How then do we describe the visual world and perceptual experience?

Gibson’s approach is to subjects of perception evolved in relation to thinkers as far back to the 17th Century figures. Subjects within perception which Gibson dealt with in his ideas as they progressed were in relation to the physical world and stimulation of light, sounds, etc.; anatomical-physiological features of the body, sense organs and the nervous system; visual perception of the visual world; and his ecological approach in animal-environment reciprocity which rejected mental monism and eventually replaced phenomenology. Although we have moved on from the 17th Century science of Descartes and others, the mind-matter dualism put forth the notion that the physical world is full of objects in space that conform to universal laws. That said, the physical world of change followed cause-effect chain reactions. Our bodies were objects. Our minds made sense of the sensory-bodily effects from the physical world. The physical world comprises of atoms, properties of energy and matter, and so forth that have their place in physics. Yet, for Gibson (1986, p. 9), more pertinent is the familiar things on the terrestrial level that could be measured on a scale on the ecological level, compose of units in scale to the environment. Mainly because sense organs of animals, the perceptual systems, cannot look at or feel or smell or taste the atmosphere in space nor in atoms (Gibson, 1966). The environment, for Gibson, consists of surroundings, and in mobility, the surroundings change for the animal (Gibson, 1986, p. 7).

What is perceived can be described synoptically with the medium of air and substances of the atmosphere – the immediacy of weather. Inspired by Gibson (and Ingold to the extent of weather as an ‘experience of light’), my attempts are to describe how pilots perceive of the weather. My strategy is to write in a continuous flow between pilot and environment of how their eyes scan the environment. I bring forth the optic array of the environment describing the physics of weather overlapping their experience flying in it. I am aware, I may find myself floating ambiguously in between objectifying weather when I avail to the physics of weather. That said, I describe the flight environment through weather, which contextualizes the environment of Greenland – recall the intro of Greenland’s hostile environment. I hope then to find a balance and flow between, in this case, mind and matter. I heed Gibson’s (1986, 211) reconsideration of eye movements and pointed out that the traditional eye movements focused on the eye physiology, not how the visual system works. I delve into the Gibson’s re-examination eye movement asking, what are the eyes good for in relation to picking up information. In moving towards Gibson’s visual perception, the pilot’s part of this study use their eyes in the real flight environment of Greenland. As in this case, the machine/helicopter becomes the ‘mediating’ force between their eyes and the environment.

The phenomenological task is to describe the world of experience, as it appears to the perceiver, the first-person perspective. Yet, as noted above, to know what we ‘see’ carries forth in our experiences. Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (PhP) (1945) is concerned not only with human knowledge, but also takes issue with our conceptual framework in how we conceive consciousness, the world, and their relation. Phenomenology was a way to dissolve these concerns. At the core of his phenomenology, perception is an ongoing process of exploration and discovery, from the intersubjectivity of the world gradually emerging for the perceiver (). Merleau-Ponty’s () conception of lived experience is anti-Cartesian, rejecting the dualism of mind and body, object and subject, in what is known as the phenomenal field. Following Merleau-Ponty’s PhP, when the world of things is not determined, an alternative strategy is to describe lived experience in a way that shows how our consciousness of the world is related to lived experience.However, there is no clear line between describing lived experience and giving it a structure. In other words, there is no ‘pure’ phenomenology.

When the pilot enters the helicopter, at the start of each flight, this is not where ‘preparedness’ begins. What happens before the pre-planning of a flight, before the first live mission, before the years of becoming Captain, and for some, before the 5000 flight hours or more gathering all the experience? What happened were factors that led up to the present, impacting how the pilots perceive of their environment.

To fully appreciate Gibson’s perception of the visual world, and later his ecological approach to the environment, a brief background is given to understand who influenced Gibson. Darwin was one such person. Works of Darwin’s Origins of Species (1859) and Hubert Spencer’s (1829-1903) Principles of Psychology (1855) postulated that the organism adapted to the physical world for continuous survival, and with respect to Spencer, mentally we (humans) had to adjust (Lom 118). Psychological importance in evolution and adaption gained momentum and adaptation becomes central to functionalistic psychology (late 19th Century) in that, the animal adapted to the physical environment (Lombardo, 1987, p. 119). In this sense, the environment of animals is functionally tied to animal existence. Yet, the physical world was explained in terms of physical matters that questioned the disconnect between mind and matter, to which Gibson’s later work on visual perception and functionalism involved rethinking dualism of that time.

The functionalism and perception that Gibson was inclined to forward, was one related to Aristotle’s functional approach which connects the knower and the known where the mind is knowing something about the state it is in, such that certain aspects cannot be separated, and relates to the subject-object dualism in how we know what we know (Lombardo, 1987, p. 185). Functionalism lead to the question, how do we know the environment in which we are in?Central to this question is the word environment. From the study by Lawrence Crook (Gibson & Crooks 1938) on driving automobiles, Gibson attempted to characterize the most relevant features to visual perception. In another direction, away from laboratory studies, Gibson introduced terms such as, terrain, destination, collision, and obstacle(Gibson & Crooks 1938). The practicality of navigating safely was a function of perception. This supports Gibson’s approach to perception as a function which did not sit in an internal state, yet required a specific description of the environment that directly relates to that function. As was the case, from Gibson’s study of automobiles, there was a link between what was transmitted to the retina of the eyes, and how this related to the surroundings, for instance the proximity to other cars or objects ahead. By the end of World War II, Gibson’s approach to visual perception combined phenomenology and functionalism (1947, 1948, 1950).

However, from 1957 onwards, Gibson’s approach to the problems of visual perception proceeded on a different path; instead of asking, “How do things look?”, Gibson provoked the discussion from the point of motion, shape, distance perception, and the like by describing the “What is there to see?” (Lombardo, 1987, p. 250). This constituted a major rift between ecological and psychophysical theories[1]. Describing the environment to be perceived was for Gibson, the starting point, which led him away from ‘classic’ phenomenology. Gibson’s concept of visual perception moved more toward functional and ecological which perception could not be described independently of the environment. Second, Gibson was impressed by Wall’s[2] evolutionary approach, the primacy of considering the environment in an investigation of visual perception. If vision is treated as an evolved adaptation to the environment, then ascertaining those most adaptively significant facts of the environment, to which perceptual capabilities are functionally related, is essential in understanding visual perception.

[1] 1944 and 1947 Gibson in (1947), a Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Corps, headed up the research on the, “Motion Picture Testing and Research,” for the Army Air Force Division of the U.S. Government, which carried out an assignment for the Army Air Forces Aviation Psychology Program involving aptitude testing, airplane recognition and general perceptual finding using film and photographs.

What is there to see is better described in terms of a medium, substances, and surfaces that separate them (Gibson 1986, 16-31). Gibson’s ecological approach is in an environment of objects, surfaces, and a ‘medium’ to which to feel, hear, listen, taste and see. Surface layout and medium became central terms in Gibson’s description of the environment in all spaces (aquatic, terrestrial, aerial) (1960d, 5). The atmospheric medium, unlike underwater medium, is subject to change – notably, the weather. Thanks to lasers to see how light bounces around, what we see of light reflects changes in the atmosphere. The question becomes, what is it in the environment that triggers us from seeing light to grey to dark clouds – the intensity?

Ecological optics in the Senses (1966) chapters 10 and 11, is concern with ecological condition necessary for the environment specific to optic array and the actual projective relation between the environment and structure of light. Hence, a description of the environment related to ecological optics. As such, for Gibson (1966, pp. 12-15), an environment full of ‘ambient information’ where ambient energy is referenced to an environment giving way to an ‘ecological’ optics that has a specific source for stimulation, which can then be described – the optic array. An optic array (1966, p. 17) is “the light converging to any position in the transparent medium of an illuminated environment insofar as it has different intensities in different directions.” In this regard, Gibson (1966, p. 13) distinguished ‘radiant light’, light as an energy source, from an ‘ambient light’ as ambient light is light to an organism, stating, “The essential feature of ambient light as a potential stimulus for an organism is that intensities are different in different directions.” An optic array is not just ambient, it has movement. To this, Gibson offered a panoramic vison to take every angle from various directions, in what the optics of light causes. As light intensifies in the sky, Gibson (1966, p. 14) identified the air as the ‘medium’ or as the ‘space’ where the ‘flow of information’ can take place.

The physics of weather describing the whiteness of clouds relates to particles in the air that form from the water droplets scattering every colour of light making the cloud appear white. Any variation of white are caused by minute water droplets fusing together to form raindrops. The bigger drops of water make the cloud denser which make it harder for sunlight to pass through, thus we see dark patches that our brain interprets. Varied sensory information can prompt the brain to process, such as a dark cloud serves as a warning for bad weather ahead. Light, as something invisible becomes visible, outside our brain, prompted us to see the clouds as white.

At a glance, the description the whiteness of clouds is consistent the physics of weather, facts at a ‘higher’ physical level. In describing the medium as air as water vapour, substances of ice crystals forming, and the surface of the cloud forming is only one level of reality. Gibson (1950a) argued that there exist multiple levels of reality. For Gibson, physics does not deal with the size and organization relevant to perception and behaviour. The level that fits Gibson’s argument involves both units and relations. Accordingly, Gibson’s (1966, p. 18) point in the ‘medium’ are that it “affords respiration and breathing, permits locomotion, filled with illumination; this leads to ‘offerings of nature,’ possibilities, ‘affordances’ known as ‘invariants.’” Ecological ontology of Gibson’s approach become most explicit to his theory of affordance. Affordances are neither phenomenological (mental) qualities nor physical qualities but ecological fact pertaining to the animal-related function of the environment. The environment is for animals (species) to achieve an end or goals provided in ‘affordances’ for an animal’s way of life.

REVISE

Ecological optics contains the concept of a medium (Gibson 1966 p, 14, 187 – 208), because a medium is essential for the movement in the transmission of light. The medium of air is examine by Gibson (1966, p. 14) to note why the structure in the reflected light is related to the structure of the environment. Ecological optics involved the study of how the environment structures light in various sways. In the Senses, Gibson (1966 p. 205 - 216), discussed how opaque surface structure reflected light through variations in surface angles, selective reflectance in measuring the proportion of light striking a surface, and differential illumination (1996 p. 205-216). He also examined how transparent and mirror like surfaces structure light (1966 p. 216-220).

Subsequently, Gibson’s ecology of the environment is in the sense of ecological optics, first as the environment contains information and secondly, describing the underlying elements visible in the medium and substance, through surfaces (a nod to Ingold), constitutes a primacy for Gibson’s attempt to explain why there are specific relations between the optic array and the environment and how effects the transmission and structure of light – through a medium.