No one has ever found a mechanical or chemical reason for it to take so long for awareness to take place. Especially when signals can travel all over the body in a fraction of that time. It would seem clear that if awareness were in the brain, and some mechanical circuit created the awareness, it would only take mere fractions of a second for awareness
to happen, but yet it takes a half second. Thus, if you accept a transcendent consciousness the answer to why it takes so long is clear. The Gap is the time it takes a transcendent Consciousness to interface with the brain. In fact neuroscientists may have found a place in the brain where that interface takes place.
Scientists at UC San Diego reported in 1998 that one part of the human brain is especially active during intense religious experiences. They called it the “God Module.” Some are saying this may be the place where consciousness interfaces with the brain. I personally don’t think an interfacing place is needed, but it is a reasonable assumption. What is more interesting to me is that there would be a part of the brain that induces spiritual experience. It shows that human evolution is far more than the simplistic natural selection used by most scientists.