Temporal evidence against serial models

Neuroscience provides temporal evidence that challenges serial recognition-then-response models.

Libet’s readiness potentials (1983):

Motor readiness potentials begin 350-500ms before people report being aware of their intention to move. While Libet’s experiments examined self-initiated action rather than stimulus recognition, they establish a broader principle: neural preparation precedes conscious awareness.

This challenges any model assuming conscious recognition must precede response readiness.

Subliminal threat processing:

The amygdala responds to threatening faces presented too briefly for conscious recognition—around 30ms (Whalen et al., 1998; Morris et al., 1998). Fear responses activate before conscious awareness that a threat was perceived.

If recognition were a separate process that then triggered fear responses, we would expect: perception → recognition → fear activation. But fear activates before conscious recognition occurs.

Semantic priming effects:

Subliminal words (presented below conscious threshold) activate semantic networks and motor areas before conscious identification (Dehaene et al., 1998; Nakamura et al., 2007). The brain prepares responses before conscious recognition happens.

Motor cortex activation during observation:

When you watch someone perform an action, your motor cortex activates in patterns similar to actually performing that action—before you consciously decide to act or even recognize what action is being performed (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004).

What this temporal evidence reveals:

These findings directly challenge traditional models where recognition precedes response preparation in time. Instead, they support PRU’s claim that recognition IS immediate constellation-activation.

When you see a cat, petting readiness, emotional responses, and approach behaviors are already activated before conscious awareness that you’ve “recognized” a cat. There’s no temporal gap because the constellation-activation IS the recognition event, not something that produces recognition.

The phenomenology matches the neuroscience: recognition feels immediate because it IS immediate. There’s no hidden processing stage between pattern-detection and response-preparation. They are aspects of one unified neural event—the activation of a Pattern-Constellation.

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