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Postdiction and the speed of consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2026

Ian Phillips Open the ORCID record for Ian Phillips [Opens in a new window]
Ian Phillips*
Affiliation:
William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA ianbphillips@jhu.edu https://www.ianbphillips.com/
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

A central plank of Fleming and Michel’s thought-provoking paper is that postdiction reveals a lower bound for the speed of consciousness, showing that perceptual awareness is slow and motivating their perceptual reality monitoring theory of consciousness. The plank cannot bear the weight: Postdiction neither demonstrates a lower bound for the speed of consciousness nor shows that awareness is slow.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
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Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 49 , 2026 , e187
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press

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