Dennett reports an experiment made by Grey Walter. It consisted in presenting a carousel projector for showing slides to patients having electrodes implanted in the motor cortex of their brain. The patients were given a controller with a button for them to push on when they wanted to switch from one slide to the next. Actually, the controller was a dummy controler and the slides where changed in function of the signal received by the electrodes. The results? The patients experienced that the slide projector was anticipating their decisions. The slides would change just before they had decided to change them. This again seems to point to consciousness arising after that the decision is made. Dennett however once again express his view that timing of conscious events is not possible. an opinion of him that I still need to study further before to accept it or to reject it.
I received an interesting message on Facebook from a reader (Jason Weber). I will probably post it as a note to chapter V.
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