O'Regan & Noë's (O&N's) theoretical framework for studying visual perception and awareness is intriguing. This framework, based on sensorimotor contingency, can be examined in recent visual brain theories using neuroimaging methodologies. Here, I consider how a working memory (WM) system explains the sensorimotor account of visual consciousness. I believe WM inside the brain provides at least partial support for O&N's theory.

Bergson, writing in 1896, anticipated “sensorimotor contingencies” under the concept that perception is “virtual action.” But to explain the external image, he embedded this concept in a holographic framework where time-motion is an indivisible and the relation of subject/object is in terms of time. The target article's account of qualitative visual experience falls short for lack of this larger framework.

It has been suggested that difficult-to-quantify differences in visual processing may prevent researchers from equating the color experience of different observers. However, spectral locations of unique hues are remarkably invariant with respect to everything other than gross differences in preretinal and photoreceptor absorptions. This suggests a stereotyping of neural color processing and leads us to posit that minor differences in observer neurophysiology may be irrelevant to color experience.

Palmer (1999) and the commentators examine whether qualia are produced by the relational processes of functionalism. This is an exploration of how qualia are produced. The wealth of data provided by the target article and the commentaries also provide information about what qualia are. The present commentary further explores this topic.

O'Regan & Noë's (O&N's) explanation of our stream of experience as activities depends on their denial of that palpable, most real aspect of experience: what they call “qualitative experience.” Given the ontological primacy of the qualitative givenness of our experience and the complete absence of actions as experiences in our stream of consciousness, though, all such reductionistic attempts must fail.

Taking the real Newtonian colour circle – and not the one Palmer depicts as Newton's – we don't have to wait 300 years for Palmer to say no to the Lockean aperçu about the inverted spectrum. One of the aims of this historical detour is to show that one's commitment about the “topology” of the colour space greatly affects Palmer's argument.