Watching a hawk circle the canyon overhead starts out as packets of light or ‘photons’ striking my retina. How these photons strike the retina and which pathways they activate in the brain tell me what I’m seeing. Photons landing in a specific orientation will travel pathways that construct its’ form (bird). When they hit adjacent areas in succession I’m informed of its’ motion and direction. And the length of time between hits tells me its’ speed. None of this was known before 1968 when David Hubel and Torten Wiesel first announced their research findings. And it wasn’t until 1981 that it was generally accepted and they earned the Nobel Prize in Neurophysiology and Medicine.
