Benjamin Libet
Profile – Benjamin Libet (1916–2007)
Ben Libet was responsible for the best-known and most controversial experiments ever done on consciousness. Born in Chicago of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, he won a scholarship to the University of Chicago and later became Professor of Physiology at UCSF. In 1959 his colleague, neurologist Dr Bertram Feinstein, gave him the chance to work with patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains, leading him to the discovery that consciously feeling a touch requires about half a second of continuous activity in sensory cortex – Libet’s famous ‘half-second delay’. His later experiments on volition revealed a similar delay between the start of the brain’s preparation for movement and the conscious decision to move. Despite his results, Libet himself believed strongly in free will and its importance for moral responsibility, arguing that even if we cannot control wicked impulses we can still consciously veto them. After all, he said, most of the Ten Commandments are ‘do not’ orders. Realising the clash between such conscious powers and any conventional view of brain function, he proposed his bold theory that an emergent Conscious Mental Field (CMF) is responsible for free will and the unity of consciousness. He wrote his 2004 book Mind Time in his 80s, and died peacefully at home in Davis aged 91.
More biographical information
Selected publications relevant to consciousness
Haggard, P., and Libet, B. (2001). Conscious intention and brain activity. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8, 47–63. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Libet, B., Wright, E. W. Jr., Feinstein, B., and Pearl, D. K. (1979). Subjective referral of the timing for a conscious sensory experience. Brain, 102, 193–224. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Libet, B. (1982). Brain stimulation in the study of neuronal functions for conscious sensory experiences. Human Neurobiology, 1, 235–242. Paywall-protected journal record here.
Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8(4), 529–566 (incl. commentaries and author’s response; discussion continued in BBS, 10(2), 318–321). Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Libet, B. (1999). Do we have free will? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6(8–9), 47–57. Reprinted in B. Libet, A. Freeman, and K. Sutherland (Eds) (1999). The volitional brain: Towards a neuroscience of free will (pp. 47–57). Thorverton, Devon: Imprint Academic. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here. Google Books preview here.
Libet, B. (2004). Mind time: The temporal factor in consciousness.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Books preview here.
Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., and Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness potential): The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain, 106, 623–642. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Libet, B., Wright, E. W., Feinstein, B., and Pearl, D. K. (1979). Subjective referral of the timing for a conscious sensory experience: a functional role for the somatosensory specific projection system in man. Brain, 102, 191–222. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Video
The Libet experiment: Is free will just an illusion? A brief explanation of his experiments on free will, BBC Radio 4, November 2014