Friday night was the first time in a good long while that I got to expound angrily (/drunkenly) on the subject of free will. But here! Look! I come home and Slashdot is linking to a writeup of an experiment that reconfirms and extends my all-time favorite neuroscience result (PDF). Apparently April is mechanism month.

Anyway, you should check out one or the other of those links if you aren't already familiar with Libet's famous work. It's creepy, clever and morbid — a combination that I aspire to myself.

MORE, AND A REQUEST: Man, it really has been a while. But Tim has some interesting things to say here, and I left a long comment in response, which gave me occasion to remember that I had written this, and in general if you would like to shoot the shit about consciousness I'd love to take you up on it. I had kind of thrown up my hands a few years ago and decided to learn about electronics instead, but I think I'd like to be able to begin speaking meaningfully about this again.

My first question: what should I be reading? The last time I seriously checked into these issues I was thinking about buying Christof Koch's book, but I ended up getting distracted/discouraged by its price tag and length. Has anything with a similar level of sophistication and noteworthiness come out since then, or is it time to grit my teeth and see what Prof. Koch has to say?