Thanks, Bagpuss.

I am afraid I find it less than impressive -- the discussion asserts that Libet demonstrated certain conclusions, but there is no particular reason to accept thos econclusions in the data presented.

Any switching system can produce similar phenomena. A phone network invariably shows signs of electronic activity well before the manifestation of communication in human-recognizable form (voice). One could then argue that all communication is conceived in unconsciousness.

His discussion of the manifestation of consciousness preciptating predictors in the brain strikes me as the voicing of a preference, not a rigidly supported conclusion. For example, were Libet's test subjects talking about the construction of their will in terms of words? Surely that would be rather late in the chain of consciousness? I would hazard a guess that an act of conscious will in its most fundamental form is more like a blast of pure will, not stepped down into voiceable steps, images, language, etc. IT is possible we don't even have a good vocabulary for discussing the impulses of pure intent.

The remark about wishing we could build a computer that was unconscious in the same way we are is clever and humorous; but it does not propose to say what that way is, and it is distinctly possible that calling it unconscious is a bias of interpretation and erroneous.

A