Perception Without Representation: A Functional-Reconstructive Theory of Vision, Self, and Meaning

This paper proposes a radical reconceptualization of perception as *functional reconstruction* rather than *representational mirroring*. Drawing on a reinterpretation of the camera obscura not as an imaging device but as a constraint-satisfying transformation schema, I develop a framework in which vision operates as a general-purpose function that yields values only upon query—never as pre-formed content. Color, traditionally treated as either a physical property or a quale, emerges instead as a functional proxy for thermo-reproductive relevance: a query-dependent output of a multi-purpose perceptual function shaped by evolutionary constraints. Crucially, the mind does not construct representations of the world; it constructs *functions* that solve survival problems under perturbation. Using the Jenga metaphor—where blocks represent constraints, configurations represent temporary functional instantiations, and tower collapse represents reorganization without functional loss—I formalize perception as continuous reconstruction under siege. The self is reconceptualized not as a subject or agent but as the *optimization residue* of repeatedly reconstructed configurations that have survived perturbation. Memory deforms the functional landscape rather than storing states; representation emerges as sedimented bias from repeated reconstruction, not as cognitive substrate. Language and tools transmit long-lived functional instantiations ("variable selves") across generations. Finally, I demonstrate why organisms lack perceptual HUDs (heads-up displays): dimensional explosion makes explicit representation computationally lethal; survival demands aggressive dimensional collapse from high-dimensional sensory flux to low-dimensional action affordances. This framework bridges enactivism, ecological psychology, and anti-representational computationalism while dissolving the hard problem of consciousness into the dynamics of constraint-satisfying reconstruction.