P. 263
The very idea of a retinal pattern-sensation that can be impressed on
the neural tissue of the brain is a misconception, for the neural
pattern never even existed in the retinal mosaic. There can be no
anatomical engram in the brain if there was no anatomical image in the
retina. The retina jerks about. It has a rapid tremor. It even has
a gap in it (the blind spot). It is a scintillation, not an image.
An engram impressed on the brain would have to be divided into two
changing parts in the two halves of the brain, which is impossible.
The whole idea stems from the persistent myth that there has to be
something in the brain that is visible, and from Johannes Mueller's
assumption that the nerves telegraph messages to the brain.
The reason the surface area corresponding to the blind spot can look black or white or colored or striped or checkered or slanted is that it cannot appear to be a hole or gap in the surface. To see a hole or gap requires stimulus information, and that is just what the blind spot cannot pick up. "Filling in" is a misnomer, therefore, since there never was a phenomenal hole in the world to be filled in.
For centuries philosophers and scientists alike have taught that we are directly aware not of the things surrounding us, but only of our subjective representations. ... Gibson's theory of direct perception challenged this scientific dogma by showing that perception is not purely a subjective matter.
Gibson denied that perception was based on sensory inputs or stimuli at all. Instead, he claimed that perception was based on ecological information, which is external to organisms, and, unlike sensory inputs, specific to its environmental sources.
Sutherland (1985) about direct perception: "So silly that it is not worth taking seriously".