Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in ConsciousnessHarvard University Press, 2009 - 272 páginas Our subjective inner life is what really matters to us as human beings--and yet we know relatively little about how it arises. Over a long and distinguished career Benjamin Libet has conducted experiments that have helped us see, in clear and concrete ways, how the brain produces conscious awareness. For the first time, Libet gives his own account of these experiments and their importance for our understanding of consciousness. Most notably, Libet's experiments reveal a substantial delay--the mind time of the title--before any awareness affects how we view our mental activities. If all conscious awarenesses are preceded by unconscious processes, as Libet observes, we are forced to conclude that unconscious processes initiate our conscious experiences. Freely voluntary acts are found to be initiated unconsciously before an awareness of wanting to act--a discovery with profound ramifications for our understanding of free will. How do the physical activities of billions of cerebral nerve cells give rise to an integrated conscious subjective awareness? How can the subjective mind affect or control voluntary actions? Libet considers these questions, as well as the implications of his discoveries for the nature of the soul, the identity of the person, and the relation of the non-physical subjective mind to the physical brain that produces it. Rendered in clear, accessible language, Libet's experiments and theories will allow interested amateurs and experts alike to share the experience of the extraordinary discoveries made in the practical study of consciousness. |
Contenido
Introduction to the Question | 1 |
The Delay in Our Conscious Sensory Awareness | 33 |
Unconscious and Conscious Mental Functions | 92 |
Intention to Act Do We Have Free Will? | 125 |
Conscious Mental Field Theory Explaining How the Mental Arises from the Physical | 159 |
What Does It All Mean? | 187 |
Bibliography | 227 |
243 | |
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action actual appear behavior Benjamin Libet brain activities cerebral cortex cerebral hemispheres clock conscious awareness conscious experience conscious functions conscious mental conscious sensation conscious sensory conscious subjective experience cortical stimulus delay detection duration electrical electrode elicit a conscious ence evidence example experimental feeling Feinstein hemisphere hippocampus identity introspective report Libet medial lemniscus memory mental events mind mind-brain motor msec muscle nerve cell activities nerve cells nerve fibers neural neuronal neuronal activities normal observable patients person phenomena phenomenon philosophers physical pineal gland postcentral gyrus potential preplanning primary evoked primary sensory areas proposed question retroactive scious sciously sensory awareness sensory cortex sensory experience sensory input sensory pathway single pulse Sir John Eccles skin pulse skin stimulus slab somatosensory Sperry stimulus pulses structures subjective referral thalamus time-on theory tion tive uncon unconscious processes veto visual cortex volitional process