Towards the physics of perception

Over a century ago, Gustav Fechner founded psychophysics in the hopes that perception would follow a course of study not unlike physics. One hundred and forty years later. the domain of psychophysics has largely remained outside the interests of mainstream physics. This paper outlines a new approach to perception and psychophysics from a physics viewpoint. A theory is developed from a single philosophical conjecture along with three auxiliary axioms. It is conjectured that perception involves a process in which a selection is made from different alternatives. While the application of the theory is currently restricted to the perceptual task of identification and classification, the theory does confer some degree of unity in psycho-physics by demonstrating a link between different approaches that have emerged in the modem study of psychophysics. The theory also predicts the existence of a new perceptual effect