AIM Framework glossary
Prediction-Adoption Entailment
Canonical definition
Recharacterising the mirror neuron system as predictive coding does not dissolve mimetic transmission. Under the architectural conditions the framework identifies (preconscious operation, projection to valuation circuits, Common-Currency Integration), prediction of another Individual's goal simply is functional imitation. The entailment proceeds in three steps: predicting goal-directed action requires internal modelling of the goal; the modelled goal projects to and modulates valuation at the Decision Hub; and a valuation-modulation entering the Decision Hub is, functionally speaking, a desire. To resist the conclusion, a critic must either identify a preconscious goal-discriminating filter, none having been identified, or demonstrate a representational distinction that survives Common-Currency Integration, which Source Opacity and the Data Processing Inequality exclude.
Explanation
One objection to mimetic accounts runs: mirror neurons do not copy goals, they predict actions, so nothing is being caught from anyone. The relabelling does not change the output. Predicting what someone is about to do requires modelling what they are trying to achieve. That model projects into the same valuation circuitry that scores the observer's own options, and it does so before awareness. Once scored there, it is a desire in the only sense that bears on behaviour, because it is competing for the single output the Decision Hub produces. The argument closes at three levels rather than one: at the architectural level by the projection itself, at the behavioural level by OCEP, and at the information-theoretic level by the Data Processing Inequality, which does not permit recovering a distinction after the compression that destroyed it.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Named Result.