# Blindsight Shows Vision Without Awareness by Ernst Pöppel > “[Patients with residual vision despite lack of conscious awareness] can orient in space, or they can discriminate simple patterns, but they do not know that they can do it. This phenomenon became known as "blindsight".” > **— Ernst Pöppel**, *2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage* ## Sources and Context - **Direct publication and locator:** [Ernst Law — Ernst Pöppel](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11047) — 2004 Annual Question response, contiguous sentence(s) within the representative extract. - **Exact original excerpt:** “Not to see, but to see. Some years ago (1973) we described a phenomenon that patients with a certain brain injury show some residual vision although they do not have a conscious representation of their remained visual capacity. They can orient in space, or they can discriminate simple patterns, but they do not know that they can do it. This phenomenon became known as "blindsight". Apparently there is a lot of implicit processing going in our brain that lacks an explicit representation, but which usually is associated with conscious experience. Interestingly, the phenomenon of blindsight not only made a "career" in the neurosciences, but also in philosophy.” - **Context and editing:** Brackets replace Pöppel’s “They” with the subject established in his immediately preceding sentence: patients with a brain injury who retain some vision without conscious representation. The following “This phenomenon” now has its referent in the poster. The exact original extract is preserved below. The bracketed subject is an editorial replacement supported by the immediately preceding source sentence. - **Local Edge archive:** [[research/Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation]], response EDGE2004-059. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Greatest Transformation in Human History|The Greatest Transformation in Human History]] - **Article:** [[articles/Information Persistence in Complex Systems|Information Persistence in Complex Systems]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Neuroscience|Neuroscience]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Neuroscience|Neuroscience]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “[Patients with residual vision despite lack of conscious awareness] can orient in space, or they can discriminate simple patterns, but they do not know that they can do it. This phenomenon became known as "blindsight".” — Ernst Pöppel, 2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-ernst-ppel-blindsight-shows-vision-without-awareness ```