From what we've seen in "Heart of Glory", Geordie wasn't able to visually perceive the world like someone born with natural eye sight. Everything was just changing swirls of colors, mixing and blending together. Totally different to what humans normaly see. So, how the **** could he read with this thing and how did he learn to identify everything in the same way as other people?
I don't see the problem, either for him or for story logic. It's not as if he couldn't see letters, in addition to everything else. And no, he doesn't perceive the world like the rest of "us" - to him, androids are the glowing folks, say, and lies are of a different color from truths. Timo Saloniemi
In Generations when the Duras sisters hacked his VISOR, they managed to get a pretty "normal" visual camera feed that displayed numerals in a legible way. --Alex
...Yet LaForge hates to be hobbled like that, just about as much as Crusher would hate having to dance with her legs sawed off and replaced by beautiful and simple and 100% natural wooden pegs. She probably could get that operation done if her calves gave her constant pain like the VISOR gives LaForge; many people might have the skill. Or then wouldn't have quite the skill required, but would still possess the required bonesaw. Getting the VISOR pared down to a silly camera might not require the full competence of an El-Aurian technomage. But this is not the only way for LaForge (or the audience watching through LaForge) to discern numbers, letters and other symbols: we see LCARS graphics in "The Mind's Eye" easily enough, say. Timo Saloniemi
StarFleet also needs to better invest in "Cyber Security" and scan for broadcasting of SubSpace Video Streams that aren't authorized, especially when Yellow/Red Alert is going on. That Hack/Information leak led to the destruction of a Galaxy Class vessel. Which is not a technical fault of the Galaxy Class, but more of a UFP/StarFleet CyberSecurity LoopHole that got the vessel blown to bits.
Or then something filtered for transmission, while LaForge gets even more data (better resolution, say, and more colors). As per dialogue, Data specifically says they're having trouble transmitting it all, whereas LaForge confirms he himself "gets it all", not filtering anything out. Timo Saloniemi
He probably sees like we hear music. You can tell the different notes and sounds from each other and he can probably filter out different wavelengths of light and other emissions to get what he needs to read a book or screen or sign on a wall just fine.
Because of all the differences in the way the visual impressions of the Visor were shown ("Heart of Glory", "The Mind's Eye", Generations), i think it's possible that it wasn't the same gadget all the time. The technology may have gotten better over the years.
Then again, if so, we actually saw it get worse: in the very last appearance, it was only giving dull human-eye visuals, of the type LaForge so despised... I think it satisfactory enough to think that LaForge enjoys the raw feed, but every other user gets such a headache that they all engage in filtering. In "The Mind's Eye", we see what Romulans want to see. In ST:GEN, we see what Soran and the Klingons want to see. And LaForge sees something different in both cases, something closer to "Heart of Glory", and/or ST:FC. Timo Saloniemi
Good points, but if we consider "Hide &Q" it's likely that Geordie simply wanted to see like everyone else and prefered something like natural sight to all the additional options the Visor gave him at that time. Would also explain why he finally had artificial eyes instead of a Visor in FC. So maybe there were some technological changes over the time.
Might just have been an extra mode he used sometimes, while he also had the option to see things like other people.
Geordi himself says that he has learned to select what he wants to see and disregard the rest, comparing it to the way that people pick out a specific voice or sound in a noisy room. Kor
"Natural vision" is something LaForge wants to savor every now and then (sunrises, Tasha Yar), much like somebody else might want to try out sensory deprivation for the sheer kicks. But if he's just fiddling with the settings of his machine eyes, how can he ever be sure? Psychologically, it's not the real thing for him until his eyes are real for, well, real. And he doesn't want to be stuck with real eyes, just line most people wouldn't want to be imprisoned in a sensory deprivation tank forever. So a gift from a Q is just purrrrfect, but a gift from Doctor Pulaski isn't, because Pulaski can't easily reverse the procedure. Timo Saloniemi
It doesn't all have to be Lollipop Chainsaw/Harley vision We have LaForge's vision now with the [SIZE=6]ENVG-B (Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular)[/SIZE] No guys--that's not a video game. That is night vision.
Maybe his sight at this time (most of the time) isn't identical to what an average human sees but a lot closer than it was, while he had his Visor.
IMO, the visor itself is capable of showing multiple wavelengths of data. What we "see" is Geordies brains interpretation of that data. Just like a camera of today, it takes an image, translates it into a digital format and sends that data, than the data is reinterpreted on the end users device into a representation of what that camera interpreted. However, in this case, the camera is taking that data and sending it directly to Geordies brain. Geordies brain doesn't have the "hardware" to take that data and turn it into an image that you and I can see. However, it can make rough approximations of what is there, and the modes on the visor change that data stream. I figure the "eyes" he got in the movies when he swapped his visor out were an upgraded version, sending a data stream that was closer to what the human brain could interpret to images we could see. Not quite there, but closer.