Is consciousness—the subjective awareness of the sensations, perceptions, beliefs, desires, and intentions of mental life—a genuine cause of human action or a mere impotent epiphenomenon accompanying the brain’s physical activity but utterly incapable of making anything actually happen? This article will review the history and current status of experiments and commentary related to Libet’s influential paper (Brain 106:623–664, 1983) whose conclusion “that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act …can and usually does begin unconsciously” has had a huge effect on debate about the efficacy of conscious intentions. Early (up to 2008) and more recent (2008 on) experiments replicating and criticizing Libet’s conclusions and especially his methods will be discussed, focusing especially on recent observations that the readiness potential (RP) may only be an “artifact of averaging” and that, when intention is measured using “tone probes,” the onset of intention is found much earlier and often before the onset of the RP. Based on these findings, Libet’s methodology was flawed and his results are no longer valid reasons for rejecting Fodor’s “good old commonsense belief/desire psychology” that “my wanting is causally responsible for my reaching.”.

意识——对精神生活的感觉、知觉、信念、欲望和意图的主观意识——是人类行为的真正原因，还是伴随大脑身体活动的一种无能的附带现象，但完全无法使任何事情真正发生？本文将回顾与 Libet 有影响力的论文 (Brain 106:623–664, 1983) 相关的实验和评论的历史和现状，该论文的结论是“即使是自发的自愿行为......对关于有意识意图的功效的辩论产生了巨大的影响。早期（直到 2008 年）和最近（2008 年）的实验复制和批评 Libet 的结论，特别是他的方法将被讨论，尤其关注最近的观察结果，即准备潜力 (RP) 可能只是“平均的人工制品”，并且当使用“音调探针”测量意图时，意图的出现更早并且通常在 RP 出现之前发现. 基于这些发现，Libet 的方法是有缺陷的，他的结果不再是拒绝 Fodor 的“良好的旧常识信念/欲望心理学”的有效理由，即“我的想要是我达到的因果关系。”。