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Hmm, to your knowledge, has the science of neuroanatomy ever discovered any circuits responsible for any experience?
In the sense of the experience not happening if that circuit doesn't work, yes.
In the sense of being able to give a soup-to-nuts story of how events in the world result in a subjective experience that has that specific character, no.
I guess I mean: has the science of neuroanatomy discovered any circuits whatsoever?
I am having trouble knowing how to answer your question, because I'm not sure what you're asking.
We have identified neural structures that are implicated in various specific things that brains do.
Does that answer your question?
I'm not very up to date on neurobiology, and so when I saw your comment that we had not found the specific circuits for some experience I was surprised by the implication that we had found that there are neural circuits at all. To my knowledge, all we've got is fMRI captures showing changes in blood flow which we assume to be correlated in some way with synaptic activity. I wondered if you were using 'circuit' literally, or if your intended reference to the oft used brain-computer metaphor. I'm quite interested to know how appropriate that metaphor is.
Ah! Thanks for the clarification. No, I'm using "circuit" entirely metaphorically.
Quick clarifying question: How small does something need to be for you to consider it a "circuit"?
It's more a matter of discreetness than smallness: I would say I need to be able to identify the loop.
Second clarifying question, then: Can you describe what 'identifying the loop' would look like?
Well, I'm not sure. I'm not confident there are any neural circuits, strictly speaking. But I suppose I don't have anything much more specific than 'loop' in mind: it would have to be something like a path that returns to an origin.