The arguments for veridical perception fail. But it is still the standard theory in vision science. According to this theory, there really are 3D objects in spacetime with objective properties—such as shape —that exist even when no one looks. When you look at an apple, light bouncing off its surface gets focused by the optics of your eye onto your 2D retina. This optical projection of the apple onto your 2D retina loses information about the apple’s 3D shape and depth. So your visual system analyzes its 2D information and figures out the apple’s true 3D shape. It recovers, or reconstructs, the
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