Libet summarized his research in the 2004 book "Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness."
Neurobiologist Dr. Robert W. Doty of the University of Rochester said of the book that "his is almost the only approach yet to yield any credible evidence of how conscious awareness is produced by the brain. Libet's work is unique and speaks to questions asked by all humankind."
Benjamin Libet was born April 12, 1916, in Chicago, the first child of young Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. His father and grandfather were both tailors, and English was not spoken in the home. Instead, young Benjamin learned it on the streets of the west side of Chicago, which was populated mainly by Jewish and Italian immigrants.
He had a powerful natural singing voice and, as a young boy, sang with well-known cantor Josef Rosenblatt.
Libet studied at the University of Chicago on a scholarship and received his doctoral degree in physiology in 1939 at age 23. During World War II, he was an instructor in physiology at the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the Army Air Forces' materials engineering laboratory at Wright Field in Ohio.
After the war, he returned to the University of Chicago for four years before joining UC San Francisco in 1949. He formally retired in 1984 but continued working.
Libet is survived by his wife of 68 years, Fay; two sons, Julian Mayer Libet, a psychologist in Charleston, S.C., and Dr. Ralph Arnold Libet of Sacramento; and two daughters, Moreen Lea Libet, an anthropologist in Davis, and Gayla Bea Libet of Oakland.
thomas.maugh@latimes.com
