In the long term, however, he has become known as a founder of idea of the adaptive unconscious. He observed that the human perceptual system almost completely operates outside of conscious awareness. These same observations were also made by Hermann Helmholtz. Perhaps because these views were in conflict with the theories of Descartes, they were neglected for a hundred years. Carpenter noticed that the more he studied the mechanism of thought, the more clear it became that it operates largely outside awareness. He noticed that the unconscious prejudices can be stronger than conscious thought and that they are more dangerous since they happen outside of conscious.