The reason I wanted to discuss this in the first place is that I actually don’t know what to think. Taking light and vision to…
The reason I wanted to discuss this in the first place is that I actually don’t know what to think. Taking light and vision to be two aspects of the same phenomenon leads us into a whole other area: the seemingly metaphorical meaning of light in the context of the “light of consciousness.” For example, when we dream, we see things in a kind of light. This light illuminates psychedelic visions, dreams, daydreams, and all visual imagery that occurs with our eyes closed. There’s some sense in which our imagination, our image-making faculty, is self-luminous.
In the case of vision in normal physical light, the light comes first and vision comes second. If you shut the light off, you can’t see. But in the visionary sense, vision itself may generate light, at least subjectively. Visions are self-luminous. If someone has visions enough, according to religious traditions, they start developing halos and their bodies become luminous.
The point I’m trying to make is that if physical light has conscious vision associated with it, then the reverse may also be true: conscious imagery may have light associated with it.Rupert Sheldrake, Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness (Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham)