Vision can be indeed important to us but we often misunderstand this concept with the concept of perception. Vision is the ability to see. Perception is the ability to understand the things around us. Not all perception is vision and not all vision is perception. For example, we were able to see, ind the video, the people playing basket ball but, mostly everyone couldn't see the gorilla going through the players. That happens because of perception. Perception make us able to understand our surroundings or the things we see and at that point we were mislead by vision and we, therefore, were not using our perception sense.
Another way to understand this concept in a much better idea is to relate with animals. One of the most amazing examples are bats. Bats are animals that are fully blind. Their eyesight is just as good as nothing but, surprisingly enough, they have a better perception than most humans. That happens because bats use a technique called sonar. The sonar consist on sending sound waves which when hit and obstacle bounces back to the bat and forms an image inside of their brans and they, thereafter, "see" the surrounds. The refresh this image at normal flights 10 times a second. Also, because they form an image in their brain they are able to recognize patterns and avoid every obstacle and they, therefore, are able to understand their surroundings better then most of us. This sonar ability can also variate. When hunting, then are able to reproduce 200 images a second giving and even better "vision" and understanding or the place they are in. Meanwhile, when compared to humans, we, a lot of times, don't see things around us and end up by hitting our foot somewhere.
Perception, for humans, can also be related to attention. If we don't pay attention to the things around us we are not able to understand the are. A classic example is when you are driving. A lot of times you go through the same path to go from your house to your school but that doesn't mean that you notice everything. And sometimes, after doing the same route 50 times you finally notice a sign that was always there but you have never seen before.
We can, therefore, conclude that the meaning of perception can vary in many ways but it is very important to understand it so that we do not confuse it with the meaning of vision. Also, we do not require vision to "see" the world around us, especially if we do not use it. Perception, in the other hand, is very important for us and it does not need vision to have perception but it can help us to if we learn how to use it wisely together with vision.
