Are you familiar with Husserl and his phenomenology? Interestingly enough, he echoes some of your points. (Although his approach is quite different.)
He basically states that consciousness is predicated on intentions. That the reality that we perceive isn't made out of objects, but out of the meaning of the objects that in that point in time are relevant to us. Or, to put in your words, we don't see the object, but the usefulness of the object.
I feel that this is a very powerful idea indeed. One that seems right, just by looking at how people practically act in the world.
I was actually thinking while making the post, about how the word "phenomenology", just etymologically, seems to apply to what I'm doing, simply because I'm trying to describe things from how they look to consciousness, tho there might be an equivalent scientific description of the same, well, phenomena!
I never read Husserl, though I've encountered him through other books or documentaries or what not. At uni I avoided anything of the sort cos it all sounded impossible to comprehend. Only similar author I read is Heidegger, and again I probably understood only 10% of what I read. There are certain things here and there, tho, that strike me as thoughts of genius, and that chime well with some of my own approaches. For that reason I'd like to devote time in the future to studying these authors I've left behind. But it's gonna be a hard task and a tall order!