Editing Freedom Evolves (section)

===Libet's experiments===
Daniel Dennett also argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from [[Benjamin Libet]]'s experiments supposedly demonstrating the non-existence of conscious volition. According to Dennett, ambiguities in the timings of the different events are involved. Libet tells when the readiness potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is only a report of where it ''seems'' to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective time at which they actually occur.

<blockquote>
Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6,810 of the experimental trial, and the clock dot was straight down (which is what you reported you saw) at millisecond 7,005. How many milliseconds should he have to add to this number to get the time you were conscious of it? The light gets from your clock face to your eyeball almost instantaneously, but the path of the signals from  retina through lateral geniculate nucleus to striate cortex takes 5 to 10 milliseconds&mdash;a paltry fraction of the 300 milliseconds offset, but how much longer does it take them to get to ''you''. (Or are you located in the striate cortex?) The visual signals have to be processed before they arrive at wherever they need to arrive for you to make a conscious decision of simultaneity. Libet's method presupposes, in short, that we can locate the ''intersection'' of two trajectories:
* the rising to consciousness of signals representing the decision to flick
* the rising to consciousness of signals representing successive clock-face orientations
so that these events occur side-by-side as it were in  place where their simultaneity can be noted.<ref>"Freedom Evolves" by Daniel Dennett, p. 231</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14625354/|title=The self as a responding-and responsible-artifact|first=Daniel C.|last=Dennett|date=October 5, 2003|journal=Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences|volume=1001|issue=1 |pages=39–50|via=PubMed|doi=10.1196/annals.1279.003|pmid=14625354|bibcode=2003NYASA1001...39D |access-date=May 23, 2024|archive-date=May 23, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523143709/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14625354/|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>