Light reflecting from surfaces creates a structured ambient optic array that initiates neural processing when photons stimulate retinal photoreceptors. Perception abstracts from photons to meaningful objects and affordances, representing things as opportunities for action. Human cognition functions as a closure machine by producing useful frames or closures that enable action and practical engagement. These closures present themselves as stable reality but are ultimately instrumental. The tendency to close shapes thought and limits openness to alternative perspectives. Deliberate exposure to diverse ideas and contexts can weaken closure effects and foster renewed openness and exploratory thinking.
Look around you right now. Stare at all the things nearby. These things will lovingly present you with what the psychologist James J. Gibson called an "ambient optic array" - the structured pattern of light reaching your eyes. Light reflects off surfaces, passes through the cornea and lens, and lands on the retina, where photons trigger the photoreceptors that kick off neural processing.
Of course, we do not see a world of individual photons. We see a world of meaningful things - things that we build with, cook with, play with, fight with, and use. Gibson argued that we see the world in terms of "affordances," where we see objects as opportunities for action. We think, "What can I use this thing for?" and "What's it good at?"
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