First of all, let's quickly explain what the Binding Problem is.
Ask the question, ''how does the brain make observations in this world, and binds that world together into a unified understanding?''
Let's take an excerpt from wiki which will help explain the visual side of this phenomenon:
''In the case of visual perception, the brains of humans and other animals process different aspects of perception by separating information about those aspects and processing them in distinct regions of the brain. For example, Zeki and coworkers have shown that different areas in the visual cortex specialize in processing the different aspects of colour, motion, and shape. This type of modular coding yields a potential for ambiguity in many instances. Thus, when humans view a scene containing a blue square and a yellow circle, some neurons signal in response to blue, others signal in response to yellow, still others to a square shape and a circle shape. Here, the binding problem is the issue of how the brain represents the pairing of colour and shape, i.e. is the square blue or yellow?''
Consider now the after-images experienced by a brain - after-images is when the brain continues to see a ghost image which continues to appear in one's vision after the exposure to the original image has ceased. Many may have come to recognize this phenomenon - I certainly have. When playing cards long enough if I blink my eyes after the game, I can still see the jack of spades and many other cards, which eventually fade out.
Neuroscientists don't actually know why we experience the after-image, only that they think it has something to do with a kind of neural adaptation. A neural adaptation is similar to thinking of the body or mind, becoming adaptive to it's environment. One example provided by wiki http://en.wikipedia....ural_adaptation is the idea of one placing their hand on the table. They feel the sense of that table for a short while but then after a moment of seconds, the feeling dissipates.
I believe there is a connection between the immediate experience of feeling the table and the Binding phenomenon. The Binding Problem is an issue of memory and the after-effect is the memory of an image related to neural adaptation. The binding of reality in our minds, the binding of shapes and colours seems definitively related to the visual perception of images processed by the neural networks of our brains - the after-images are a result of the Binding of these qualia over a certain period of time which has an after-effect on the mental adaptation of the brain.
This was an idea I just wanted to hit out there and I welcome any kind of criticism.
Edited by Aethelwulf, 07 August 2012 - 05:54 PM.