Fillip / The Invention and Conclusion of the Eye (Toril Johannessen)

Fillip

Supplement 3 — Toril Johannessen: The Invention and Conclusion of the Eye

The Invention and Conclusion of the Eye<br>Toril Johannessen

(Rain. Footsteps. Mx walks, turns on radio: clip from The Day of the Triffids, continues, walks quickly back and turns it off again. Walks to desk, picks up audio recorder (desk sounds), walks to window at the other side of the room while playing back recording.)

Mx – (audio recorder playback) We see with our brains, not with our eyes.

(By the window: Rain, magpie calls from outside (far away), drums with her fingers on the window.)

Mx – (audio recording playback) Dear.... *** umm, triple asterisk... triple star...(fast forwards the playback) Dear triple star, it’s as I suspected, that the blind....um, no...(fast forwards the playback) Dear triple star, it’s as I suspected...Uh-huh... Um-hmmm... Invisible... Sight.

(Stops the audio recorder. Walks back to the computer at the desk, rain continues from window side of the room, sits down.)

Mx – ....Sight, sight. Sight. (types on keyboard, then reads with clear flat voice, single words) Sight definition.

C:// – (human but somewhat machine-like voice) Sight is a sense and is therefore also called sense of sight. The sense of sight is the organism’s ability to apprehend and react to light.

Mx – (types, then speaks) Sight plus organ.

C:// – Most organisms that have the ability to see use specialized organs for this task. These organs are called eyes.

Mx – (types fast, keyboard sounds) The eye.

C:// – 404 Article not found. Sorry, Mx.

Mx – Eye.

C:// – 404 Article not found.

Mx – Hmmm...(notes something on a piece of paper, shuffles the papers, desk sounds)

(Rain has stopped. Mx gets up from her chair, walks while talking. Takes a few steps, stops to start the recording, clears her throat.)

Mx – (Boop—audio recorder on) Recording 13.1.3, the invention and conclusion of the eye. Dear *** [triple star]. It’s as I expected: the mapping of the history and future of the eye came to support my suppositions.

First, that all we see we see alone, but all we see will be the same.

Second, that the world you and I live in is overwhelmingly invisible.

Third, that the eye will retreat.

I have one challenge: to describe the future with complete certainty based on the data that is available. I want you to calculate this for me. What is completely clear is that how we see, what we can see, and what we understand by “seeing” are facing radical changes. To form an image of the future of sight, dear ***, we first have to go back to the beginning. The origin of the eye is light: the eye arose from light...

(Mx is interrupted by the phone ringing. Short fast walk to desk. Turns off the audio recorder—boop, picks up the phone.)

Mx – Yeah, this is Mx?... Ah, hi (Z)... Yeah, I actually was trying to call you, or of course...yeah... The article about the eye for the encyclopedia, yeah... I need to make diagrams of some models...can you do that? Yes? Good... Yeah sure (sits down at desk)—I use a fact-based prediction-automation program I’ve called ***...uh-huh, which I’ve written myself... No, I feed the information as natural language, it gives a richer result... I summarize the main characteristics for *** and double check the results via C://. Uh-huh...yeah. It works brilliantly. But: we have a problem. My method follows standard procedure. Mostly everything is predictable—the pouring rain out there’s predictable! The fog in the morning will show up as expected! Everything’s working as I expected, but.... Some of the most fundamental concepts are still unclear.... No...some of the information that’s processed by *** still gives inexact definitions and unreadable codes. Like, I can’t access the entry on “eye” right now... What’s there on the visual organ is incomplete. What it gives me is that “most organisms having the ability to see use special organs for this task”— and then nothing else.... Who are these organisms, what do they see with, how do they see...something’s missing here...I don’t know if it’s because the *** algorithms aren’t sophisticated enough, or if it’s just good old C:// (pounds the keyboard) that’s had an overload and can’t manage to process the information from *** (C://’s fan starts spinning, processing sound) Or maybe the information’s being held back? Uh-huh, yeah...Uh-huh, ha, yeah.... Uh-huh, uh-huh, noted...yeah. OK. Yeah...I’m uploading the recordings on the fly, we’ll see how +++ handles it...(bleep)...yep, that’s done...Uh-huh, OK. Good. You follow along on your end when the results come from ***. Thumbs up...yeah, take care...

(Mx hangs up.)

Mx – (types something, then speaks) The eye’s development time how long?

C:// – Mx, you are encouraged to articulate complete sentences so that the language-learning system can be perfected.

Mx – OK. (types, speaks) How long did it take for the eye to develop?

C:// – The number of...