Foundational to movement is having somewhere to go. Without some purpose, the intent of movement remains purely random, as observed in the most primitive animal forms like Starfish. A prerequisite for Purpose is the acquisition of information about the surroundings that identifies beneficial actions. The first data acquisition mechanism for creating information about the surroundings beyond the organism’s boundary is vision. Crucial to the investment of evolutionary resources in the emergence of vision is that it enabled animals to formulate some understanding of their situation relative to their surroundings. This understanding reinforced further evolutionary investment in movement capacities by facilitating doing something about what they saw. Vision, the processing of visual data, and movement co-evolved as the basis of the Vertebrate phase of our lineage. Vision continues as a core element of sensory processing as the senses and sensory processing systems further evolved in our Mammalian, and then Primate phases.
VISION AND THE LOCOMOTIVE CORE
Vision is line-of-sight sensing. It is movement along a line, expressing intent either towards a perception (Seeking behavior) or away (Protective behavior). These original intentional movements characterize Animal locomotion and are integral to the evolution of Vertebrate Neurophysiology. The cognitive support for vision, forming the substrate upon which our more complex senses evolved, is thus linearly oriented. In a line-of-sight world, everything you sense is right in front of you. This concept of linearity, extending from “line-of-sight” visual processing, is the bedrock upon which both the form and function of animals, vertebrates, and all creatures that evolved from this foundation emerged. We share both our sensory/processing core and the root of our mechanisms of locomotion with the most ancient Reptiles and their predecessors.
Linearity can be identified in our physical form as well as in our mechanisms for cognition. Physical attributes are observed in our core mechanisms of movement:
MOVEMENT
and move specifically in our head and feet:
ATLAS/AXIS AND VISION
WALKING/RUNNING AND TURNING
The cognitive expression of linearity is observed in our Drives, Instincts:
COGNITIVE MECHANISMS
and Protective Mechanisms:
SURVIVAL
Specific characteristics of the Time/Space Continuum upon which Animals capitalized as they profited from their investment in vision are discussed here:
DOING ARCHETYPE
VISION AND MAMMALIAN/PRIMATE PHYSIOLOGY
Vision evolved along with the physiology of animals. In animals whose physiology evolved to function along a line or a plane, a vertical slit Iris optimizes incoming visual information. For these animals, the information from the vertical plane has less significance and requires less management of light levels. Primates, evolving in a three-dimensional forest canopy, required equal access to information from the third dimension. The Primate Iris is consequently round. The round Iris enables equal sensory access to the two-dimensional plane perpendicular to the line-of-sight, which, when combined with our Manipulation Core, facilitates the non-specialized tool use that is the defining characteristic of our species.
GLASSES ON CHILDREN – TRAINING VISION (Therapy section?)