A conscious being has a subjective point of view on the world and its own body, a concept easiest to grasp with vision, as Ernst Mach illustrated by drawing his own visual perspective. However, subjective experience encompasses far more than vision, including sounds, odors, tastes, and tactile sensations—a complete sensory world. The text argues that these sensory experiences constitute a full subjective point of view, extending beyond any single sense to shape a person's entire conscious experience of reality.
Various theories of the neural basis of consciousness propose diverse neural signs and mechanisms. This review asks whether that diversity is real or whether theories share basic ideas that could converge. It compares neural signs, measures, and mechanisms across theories, showing that different theories focus on distinct aspects of neural activity—stimulus-related, prestimulus, and resting state—and on distinct features of consciousness. The mechanisms may partly complement each other. The authors conclude that the different theories concern distinct aspects of neural activity and consciousness that may be integrated and nested within the brain's overall temporo-spatial dynamics.