What do people mean by “you don’t see darkness, you see nothing” if you lose your eyeballs?

Question

I cannot fathom seeing nothing as opposed to just seeing pitch black. An example I was told is “it’s like trying to see out of your elbow”. I still do not get it

In: Biology

Answer 1

When you lose an eye, the nerve is no longer receiving signals, so in the same way that a TV screen shows different things compared to when it’s not receiving a signal (static) versus when it’s off, you don’t see blackness out of the missing eye, you don’t see anything.  Like they said, like trying to see out of the back of your head or your elbow.