I definitely share your views with the description above, stating that “what each cortical column is voting on is its perspective of what is being observed”. I think that is a very good way to describe it. But please also try to view this neural architecture from the other perspective of connections between the CCs. That is to say, connections outside the CCs. These outside connections are necessary precisely in order for the CCs to be able to observe anything taking place in other CCs. Without the distal connections reaching across to other distant CCs, those CCs would not be able to “oberserve” anything beyond their primary inputs from the sensory organs. They would be blind to activity in neighboring CCs. So my description of the TBT activity is perfectly compatible with this one, but I am describing the long distance axonal connections as being the ones that “associate” the models in different CCs (which could indeed be very different from one another, such as auditory and visual). It is these distal axon connections that make “observing” (or getting inputs) what others are voting for, possible. Therefore, IMO, it is these long distance connections that are the key to what is going on. These long distance connections associate the models in different CCs to each other, by being active and contributing to co-activation in the other CCs. They are practically the representation of the observed object, at the extra-CC level. (Meaning outside single CCs).