ABSTRACT
Visual theorists agree that the problem of visual consciousness is ill posed. The mathematical term "ill posed" means that additional constraints are needed to solve the problem. It is Important to distinguish between an explicit and an implicit representation. An explicit representation is something that is symbolized without further processing. An implicit representation contains the same information but requires further processing to make it explicit. In automatic actions, such as swimming or driving a car, complex but stereotypical actions occur with little, if any, associated visual awareness. Von der Malsburg's proposal prompted us to suggest that the rhythmic and synchronized firing might be the neural correlate of awareness and that it might seen to bind together activity in different cortical areas concerning the same object. The matter is undecided, but at present the fragmentary experimental evidence does rather little to support such an idea.
