But if we are concerned with the detecting of illuminated objects in an illuminated environment as distinguished from luminous objects in darkness we must go beyond the information carried by waves and consider the information contained in an arrangement , that is, in the ambient array . In a medium of air, as distinguished from outer space, the endless echoing of electromagnetic energy produces a stationary network of perspective projections. The rules of information transmission by energy no longer apply to this equilibrium state of illumination. The flow of environmental events is simultaneous at all station points in the medium. The speed of light is irrelevant.
Illumination creates perspective , which is the same when the amount of illumination changes.
Sound and electromagnetic radiation can be used by man to carry signals, or coded information, and the laws of this communication are becoming well understood. Despite the germ of truth in this metaphor it is a mistake to do so, for the environment does not send out messages, and the activity of perception is not one of learning a code or breaking a code. The information about vibratory events, either mechanical or atomic, in the flowing sea of energy surrounding an organism is not transmitted in code. Moreover, and this is what needs to be emphasized, the information that everywhere exists simultaneously in a closed system of reverberating light is still more radically different. The points of which ecological space consists are abstract mathematical fictions.