Doesn't it? My understanding is basic, but as far as I know we have discrete detector cells that respond to light hitting them. We have ones that respond to all

Doesn't it? My understanding is basic, but as far as I know we have discrete detector cells that respond to light hitting them. We have ones that respond to all light as well as different ones that respond to only certain wavelength ranges. They aren't aligned in a matrix, sure, but that's not what makes a pixel a pixel. We don't see the pixels because our consciousness works at a higher level of abstraction. You won't find pixel a few layers deep into a CNN either, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, the "neurons" at that layer just don't see them because they have no use for them. That's always been my understanding at least...