I studied blindsight in grad school, and actually analyzed the data of patient GY, probably the most widely-studied blindsight patient. I forget the authors, b

I studied blindsight in grad school, and actually analyzed the data of patient GY, probably the most widely-studied blindsight patient. I forget the authors, but there was an anatomical paper showing that blindsight requires all the secondary connections in order to happen. So, everything from the retina synapses onto the thalamus first, and then 97+% goes on to the primary visual cortex. The last few percent go to areas like the SC, the frontal eye field, and V5/MT. This paper showed that if the damage was prior to, or including the thalamus, no blindsight was ever shown, but if the damage was between the thalamus and V1, or involving V1 itself, blindsight was possible. The real question still is, why are these minor regions capable of supporting tasks, but not experience?