The qualia fade immediately, though memory and imagination persist. If perceptions are hypotheses, immediate loss of vision when the eyes are closed needs an explanation. The present is seldom confused with memory or imagination. All scientific papers in Perception are subject to peer review. The editors are extremely grateful to the many readers who take on the sometimes onerous and always time-consuming task of refereeing papers submitted for publication by their colleagues and riends.
Editorials are different.
They are never formally, and seldom informally, refereed. This editorial is different. Just what the ethics of presenting a rejected paper may be, the Editor is not clear. Although the arts are nothing without consciousness, anything touching consciousness is suspect in science. Here I have limited the issue to what qualia might usefully do.