces an image. Here is the root of representation. Which of these images are physical reality, lifeworld, art? It seems to me that most questions of philosophy arise out of this retinal process. At the center of Western aesthetics, therefore, is the question of representation. Attempts to understand representation as the foundation of aesthetic and epistemological philosophy lead down all kinds of wrong paths. They lead into a philosophy that understands the world as objects presenting themselves to us. This has consequences not only for art, but for economics, politics, society, natural science…
In Indian aesthetics, it is Rasa, an entirely different approach. Here, it is about a state of consciousness facilitated by sensory stimuli. To enter this state and remain there is the aim of art. Art opens a gate to higher consciousness—Satchitananda. Its origin lies in the Vedas. Rasa is taste, Rasa is not retinal. Rasa is the essence.
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