If:
- Smearing is inherent in consciousness, and
- Scale free dynamics span extends “far down” orders of scale to the limits of the conscious system’s spatiotemporal resolution, then
- Considering that peripheral sensory amplification seems to reverberate long enough, across all modalities (each having it’s particular time constant; e.g. photo-receptor activity subsides in >40ms, cochlear hair cells are active for >4ms), to exhibit synchronous peripheral and CNS percept-triggered activity
There may be justification for an heretical question regarding the “loci of origin” of phenomenality:
Might the peripheral sensory apparatus be manifesting some aspect of phenomenality?
It’s a question that is amenable to simple empirical investigation, even supporting human reporting: A simple experimental setup could involve electrical stimulation of some superficial sensory nerve (e.g. the superficial radial nerve branch) proximally to a temporary reversible, and strictly local, blocking site (e.g. by cooling where the nerve passes close to the skin).
If the subject notices and can report a qualitative difference in the subjective sensation triggered by electrical stimulation, between the blocked and the non-blocked states, than that would be an outcome suggesting that we are still far from understanding what is going on…
Corroboration or refutation from a different experimental perspective could come from finding out whether multi-modal neural lines (e.g. thermo/mechanical/nociceptive sensory nerve endings) use equivalent signalling patterns regardless of the modality of the stimulus.
Inverted Mind Theory 