Harris relies heavily on experiments by Benjamin Libet.
“The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously used EEG to show that activity in the brain’s motor cortex can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Another lab extended this work using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): Subjects were asked to press one of two buttons while watching a clock composed of a random sequence of letters appearing on the screen. They reported which letter was visible when they decided to press one button or the other. One fact now seems indisputable: some brief time before you are aware of what you will do next — a time in which you subjectively appear to have complete freedom to behave however you please — your brain has already determined what you will do. You then become conscious of this “decision” and believe that you are in the process of making it.”
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