The Biological Vision System: Introduction; Environment & Review of Eyes in Different Species James T. Fulton https://neuronresearch.net/vision/ Abstract: Keywords: Biological, Human, Vision, phylogeny, vitamin A, Electrolytic Theory of the Neuron, liquid crystal, Activa, anatomy, histology, cytology PROCESSES IN BIOLOGICAL VISION: including, ELECTROCHEMISTRY OF THE NEURON Introduction 1- 1 1 Introduction, Phylogeny & Generic Forms 1 “Vision is the process of discovering from images what is present in the world, and where it is” (Marr, 1985) ***When encountering a citation to a Section number in the following material, the first numeric is a chapter number. All cited chapters can be found at https://neuronresearch.net/vision/document.htm *** 1.1 Introduction While the material in this work is designed for the graduate student undertaking independent study of the vision sensory modality of the biological system, with a certain amount of mathematical sophistication on the part of the reader, the major emphasis is on specific models down to specific circuits used within the neuron. The Chapters are written to stand-alone as much as possible following the block diagram in Section 1.5. However, this requires frequent cross-references to other Chapters as the analyses proceed. The results can be followed by anyone with a college degree in Science. However, to replicate the (photon) Excitation/De-excitation Equation, a background in differential equations and integration-by-parts is required. Some background in semiconductor physics is necessary to understand how the active element within a neuron operates and the unique character of liquid-crystalline water (the backbone of the neural system). The level of sophistication in the animal vision system is quite remarkable. Until recently, the technology of man was not adequate to provide a proper model and understanding of the overall system, much less a detailed understanding of the system such as that found in humans. Throughout history, man has only been able to build complex system based on the available knowledge of the day. With this knowledge, man has been able to explain these “man-made” systems to others to the same level as the understanding required to build them. This situation has not existed in the biological systems. Beautifully designed and implemented systems have arisen without depending on the knowledge of man. And man has not been able to explain these natural systems to others because of the lack of understanding required to build them. Because of this situation, man’s understanding of biological systems has changed dramatically with the advance of his understanding of technology. It is now time to present a dramatically different explanation of the operation of the visual and neural systems of biology than has previously been available in the literature. An immense amount of detailed, measured, data is available in the literature, some of it well characterized and controlled, much of it is not!!! Much of this data has appeared in batches resulting from a team with either a charismatic or an industrious leader pursuing a theory or an approach to technical exhaustion. Frequently these teams have veered off the course over time because of the limitations of their theoretical (more often conceptual) model. This can frequently be observed by reading a sequence of papers and observing the entrenching of inadequate theories by later investigators omitting the limitations and caveats placed on the earlier work by the original investigators. Horner2 has characterized this process clearly. He describes a “search image” as a heuristic preconception that the investigator strives to prove. Often, their result shows that they found their exact search image because it agrees with their own prior education. Anything that might have contradicted the image (because it differed from the views of their teacher or their own studies) was overlooked, misinterpreted or dismissed as unimportant. The pursuit of "search images" is clearly demonstrated in the literature of vision. It has frequently been necessary to confirm such “search images” in order to gain acceptance in the peer review process. The current wisdom has persisted for the last half of a century and is based on a simple set of such images developed within a chemical construct, largely in spite of the dawn of the electronic age and the subsequent information age. The pursuit of such images has been based on an ionic approach to biochemistry and reliance upon a stereoisomeric hypothesis in the 1Released: October 27, 2019 2Horner, J. R. (1997) Dinosaur Lives. NY: Harper Collins pg. 26 2 Processes in Biological Vision absence of creditable alternatives at the time. To a large, extent, this theoretical basis was developed in a technical vacuum. The proposals made within the biochemical community were not correlated with the parallel, and more fully developed, field of photochemistry. Nor did the proposals incorporate many of the tools available within the mathematical and electronics community. Since that time, the field of vision has advanced without incorporating any of the principles of current day semiconductor physics. The result of these parochial actions has been the development of a largely conceptual framework of vision that involves a series of overly complex hypotheses applicable only to small segments of the overall subject. These frameworks of limited scope will be referred to as "floating models" in this work. Stone3 provided a remarkable book in 1983 where he attempted to organize the major signaling paths within the visual modality, taking unique care to explain his method of organizing various individual conceptual areas. The book extends far beyond just organizing the labels for retinal ganglion cells. He notes in his Preface, “From the initial work [of classifying only ganglion neurons] there emerged a new understanding of these centers, leading to the idea of “parallel processing” in the visual system. As a consequence, only the first of the three parts of this monograph is concerned with the classification of retinal ganglion cells. .Part II concerns the methodology of classification. .many visual neurobiologists (myself included) have paid too little attention to the methodologies we have used in classifying nerve cells.” An absolutely crucial thesis of Stone, revolved around the concepts of “Single” and “Multiple” interpretations as a prefix to the term variation (page 58). Here, the single variation will be taken to indicate the primary variation, a single function describing an outcome based on a single input. The multiple variation willl be taken as recognition that a specific outcome may involve a variety of parameters, only one of these parameters can be selected at one time to satisfy the single variation concept, with all other significant parameters controlled during the search for the single variation function . Marshall & Zohar4 pointed out in 1997; “...neuroscience covers many orders of magnitude, from molecules and subcellular structures to large systems, yet the discoveries of research workers at these different levels have so far not been integrated. For this to happen, we need not just more facts, but a more accurate overall model. This would require a conceptual breakthrough.” This work attempts to provide at least part of that breakthrough by leaning on the advice of Stone. It deviates significantly from previous treatments in neuroscience and electrophysiology in recognizing the dominance of free electrons over ions in the operation of the neural system. It will be shown that ions play no significant role in the signaling operation of the visual and neural systems of animals. In pursuing a clearer understanding of the visual system, the author was astounded to find that there was no explanation of how the neural signaling system performed at the detail level. In analyzing the photoreceptor cells of vision, it became clear that this cell was a neuro-secretory cell and the same mechanisms employed in the signaling function of that cell were applicable to all neurons. Furthermore, the visual system could only be understood based on a complete understanding of the signaling processing capability of the neural system. It became necessary to expand this work to include a quite thorough analysis of the neural system as a subset. To illustrate the situation more fully, the illumination range of the human eye extends over fifteen orders of magnitude. Similarly, the physical scale of the operating components of the visual system extends over eight orders of magnitude. Rodieck has provided an illustrative scale extending from the complete eye down to the p-orbital of the quantum physicist/chemist5. Although the author had been attempting to develop at least the concept of such an overall model of vision for many years while pursuing a peripheral vocation, his efforts to satisfy the call of Marshall & Zohar intensified during the last five years. By reexamining the fundamentals upon which the conventional wisdom was based, a truly conceptual breakthrough occurred that became a paradigm shift in thinking related not only to vision but the entire neurological system of biology. This paradigm shift brought into question each of a number of premises supporting the conventional wisdom. It is important to note that many of these premises within the conventional wisdom were never confirmed outside of a small community (a “school”) located within a single large research organization. 3Stone, J. (1983) Parallel processing in the Visual System: The Classification of Retinal Ganglion Cells and its Impact on the Neurobiology of Vision. NY: Plenum Press 4Marshall, I. & Zohar, D. (1997) Who’s afraid of Schrodinger’s cat? NY: William Morrow pp. 23-24 5Rodieck, R. (1998) The first steps in seeing. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, pg. 65 Introduction 1- 3 These organizations are typically “centers” or departments of universities where the residency is limited in duration for all but a few principals. The term “center” has begun to replace school because of its semantic concept. However, these centers should be considered relative centers, similar to relative maxima in calculus.