A variety of structure in the "energy sea" may be assumed to have existed since the beginning of the earth. Thus, for instance, mechanical and electromechanical energy have existed; vibrations characteristic of certain events have occurred; electromagnetic energy has been structured in characteristic ways over the eons (e.g., differences in the brightness of the earth and the sky; night and day; reflectance from various surfaces-planes, curvatures). Into this energy flux living organisms emerged, all of which used some of this energy for survival. We imagine that over the eons, organisms evolved that could utilize more and more of the structural information in the environment to their survival advantage. Thus, we consider that organisms evolved separate sensory receptors for detecting mechanical and electromagnetic energy because this served some purpose (e.g., better survival). Higher forms of evolution, including man (to jump ahead a few million years!), have, by this way of thinking, developed the various sensing and perceptual systems that they have in order to utilize more and more of the structural information in the energy environment for survival purposes. To state this somewhat differently, the thought is that organisms, including man, have developed in such a way as to make use of the structural information in the earth's environment. Regarding man, this means that eyes and ears developed not in some reactive way to the stimulation of light and sound, but rather that mutations occurred with sensitivities to more and more of the structure in the environment and were better able to adapt and adjust to the environment (ie., they survived).

Today, man has eyes, ears, and neural systems particularly suited not just for the detection of mechanical or electromagnetic energy, but for the extraction of structural information from acoustic and optic displays. For example, the fovea of the eye contains thousands of closely packed receptor cells that can scan the structured light falling on the retina and make fine resolutions between the details in the structure. The basilar membrane of the ear is finely tuned to be responsive to mechanical vibrations and temporal patterns of mechanical energy. It is important to bear in mind that these capabilities evolved and exist today to permit ears to construct a higher fidelity mental representation (percept) of the environment and hence to contend with the environment more effectively. Thus, we seek environmental information to enhance the fidelity of our internal representations. The. eye and the ear as we know them have evolved as a consequence of the evolving organism's need for information, not as mere energy detectors-although they do this as a necessary, but clearly insufficient, part of construing the environment. The enhancement of the percept-not simply reacting to energy-we regard as the major factor in the evolution and functioning of the eyes and ears.