Lets say that I am looking at an apple on a desk in a room with two windows with sunlight streaming onto the desk and apple. What am I seeing when looking at this scene? Am I looking at the way in which atoms are arranged and photons are scrambling around the room? Am I seeing an apple in the way I beleive it to be? I guess what I am trying to ask is what do I see when I look at something? Can I be truely conscious of exactly what I am looking at? There must be so much more than what I can be aware of with my limited abilities to percieve.
When you look at something, all you see is the light that is bouncing off of the objects in the room. Your brain recognizes certain shapes (the round thing on the desk is an “apple”) and infers things about others (for example that the desk is what is keeping the apple from being on the floor, rather than the apple keeping the desk from floating away). As far as being conscious of what you are looking at, set up a similar room, only draw the curtains on the windows and keep the room dark. Close your eyes and walk into the room. If you can still see the apple and desk, then my friend, you can see in the dark.
In the case of the apple you are seeing light waves reflected back at your eyes. You see it as red because the chemical structure of the atom leads to it adsorbing all wavelengths of light that aren’t red. The stream of sunlight is seen as a result of all the dust in the room reflected light waves into your eyes.
(Technically the light waves are reflected all over the place; your eyes just happen to intercept them at a particular location)
I’m sure someone will be along soon enough to discuss wave/particle duality.