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Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences.
Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at base of human behavior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there's some separate self telling our biology what to do.
Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works--the tight weave between reason and emotion, and between stimulus and response, in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.
Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at base of human behavior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there's some separate self telling our biology what to do.
Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works--the tight weave between reason and emotion, and between stimulus and response, in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published October 17, 2023
About the author
Robert M. Sapolsky
29 books4,469 followersRobert Morris Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is currently a professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and, by courtesy, neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In addition, he is a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.
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November 5, 2023
In the 15th century, a person with epilepsy would have a high chance of being burned at stake for being a witch.
At that time, seizures were viewed as a sign of the devil, and as such, epileptics (people with epilepsy) were very commonly accused of witchcraft and murdered for it.
Particularly if they also happened to be female.
At present, very few people would ascribe an epileptic seizure to moral or religious impropriety.
We view epilepsy as a neurological condition and therefore well outside the individual’s freely enacted volition.
Punishing someone for having a seizure or calling them weak willed or evil or worse just would not make sense.
Of course, we don’t let individuals with untreated epilepsy drive (at least not until six months from their last seizure).
But that’s not a punishment.
That’s just common sense.
Right?
Someone with an untreated seizure condition is at a high likelihood of loosing control of their vehicle.
We need to keep the roads safe.
By this logic (most people would agree) preventing one (unlucky) individual (with epilepsy) from driving in order to safeguard the public is overwhelmingly reasonable.
In this regard, the criminal justice system serves as the mechanism of constraint whereby the public welfare is protected via regulation of certain individual freedoms.
Not as a means of moral condemnation or punishment.
But simply for the sake of everyone’s safety.
Sapolsky extrudes upon this logic (ad nauseam) in support of expunging moral judgements and punishment from our legal justice system and moral psychology/philosophy.
Sapolsky asserts there is no such thing as free will, in that everything anyone (including me and you) thinks, feels and does is mechanistically determined by multivariate, evolutionarily and environmentally conditioned biological, psychological and socio-cultural causal factors.
Sapolsky spends 200 or so pages supporting this argument with copious evidence from multiple disciplines including behavioral neuroscience, endocrinology and psychology.
By the end of the argument.
You’re essentially hog tied.
You simply have to capitulate to at least some, if not most, but probably all of the arguments.
Sapolsky spends the next 200 or so pages deconstructing the legal system, and moral psychology more broadly.
If free will doesn’t exist.
And the preponderance of evidence indicates that it doesn’t.
At least not like we commonly assume.
Then there really isn’t any room for moral condemnation or punishment in our legal justice system.
And we sort of need to rethink that whole thing.
So there you go.
Neuroscience just rendered the three legged stool of (1) free will, (2) moral culpability, and (3) punishment obsolete.
Akin to phlogiston, elan vital and the geocentric universe.
If all of that sounds grim or tedious.
It’s not.
Sapolsky is witty, charming and erudite to the MAX.
As I’ve said in other reviews.
He’s a puckish rascal of an intellectual nonpareil.
I find him IMPOSSIBLE not to love.
And although this book covers MUCH of the same ground as his others. I think it’s his best to date. Completely worth reading. Even if it feels a little repetitive.
In sum.
I loved it.
I ❤️ Sapolsky.
5/5 ⭐️
At that time, seizures were viewed as a sign of the devil, and as such, epileptics (people with epilepsy) were very commonly accused of witchcraft and murdered for it.
Particularly if they also happened to be female.
At present, very few people would ascribe an epileptic seizure to moral or religious impropriety.
We view epilepsy as a neurological condition and therefore well outside the individual’s freely enacted volition.
Punishing someone for having a seizure or calling them weak willed or evil or worse just would not make sense.
Of course, we don’t let individuals with untreated epilepsy drive (at least not until six months from their last seizure).
But that’s not a punishment.
That’s just common sense.
Right?
Someone with an untreated seizure condition is at a high likelihood of loosing control of their vehicle.
We need to keep the roads safe.
By this logic (most people would agree) preventing one (unlucky) individual (with epilepsy) from driving in order to safeguard the public is overwhelmingly reasonable.
In this regard, the criminal justice system serves as the mechanism of constraint whereby the public welfare is protected via regulation of certain individual freedoms.
Not as a means of moral condemnation or punishment.
But simply for the sake of everyone’s safety.
Sapolsky extrudes upon this logic (ad nauseam) in support of expunging moral judgements and punishment from our legal justice system and moral psychology/philosophy.
Sapolsky asserts there is no such thing as free will, in that everything anyone (including me and you) thinks, feels and does is mechanistically determined by multivariate, evolutionarily and environmentally conditioned biological, psychological and socio-cultural causal factors.
Sapolsky spends 200 or so pages supporting this argument with copious evidence from multiple disciplines including behavioral neuroscience, endocrinology and psychology.
By the end of the argument.
You’re essentially hog tied.
You simply have to capitulate to at least some, if not most, but probably all of the arguments.
Sapolsky spends the next 200 or so pages deconstructing the legal system, and moral psychology more broadly.
If free will doesn’t exist.
And the preponderance of evidence indicates that it doesn’t.
At least not like we commonly assume.
Then there really isn’t any room for moral condemnation or punishment in our legal justice system.
And we sort of need to rethink that whole thing.
So there you go.
Neuroscience just rendered the three legged stool of (1) free will, (2) moral culpability, and (3) punishment obsolete.
Akin to phlogiston, elan vital and the geocentric universe.
If all of that sounds grim or tedious.
It’s not.
Sapolsky is witty, charming and erudite to the MAX.
As I’ve said in other reviews.
He’s a puckish rascal of an intellectual nonpareil.
I find him IMPOSSIBLE not to love.
And although this book covers MUCH of the same ground as his others. I think it’s his best to date. Completely worth reading. Even if it feels a little repetitive.
In sum.
I loved it.
I ❤️ Sapolsky.
5/5 ⭐️
April 16, 2024
The following is an updated version. The original one can be found below.
This book is a misguided attempt at moral reasoning based on scientific facts. Lacking a philosophical framework that can establish connections between morality and science, the author relied on his own rather lenient intuition without realizing it. One might say that he is another victim who falls on false philosophical questions.
Sapolsky conceptualizes 'free will' as a governing element inside a body, free from physical laws, thereby qualifying it as supernatural. This intuitive definition is not inherently wrong, albeit not that useful in some philosophical views (I'll come back to this later). He devoted half of the book rigorously disputing against the existence of such a supernatural free will, of which there are many useful scientific insights. This is a view that is already readily embraced by all naturalists - for whom the whole universe is governed by physical law and "natural." And for antinaturalists, it's doubtful that any amount of empirical evidence will change their mind.
What is more problematic is when the book ventures to analyze the moral implications of the nonexistence of such supernatural free will. Had Sapolsky maintained his naturalist rigor, he would have discerned the absence of an established empirical grounding for morality as well, that is, it is not something natural that obeys physical laws (unless one subscribes moral naturalism). If one rejects the whole notion of free will due to the lack of empirical evidence substantiating its existence, they would have no choice but to reject the whole notion of morality on the same ground. This would render any moral proclamations meaningless, of which the book contains an abundance.
If one wants to reason in morality with rigor, they must start with a solid philosophical foundation rather than just their own casual day-to-day moral thinking. One of the first philosophical questions the author should've asked himself might be how morality holds significance without empirical evidence substantiating its existence. Rather, his lack of awareness in this area is utterly disappointing, sometimes to the point of frustration.
Thus, the book treats the two main subjects, free will and morality with completely different attitudes - free will with one based on rigorous naturalist principles and morality with one based on lenient, casual intuitions. Upon such an uneven footing, the moral belief system it aims to build can’t help to be incoherent.
So where exactly did Sapolsky go wrong in his moral reasoning? It’s his confusion in identities. Let me explain this confusion by analyzing his statement that you do not deserve anything because you don’t have free will. To highlight the issue, let me rewrite “you don’t have free will” as “your decision apparatus isn’t free from deterministic physical laws”. I believe this is what Sapolsky means rather than “you don't have a neuron free from deterministic physical laws”. So the statement becomes “you don’t deserve anything because your decision apparatus isn’t free from deterministic physical laws.” The crucial ambiguity in this statement lies in whether 'you' and 'your decision apparatus' can be meaningfully distinguished from each other for the purposes of moral judgment. To put it another way, what is the identity of “you”? Is it just “your decision apparatus” or something else? The obvious choice for most naturalists is that there is no distinction, your identity is synonymous with the activities in your brain, i.e., your decision apparatus, parallel to how an advanced AI is indistinguishable from its software program. If this is the position Sapolsky takes, as he seems to for much of his book, then the statement should be “your decision apparatus doesn’t deserve anything because it isn’t free from deterministic physical laws,” which is apparently problematic - should we not first understand how a “decision apparatus” might have or lack deservingness before evaluating the relevance of deterministic physical laws? If someone makes such a statement about an AI program - “An AI program doesn’t deserve anything because it isn’t free from deterministic physical laws”, a natural reaction would be “why/how does an AI program deserve anything in the first place?” A naturalist such as Sapolsky has to find a justification or basis for deservingness without concerning the notion of “freedom from physical laws.” Such a justification for deservingness will render the original statement false. Conversely, if no justification is found, then there is no deservingness to begin with, which also nullifies the original statement. Therefore this is a dead end for Sapolsky's statement, which leaves him the only other choice - a meaningful distinction exists between "you" as an entity capable of being morally judged and "your decision apparatus."
Here is a thought experiment to scrutinize the identities our moral intuitions assign to notions of control. Consider a car accident caused by a malfunction in the onboard electrical system. It makes perfect sense to say that the driver was not at fault because he could not control the vehicle due to the defective system. But what if we’re discussing a self-driving car where the “car” and the “driver” are one and the same? It wouldn’t make sense to say that the car is without fault due to its lack of control over itself, as its actions would be governed by deterministic physical laws. This suggests that the claim "you don’t deserve anything because your decision apparatus strictly obeys the physical laws" only holds up if we think of "you" and "your decision apparatus" as distinct entities and that "you" don't have control over "your decision apparatus." If we eliminate the distinction like we treat the self-driving car, the deterministic nature of physical laws becomes completely irrelevant in our moral assessment. Physical laws are exactly what the brain relies on to work. Your decision apparatus IS the configuration of all the atoms in your brain plus physical laws. If one accepts that "you" and "your decision apparatus" are the same thing, like Sapolsky did in the first half of the book, then physical laws simply cannot be deemed as something preventing the “you” from controlling "your decision apparatus". The unstated premise that "you" and "your decision apparatus" are separate underlies Sapolsky's (and any many others') conceptualization of free will as the influence "you" have over "your decision apparatus." The first half of the book rigorously argues against this assumption - there isn't a "you" other than your decision apparatus, there is no driver in the brain, "you" are the brain. But when Sapolsky makes moral statements he, under confusion over identity, brings the "you" back as an entity that can bear moral responsibilities and suggests that this "you" has none because it has no controls over "your decision apparatus".
What, then, could constitute this distinction if not a form of dualism—with "you" representing the immaterial aspect, and "your decision apparatus" the physical brain? By this interpretation of "free will," humans are not analogous to self-driving cars; rather, there remains a "driver" at the helm of the brain, an identity of the person that is beyond their brain, and it is this driver who assumes moral responsibility. Thus it’s clear that Sapolsky, who consistently refutes dualism in the first half of his book, dismissing the “you” beyond “your decision apparatus” as an illusory ghost, inadvertently leans back into it due to a lack of clear identities when discussing morality.
To end this review on a philosophically constructive note, the debate between free will and determinism can be handily resolved in philosophical paradigms in the line of pragmatism. Hereafter is my perspective, influenced by neopragmatism, especially that of Richard Rorty.
Concepts are not defined based on their truthfulness, i.e how accurately they represent reality, instead, they are defined based on practical usefulness for our goals. For example, the concept of “chair” is very useful for human beings that can sit, but imagine a world with plenty of chair shaped objects and yet no animals that can sit, the concept of “chair” would be useless and not exist in the first place. With the advancement of modern science, humans have been able to introduce more and more concepts such as cell, proton and black hole, that aim to represent elements in nature more accurately. But for neopragmatists, it's a mistake to take the accuracy of representation as the end. In fact scientists themselves, especially those who work in the micro dimensions, have learned to treat concepts as tools (their end is better prediction of measurements), unbothered by the lack of representations.
Similarly, the concept of “free will” existed long before modern science, it has been very useful for individuals and societies. We can try to clarify the definition of “free will” based on its origin and how it’s being used. We can and probably should define "free will" differently under different contexts as long as the contexts don't overlap - we do not need to give it a single definition that it represents something in nature - e.g. a neuron free from physical laws. Such a definition of free will is isolated and useless in many contexts where it disconnects from the other concepts based on “free will” but yet to be also redefined to represent something in nature.
Hence, the whole conundrum between naturalist determinism and free will is a false question due to a misguided redefinition of the concept of free will (due to representationalism). It’s time to move on.
P.S.
Thanks to Arthur Zey (see comments below) I realized the relationship between the concepts of volition and free will. The following are my thoughts on how this conundrum came to be.
When determining the moral responsibility borne by an individual's certain behavior, we take into consideration two factors: the number of alternative behavior possibilities available for them to choose from and the sophistication level of their volition process - the internal process of reasoning and choosing between those possibilities. Everything else being equal, the individual is more morally responsible if their volition process is at a higher level of sophistication. A child is less morally responsible than a grown-up thanks to this reasoning. On the other hand, given the same level of volition sophistication, the individual is less morally responsible if there are fewer alternative behavior possibilities. An impoverished starving man stealing food is judged less morally responsible than a wealthy man for the same behavior. An individual facing a single possible behavior choice is not morally responsible for that behavior. These two moral intuitions suffice for all our practical reasoning regarding moral responsibility. Note that they naturally do not concern whether volition itself has “free” alternatives or is deterministic, only the level of sophistication of it.
Then why is it intuitive that a deterministic universe and moral responsibility is at odds with each other?
I think it comes from three confusions.
The first confusion is conceptual. It is the confusion between the behavior possibilities post volition process with behavior possibilities before it. To better demonstrate what I mean, I’ll use a simplified scenario of a starving impoverished man deciding whether to steal the food. The man faces two choices - to steal or to starve to death. These are the behavior possibilities before his volition process. They are what matters when it comes to moral responsibility judgment. A deterministic world means a deterministic volition process, which in turn means there is only one possible outcome of it and one possible behavior the man ends up choosing. But this did not in any way change the fact the man had two choices to begin with before he decides. It does not reduce his choices to one. People who claim that determinism renders any decision process useless since there is no choice are confusing the choice possibilities before decision with the fixed possibility of one decision outcome. They reject determinism based on the absurdity of all decisions being useless, but the absurdity is really from the confusion, not determinism. This is apparent when we consider a robot agent. Imagine a robot programmed to make behavioral decisions on its own. No one has any problem that the program, hence the robot’s volition process, is deterministic. No one would suggest that it’s useless for this robot to make any decisions due to its deterministic nature.
The second confusion is historical. It originated when Christian philosophy introduced the term “free will” (liberum arbitrium) in the 4th century, which traditionally meant the lack of necessity in human will, resembles the idea of a non-deterministic volition process. This “free will,” I speculate, was introduced because the aforementioned moral intuitions are not satisfactory (to this Christian philosopher) due to their lack of causal relationship between volition and responsibility. The “lack of necessity in human will” sounds more causal and logical to explain why one has to be responsible for his behavior (it is not). Regardless of this speculative motivation, this historical notion of “free will” was actually introduced AFTER our moral intuitions. It’s not the other way around. If one gets this order confused, they will be tempted to believe that our moral intuitions are based on such a notion of “free will” and thus require it, causing a perceived contraction between determinism and our moral intuitions.
The third confusion is linguistic. The original meaning of “free will” gradually got lost for laypersons and became closely resembling the term volition. In day-to-day language, when people say “free will” they are referring to volition - the ability to reason and choose between alternative behaviors, free from coercion but not something free from physical laws. Volition is something that can be intuitively verified through introspection. So when people intuitively believe in the existence of “free will” they often conflate with volition. The opposite happens in the aforementioned intuitions on moral responsibilities - they think the degree of their "free will", mistaken for the original sophistication level of volition, is a source of moral responsibility. In a philosophical discourse though, the definition of “free will” is "clarified" back with the historical value, while the language of their intuitions remained unchanged. Now all of a sudden they have intuitions contradicting determinism.
Update Oct 28, 2023: added the last paragraph for further clarification.
Update Oct 30 2023: reworked to improve clarity, added a constructive part.
Update Oct 31 2023: added P.S.
Update Dec 2 2023: added a paragraph to pinpoint where Sapolsky went wrong.
Update Dec 12 2023: added a paragraph to clarify the identity issue
---ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW---------
The main lesson is that no matter how brilliant you are, avoid writing a book on a subject that you haven't studied for years. Sapolsky defined free will as the existence of a neuron free from physical laws. Of course this is contradictory to the naturalist belief that the whole universe is governed by physical laws. But when people talk about free will, they mean different things, while the definition Sapolsky gave, upon some philosophical inspection, has no practical implications and thus is useless or meaningless to discuss. One simply cannot derive any practical guidance based on the non existence of the "free will" as defined by Sapolsky. To be more specific, when we talk about morality, we do not need to be concerned with whether naturalism is real, or whether something free from physical laws exists.
Sapolsky should have noticed that there is so much linguistic nuance and complexity in the notion of "free will" that it justifies more study into the existing philosophical discussion in this area, especially post WWII.
This book is a misguided attempt at moral reasoning based on scientific facts. Lacking a philosophical framework that can establish connections between morality and science, the author relied on his own rather lenient intuition without realizing it. One might say that he is another victim who falls on false philosophical questions.
Sapolsky conceptualizes 'free will' as a governing element inside a body, free from physical laws, thereby qualifying it as supernatural. This intuitive definition is not inherently wrong, albeit not that useful in some philosophical views (I'll come back to this later). He devoted half of the book rigorously disputing against the existence of such a supernatural free will, of which there are many useful scientific insights. This is a view that is already readily embraced by all naturalists - for whom the whole universe is governed by physical law and "natural." And for antinaturalists, it's doubtful that any amount of empirical evidence will change their mind.
What is more problematic is when the book ventures to analyze the moral implications of the nonexistence of such supernatural free will. Had Sapolsky maintained his naturalist rigor, he would have discerned the absence of an established empirical grounding for morality as well, that is, it is not something natural that obeys physical laws (unless one subscribes moral naturalism). If one rejects the whole notion of free will due to the lack of empirical evidence substantiating its existence, they would have no choice but to reject the whole notion of morality on the same ground. This would render any moral proclamations meaningless, of which the book contains an abundance.
If one wants to reason in morality with rigor, they must start with a solid philosophical foundation rather than just their own casual day-to-day moral thinking. One of the first philosophical questions the author should've asked himself might be how morality holds significance without empirical evidence substantiating its existence. Rather, his lack of awareness in this area is utterly disappointing, sometimes to the point of frustration.
Thus, the book treats the two main subjects, free will and morality with completely different attitudes - free will with one based on rigorous naturalist principles and morality with one based on lenient, casual intuitions. Upon such an uneven footing, the moral belief system it aims to build can’t help to be incoherent.
So where exactly did Sapolsky go wrong in his moral reasoning? It’s his confusion in identities. Let me explain this confusion by analyzing his statement that you do not deserve anything because you don’t have free will. To highlight the issue, let me rewrite “you don’t have free will” as “your decision apparatus isn’t free from deterministic physical laws”. I believe this is what Sapolsky means rather than “you don't have a neuron free from deterministic physical laws”. So the statement becomes “you don’t deserve anything because your decision apparatus isn’t free from deterministic physical laws.” The crucial ambiguity in this statement lies in whether 'you' and 'your decision apparatus' can be meaningfully distinguished from each other for the purposes of moral judgment. To put it another way, what is the identity of “you”? Is it just “your decision apparatus” or something else? The obvious choice for most naturalists is that there is no distinction, your identity is synonymous with the activities in your brain, i.e., your decision apparatus, parallel to how an advanced AI is indistinguishable from its software program. If this is the position Sapolsky takes, as he seems to for much of his book, then the statement should be “your decision apparatus doesn’t deserve anything because it isn’t free from deterministic physical laws,” which is apparently problematic - should we not first understand how a “decision apparatus” might have or lack deservingness before evaluating the relevance of deterministic physical laws? If someone makes such a statement about an AI program - “An AI program doesn’t deserve anything because it isn’t free from deterministic physical laws”, a natural reaction would be “why/how does an AI program deserve anything in the first place?” A naturalist such as Sapolsky has to find a justification or basis for deservingness without concerning the notion of “freedom from physical laws.” Such a justification for deservingness will render the original statement false. Conversely, if no justification is found, then there is no deservingness to begin with, which also nullifies the original statement. Therefore this is a dead end for Sapolsky's statement, which leaves him the only other choice - a meaningful distinction exists between "you" as an entity capable of being morally judged and "your decision apparatus."
Here is a thought experiment to scrutinize the identities our moral intuitions assign to notions of control. Consider a car accident caused by a malfunction in the onboard electrical system. It makes perfect sense to say that the driver was not at fault because he could not control the vehicle due to the defective system. But what if we’re discussing a self-driving car where the “car” and the “driver” are one and the same? It wouldn’t make sense to say that the car is without fault due to its lack of control over itself, as its actions would be governed by deterministic physical laws. This suggests that the claim "you don’t deserve anything because your decision apparatus strictly obeys the physical laws" only holds up if we think of "you" and "your decision apparatus" as distinct entities and that "you" don't have control over "your decision apparatus." If we eliminate the distinction like we treat the self-driving car, the deterministic nature of physical laws becomes completely irrelevant in our moral assessment. Physical laws are exactly what the brain relies on to work. Your decision apparatus IS the configuration of all the atoms in your brain plus physical laws. If one accepts that "you" and "your decision apparatus" are the same thing, like Sapolsky did in the first half of the book, then physical laws simply cannot be deemed as something preventing the “you” from controlling "your decision apparatus". The unstated premise that "you" and "your decision apparatus" are separate underlies Sapolsky's (and any many others') conceptualization of free will as the influence "you" have over "your decision apparatus." The first half of the book rigorously argues against this assumption - there isn't a "you" other than your decision apparatus, there is no driver in the brain, "you" are the brain. But when Sapolsky makes moral statements he, under confusion over identity, brings the "you" back as an entity that can bear moral responsibilities and suggests that this "you" has none because it has no controls over "your decision apparatus".
What, then, could constitute this distinction if not a form of dualism—with "you" representing the immaterial aspect, and "your decision apparatus" the physical brain? By this interpretation of "free will," humans are not analogous to self-driving cars; rather, there remains a "driver" at the helm of the brain, an identity of the person that is beyond their brain, and it is this driver who assumes moral responsibility. Thus it’s clear that Sapolsky, who consistently refutes dualism in the first half of his book, dismissing the “you” beyond “your decision apparatus” as an illusory ghost, inadvertently leans back into it due to a lack of clear identities when discussing morality.
To end this review on a philosophically constructive note, the debate between free will and determinism can be handily resolved in philosophical paradigms in the line of pragmatism. Hereafter is my perspective, influenced by neopragmatism, especially that of Richard Rorty.
Concepts are not defined based on their truthfulness, i.e how accurately they represent reality, instead, they are defined based on practical usefulness for our goals. For example, the concept of “chair” is very useful for human beings that can sit, but imagine a world with plenty of chair shaped objects and yet no animals that can sit, the concept of “chair” would be useless and not exist in the first place. With the advancement of modern science, humans have been able to introduce more and more concepts such as cell, proton and black hole, that aim to represent elements in nature more accurately. But for neopragmatists, it's a mistake to take the accuracy of representation as the end. In fact scientists themselves, especially those who work in the micro dimensions, have learned to treat concepts as tools (their end is better prediction of measurements), unbothered by the lack of representations.
Similarly, the concept of “free will” existed long before modern science, it has been very useful for individuals and societies. We can try to clarify the definition of “free will” based on its origin and how it’s being used. We can and probably should define "free will" differently under different contexts as long as the contexts don't overlap - we do not need to give it a single definition that it represents something in nature - e.g. a neuron free from physical laws. Such a definition of free will is isolated and useless in many contexts where it disconnects from the other concepts based on “free will” but yet to be also redefined to represent something in nature.
Hence, the whole conundrum between naturalist determinism and free will is a false question due to a misguided redefinition of the concept of free will (due to representationalism). It’s time to move on.
P.S.
Thanks to Arthur Zey (see comments below) I realized the relationship between the concepts of volition and free will. The following are my thoughts on how this conundrum came to be.
When determining the moral responsibility borne by an individual's certain behavior, we take into consideration two factors: the number of alternative behavior possibilities available for them to choose from and the sophistication level of their volition process - the internal process of reasoning and choosing between those possibilities. Everything else being equal, the individual is more morally responsible if their volition process is at a higher level of sophistication. A child is less morally responsible than a grown-up thanks to this reasoning. On the other hand, given the same level of volition sophistication, the individual is less morally responsible if there are fewer alternative behavior possibilities. An impoverished starving man stealing food is judged less morally responsible than a wealthy man for the same behavior. An individual facing a single possible behavior choice is not morally responsible for that behavior. These two moral intuitions suffice for all our practical reasoning regarding moral responsibility. Note that they naturally do not concern whether volition itself has “free” alternatives or is deterministic, only the level of sophistication of it.
Then why is it intuitive that a deterministic universe and moral responsibility is at odds with each other?
I think it comes from three confusions.
The first confusion is conceptual. It is the confusion between the behavior possibilities post volition process with behavior possibilities before it. To better demonstrate what I mean, I’ll use a simplified scenario of a starving impoverished man deciding whether to steal the food. The man faces two choices - to steal or to starve to death. These are the behavior possibilities before his volition process. They are what matters when it comes to moral responsibility judgment. A deterministic world means a deterministic volition process, which in turn means there is only one possible outcome of it and one possible behavior the man ends up choosing. But this did not in any way change the fact the man had two choices to begin with before he decides. It does not reduce his choices to one. People who claim that determinism renders any decision process useless since there is no choice are confusing the choice possibilities before decision with the fixed possibility of one decision outcome. They reject determinism based on the absurdity of all decisions being useless, but the absurdity is really from the confusion, not determinism. This is apparent when we consider a robot agent. Imagine a robot programmed to make behavioral decisions on its own. No one has any problem that the program, hence the robot’s volition process, is deterministic. No one would suggest that it’s useless for this robot to make any decisions due to its deterministic nature.
The second confusion is historical. It originated when Christian philosophy introduced the term “free will” (liberum arbitrium) in the 4th century, which traditionally meant the lack of necessity in human will, resembles the idea of a non-deterministic volition process. This “free will,” I speculate, was introduced because the aforementioned moral intuitions are not satisfactory (to this Christian philosopher) due to their lack of causal relationship between volition and responsibility. The “lack of necessity in human will” sounds more causal and logical to explain why one has to be responsible for his behavior (it is not). Regardless of this speculative motivation, this historical notion of “free will” was actually introduced AFTER our moral intuitions. It’s not the other way around. If one gets this order confused, they will be tempted to believe that our moral intuitions are based on such a notion of “free will” and thus require it, causing a perceived contraction between determinism and our moral intuitions.
The third confusion is linguistic. The original meaning of “free will” gradually got lost for laypersons and became closely resembling the term volition. In day-to-day language, when people say “free will” they are referring to volition - the ability to reason and choose between alternative behaviors, free from coercion but not something free from physical laws. Volition is something that can be intuitively verified through introspection. So when people intuitively believe in the existence of “free will” they often conflate with volition. The opposite happens in the aforementioned intuitions on moral responsibilities - they think the degree of their "free will", mistaken for the original sophistication level of volition, is a source of moral responsibility. In a philosophical discourse though, the definition of “free will” is "clarified" back with the historical value, while the language of their intuitions remained unchanged. Now all of a sudden they have intuitions contradicting determinism.
Update Oct 28, 2023: added the last paragraph for further clarification.
Update Oct 30 2023: reworked to improve clarity, added a constructive part.
Update Oct 31 2023: added P.S.
Update Dec 2 2023: added a paragraph to pinpoint where Sapolsky went wrong.
Update Dec 12 2023: added a paragraph to clarify the identity issue
---ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW---------
The main lesson is that no matter how brilliant you are, avoid writing a book on a subject that you haven't studied for years. Sapolsky defined free will as the existence of a neuron free from physical laws. Of course this is contradictory to the naturalist belief that the whole universe is governed by physical laws. But when people talk about free will, they mean different things, while the definition Sapolsky gave, upon some philosophical inspection, has no practical implications and thus is useless or meaningless to discuss. One simply cannot derive any practical guidance based on the non existence of the "free will" as defined by Sapolsky. To be more specific, when we talk about morality, we do not need to be concerned with whether naturalism is real, or whether something free from physical laws exists.
Sapolsky should have noticed that there is so much linguistic nuance and complexity in the notion of "free will" that it justifies more study into the existing philosophical discussion in this area, especially post WWII.
August 1, 2023
This is a very technical book, yet Sapolsky made a considerable effort to break it down for the average reader. I have a bachelor's in Psychology and have read Dennett and some of the other authors Sapolsky mentioned, so many of the experiments mentioned were familiar to me already, and I have given a fair amount of thought to the free will debate in my personal life.
He's good at timing his jokes to keep you interested when things get dense. Once, he even tells you to just skip an entire paragraph and come back to it later if you need it, which was great (I had no idea what that paragraph meant, anyway).
I can't speak to the science of the book, as to its accuracy or the methodology of the experiments. As a casual reader, however, I don't think it matters a whole lot whether or not his argument is "correct." What matters is how we respond to it. I actually would have loved a few more chapters at the end on this part of the argument (what do we do if there's no free will?) because I felt like that was the strongest part of the book. It leaves you questioning whether any choices you make actually matter, but it also makes some important points about our criminal justice system that happen to be in line with my views: i.e., punishment should be about protecting people from likely future harm, not retribution against the perpetrator. In some cases, we punish too harshly, and in some not enough. Jail time may not be the best punishment for some crimes, either.
Overall, it's a good introduction to the subject if you've never thought about it before. It provides a positive view of Determinism, rather than a bleak diatribe about how nothing matters.
He's good at timing his jokes to keep you interested when things get dense. Once, he even tells you to just skip an entire paragraph and come back to it later if you need it, which was great (I had no idea what that paragraph meant, anyway).
I can't speak to the science of the book, as to its accuracy or the methodology of the experiments. As a casual reader, however, I don't think it matters a whole lot whether or not his argument is "correct." What matters is how we respond to it. I actually would have loved a few more chapters at the end on this part of the argument (what do we do if there's no free will?) because I felt like that was the strongest part of the book. It leaves you questioning whether any choices you make actually matter, but it also makes some important points about our criminal justice system that happen to be in line with my views: i.e., punishment should be about protecting people from likely future harm, not retribution against the perpetrator. In some cases, we punish too harshly, and in some not enough. Jail time may not be the best punishment for some crimes, either.
Overall, it's a good introduction to the subject if you've never thought about it before. It provides a positive view of Determinism, rather than a bleak diatribe about how nothing matters.
June 23, 2024
30 years ago, chaos theory was trying to tell us that a squirrel sneezing in the Midwest could cause a La Nina in the Pacific Northwest. Now this guy wants to tell us that whether we turn right or left has already been predetermined. I'm tired of this scientific extremism. The average person has less free will then he or she may think. Maybe he should explain that. Instead, this guy works in Academia, lives in California, and does research on baboons. I'm sorry, this guy doesn't have a clue. (or so it may seem) My best example on free will is his choice to write this book and take the public's money instead of presenting his research in scientific journals and face scientific and philosphical scrutiny. (BTW, his theories are not accepted in the the philosophical or scientific communities) Milking the public is a choice. Use your free will and go back to the baboons.
October 28, 2023
This book is a real winner for me — not only pop science at its best, but also giving scientific credibility to something I have long believed: the idea that the great majority of our actions (the author would say all of our actions) are determined by A) who we are genetically and B) what our life experiences have been. The author’s conclusion is that there is no such thing as free will. Obviously this brings up some thorny issues, such as whether or not people who have achieved a lot in life deserve all their good fortune, and how punishment can be moral if people don’t truly have choices. (His answers: no and no, but the fact that punishment is not moral doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, because the rest of society still needs to be protected even if what the criminal does isn’t his fault.) I’m not enough of a scientist to critique the science in the book, but I will say that everything he says supports everything that I’ve always thought. I feel like almost everything I have is due to factors I didn’t have any control over, not to personal choices I’ve made, so I’m lucky rather than virtuous. Do with this book what you will, but I do think everyone should read it.
December 31, 2023
This book failed to change my mind about anything. Which is disappointing. I was expecting a solid argument because I have a high opinion of Robert Sapolsky. But I spent the whole book shouting to myself, "We don't even seem to agree on what free will is!" You can't even build and argument if we can't agree on what we're talking about.
The main issue is this book's logic is far too extreme. Robert apparently thinks "free will" is "behavior that happens out of thin air." Which is something I feel no reasonable person would claim. I would hope the majority of us can understand that we're all pushed toward certain actions by our past, our genetics, and our environments. That doesn't mean there is no free will at all. You don't have to do something for no reason for it to be free will. You just need to have a choice between two actions. That's it. This entire argument feels like an obvious straw man. He's attacking ideas I've never heard anyone share, and even if there are people out there who do say these things, I think most of us can accept those arguments as bad.
And I agree with most of Robert's ideas around crime and punishment. Like I think we should absolutely take into account everything that lead someone to do what they did, and we should act based on what needs to happen to protect people from criminals. I'm also very anti punishment. I think we should try to prevent future crime in the most unintrusive way possible. The point should be to get the outcome we want, not to inflict suffering on criminals. I think these are relatively popular ideas and I don't disagree. That should have been the real focus of this book because that would have been a much better book, and there's plenty here to support that argument.
It's a shame this book is so poorly argued because there is an excellent point to be made here about how little free will we really have. But he mucks that up by arguing that we have NONE. And then he spends tons of time giving example after example after example of scientific principals that supposedly show we're not in control. I nearly DNFed this book because it was putting me in a coma. It's all stuff you've heard before if you're the type of person with any scientific curiosity.
The book kind of recovers from being mind numbing when it stops talking about chaos theory and quantum mechanics (interesting topics but he goes on for way too long) and moves on to talking about social science. But it still feels like a big mess of ideas that aren't really strung together coherently. I think he relies more on making the reader feel stupid for believing in free will than actually convincing you it doesn't exist. It's like reading a book that tries to convince you god is real. It was a bad idea from the start, and not surprisingly, it does a bad job.
I feel like this could have been reedited into a much better book. There is a good book here, it just needs to drop the whole "free will isn't real" thing, because it my opinion it never gets there, and focus on what drives us to make the choices we do.
The main issue is this book's logic is far too extreme. Robert apparently thinks "free will" is "behavior that happens out of thin air." Which is something I feel no reasonable person would claim. I would hope the majority of us can understand that we're all pushed toward certain actions by our past, our genetics, and our environments. That doesn't mean there is no free will at all. You don't have to do something for no reason for it to be free will. You just need to have a choice between two actions. That's it. This entire argument feels like an obvious straw man. He's attacking ideas I've never heard anyone share, and even if there are people out there who do say these things, I think most of us can accept those arguments as bad.
And I agree with most of Robert's ideas around crime and punishment. Like I think we should absolutely take into account everything that lead someone to do what they did, and we should act based on what needs to happen to protect people from criminals. I'm also very anti punishment. I think we should try to prevent future crime in the most unintrusive way possible. The point should be to get the outcome we want, not to inflict suffering on criminals. I think these are relatively popular ideas and I don't disagree. That should have been the real focus of this book because that would have been a much better book, and there's plenty here to support that argument.
It's a shame this book is so poorly argued because there is an excellent point to be made here about how little free will we really have. But he mucks that up by arguing that we have NONE. And then he spends tons of time giving example after example after example of scientific principals that supposedly show we're not in control. I nearly DNFed this book because it was putting me in a coma. It's all stuff you've heard before if you're the type of person with any scientific curiosity.
The book kind of recovers from being mind numbing when it stops talking about chaos theory and quantum mechanics (interesting topics but he goes on for way too long) and moves on to talking about social science. But it still feels like a big mess of ideas that aren't really strung together coherently. I think he relies more on making the reader feel stupid for believing in free will than actually convincing you it doesn't exist. It's like reading a book that tries to convince you god is real. It was a bad idea from the start, and not surprisingly, it does a bad job.
I feel like this could have been reedited into a much better book. There is a good book here, it just needs to drop the whole "free will isn't real" thing, because it my opinion it never gets there, and focus on what drives us to make the choices we do.
April 29, 2024
I regard ‘Behave’ as an exceptional book, and I was hence keen to read ‘Determined’ (well, I actually listened to the audiobook).
Sapolsky gets my attention right at the start when he says we have no free will! His challenge – point me to a neuron which fires on its own irrespective of what happened before. He admits that many think this is too high a bar since it is near impossible to isolate our brains from the real world. Yet, he goes on to convincingly argue that there is no way to accommodate free will in our actions. What it means is - though we think we are pondering over options and exercising judgement, we would do the exact same thing each time. Our actions are a consequence of genes, upbringing, environment, culture, and experiences. Each of these by themselves introduce aggregate tendencies (eg: humans are more aggressive than bonobos and less than chimps, cultural differences etc) and in combination lead to individual action. The concept of grit (much discussed in management literature as well) has no scientific basis. This is difficult to intuitively prove or disprove – after all we will not get the exact same situation at the exact same time again (identical twins raised together do speak and act very similarly, but that by itself is not conclusive). Brain imaging shows that brain activity commences before we think we made a decision (his previous book ‘Behave’ also mentions this). There is a discussion on the quirks of quantum mechanics & chaos theory – but Sapolsky’s conclusion is that quantum phenomenon do not bubble up to the macro environment. That we cannot predict something, does not mean it is indeterminate. He also dismisses the possibility of our decision-making springing from anywhere except the brain, the PFC plays the critical role in our judgement and behaviour.
The second half of the book has detailed discussion on the implications for law enforcement and our life is itself, if we accept the absence of free will. Much of the punishment meted out to criminals is based on intent. This is used in combination with the actual result to decide punishment – eg: a person who shoots and kills gets more punishment than one who misses, if spontaneous, there is some benefit accorded. If there is no free will, there is no blame. That said, Sapolsky does not advocate criminals roaming around freely in our midst – isolation is necessary but for civil order and not as punishment.
Sapolsky admits that he has not fully worked out all the implications to life. This is because much of our thinking is around intent & morality. It is disconcerting to think that we can neither blame someone who harms us, nor be thankful to someone who helps us. Yet, he goes on to say that modern societies can live, and live well with this discovery. At one time, strong religious belief was regarded as a must for moral conduct. But today the less religious societies are doing very well. Theists are typically unkind to out of group members. We can also get over our tendency to seek retribution – here Sapolsky cites how punishment for serious crime is regarded as closure. Apparently, research shows that victims’ families participating in punishment does not bring closure, but only rekindles the pain. We still will need restrictive spaces, but not to enforce punishments.
While I am undecided on whether I accept all of Sapolsky’s views, this is an extremely thought-provoking book (much like how ‘Behave’ is). I strongly recommend you read/listen to it and form your own opinions. At the minimum, it reinforces how important it is to cultivate safe & progressive environments for people, especially children. It is too late to do it once the brain is set in its ways. The rapid advancement of scientific knowledge – genomics/gene editing, neuroscience and AI, hopefully will make our world a better place, even if we do not have free will. There are some sections which are dense, but overall the book is very readable.
I intend to also read “Free Agents” by Kevin Mitchell, which reaches a different conclusion.
Sapolsky gets my attention right at the start when he says we have no free will! His challenge – point me to a neuron which fires on its own irrespective of what happened before. He admits that many think this is too high a bar since it is near impossible to isolate our brains from the real world. Yet, he goes on to convincingly argue that there is no way to accommodate free will in our actions. What it means is - though we think we are pondering over options and exercising judgement, we would do the exact same thing each time. Our actions are a consequence of genes, upbringing, environment, culture, and experiences. Each of these by themselves introduce aggregate tendencies (eg: humans are more aggressive than bonobos and less than chimps, cultural differences etc) and in combination lead to individual action. The concept of grit (much discussed in management literature as well) has no scientific basis. This is difficult to intuitively prove or disprove – after all we will not get the exact same situation at the exact same time again (identical twins raised together do speak and act very similarly, but that by itself is not conclusive). Brain imaging shows that brain activity commences before we think we made a decision (his previous book ‘Behave’ also mentions this). There is a discussion on the quirks of quantum mechanics & chaos theory – but Sapolsky’s conclusion is that quantum phenomenon do not bubble up to the macro environment. That we cannot predict something, does not mean it is indeterminate. He also dismisses the possibility of our decision-making springing from anywhere except the brain, the PFC plays the critical role in our judgement and behaviour.
The second half of the book has detailed discussion on the implications for law enforcement and our life is itself, if we accept the absence of free will. Much of the punishment meted out to criminals is based on intent. This is used in combination with the actual result to decide punishment – eg: a person who shoots and kills gets more punishment than one who misses, if spontaneous, there is some benefit accorded. If there is no free will, there is no blame. That said, Sapolsky does not advocate criminals roaming around freely in our midst – isolation is necessary but for civil order and not as punishment.
Sapolsky admits that he has not fully worked out all the implications to life. This is because much of our thinking is around intent & morality. It is disconcerting to think that we can neither blame someone who harms us, nor be thankful to someone who helps us. Yet, he goes on to say that modern societies can live, and live well with this discovery. At one time, strong religious belief was regarded as a must for moral conduct. But today the less religious societies are doing very well. Theists are typically unkind to out of group members. We can also get over our tendency to seek retribution – here Sapolsky cites how punishment for serious crime is regarded as closure. Apparently, research shows that victims’ families participating in punishment does not bring closure, but only rekindles the pain. We still will need restrictive spaces, but not to enforce punishments.
While I am undecided on whether I accept all of Sapolsky’s views, this is an extremely thought-provoking book (much like how ‘Behave’ is). I strongly recommend you read/listen to it and form your own opinions. At the minimum, it reinforces how important it is to cultivate safe & progressive environments for people, especially children. It is too late to do it once the brain is set in its ways. The rapid advancement of scientific knowledge – genomics/gene editing, neuroscience and AI, hopefully will make our world a better place, even if we do not have free will. There are some sections which are dense, but overall the book is very readable.
I intend to also read “Free Agents” by Kevin Mitchell, which reaches a different conclusion.
November 28, 2023
Steps to concluding that free will doesn’t exist:
1. Read about the current science of animal behavior (p. 1 - 125)
2. Start to understand the ways in which we are shaped by a bunch of biological and environmental factors
3. Realize that we didn’t have control over any of those influences
4. Think “But what about all that quantum stuff, and randomness too!”
5. Read about all that quantum stuff, and randomness, and more weirdness (p. 125 - 240)
6. See how we haven’t yet found ways in which all that weird stuff could influence behavior and why we likely won’t find any
7. Accept those, but, see if you can save free will not as a truthful biological representation of reality, but instead as a social construct - useful in different circumstances, a necessary illusion
8. Find out about all the different ways free will as a concept is harming us, and how removing it doesn’t (p. 245 - 405) and you’re done!
Disclaimer: Becoming depressed, despaired or going berserk is not at all guaranteed after applying.
In fact, the opposite might happen as you will learn that not having free will doesn’t mean not being capable of change (actually you will learn some very cool mechanisms of change!), and it doesn’t mean not having will (assuming you define will as an internal reasoning process or some kind of intuition or inner voice, we do have that and it is important since that in turn influences us further, but, it is not free, since that process itself was also shaped by all which came before it), and it doesn’t mean humans aren’t awesome or that it’s cool not to be awesome.
After considering the lack of my free will and Sapolsky's witty, warm and charming writing, I cannot rate this book anything other than 5 stars.
1. Read about the current science of animal behavior (p. 1 - 125)
2. Start to understand the ways in which we are shaped by a bunch of biological and environmental factors
3. Realize that we didn’t have control over any of those influences
4. Think “But what about all that quantum stuff, and randomness too!”
5. Read about all that quantum stuff, and randomness, and more weirdness (p. 125 - 240)
6. See how we haven’t yet found ways in which all that weird stuff could influence behavior and why we likely won’t find any
7. Accept those, but, see if you can save free will not as a truthful biological representation of reality, but instead as a social construct - useful in different circumstances, a necessary illusion
8. Find out about all the different ways free will as a concept is harming us, and how removing it doesn’t (p. 245 - 405) and you’re done!
Disclaimer: Becoming depressed, despaired or going berserk is not at all guaranteed after applying.
In fact, the opposite might happen as you will learn that not having free will doesn’t mean not being capable of change (actually you will learn some very cool mechanisms of change!), and it doesn’t mean not having will (assuming you define will as an internal reasoning process or some kind of intuition or inner voice, we do have that and it is important since that in turn influences us further, but, it is not free, since that process itself was also shaped by all which came before it), and it doesn’t mean humans aren’t awesome or that it’s cool not to be awesome.
After considering the lack of my free will and Sapolsky's witty, warm and charming writing, I cannot rate this book anything other than 5 stars.
Read
March 12, 2024Detective De Termini :
" - Alright, inmate, let's cut to the chase. You're here because you chose to commit the crime , correct ? "
Free Will :
" - Well, detective , if you've read Sapolsky, you'd know it's not that simple. My choices are just the end result of a complex biochemical recipe. "
Detective De Termini :
" - So, you're saying you had no control ? That your neurons made you do it ? "
Free Will :
" - Exactly. It's all about neurons and hormones. I mean, if my prefrontal cortex had a better conversation with my amygdala, maybe I wouldn't have ended up here. "
Detective De Termini :
" - And I suppose your serotonin levels were the accomplice ? "
Free Will :
" - Right ,detective . Low serotonin could mean less impulse control. Like a car with faulty brakes. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Well...I guess we'II need to put your neurotransmitters on trial then. Courtroom's going to be crowded with all those molecules in the defendant's box. Now, considering everything is determined by prior causes, where does that leave your so-called ' choices ' ? "
Free Will :
" - Oh, detective, my choices are like dominoes in a long chain, each one set off by the last. The universe's ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. "
Detective De Termini :
" - So, you're a mere cog in the cosmic machinery, huh ? Predestined to be here, in this interrogation room ? "
Free Will :
" - Exactly, detective. From the Big Bang to my big bust, it's all been written in the stars and my DNA. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Hmm...Quite fatalistic view.. But if everything is predetermined, why bother with the charade of law and order ? "
Free Will :
" - Ah, but there's the rub , detective. The illusion of free will is a necessary part of the deterministic play. We're all actors following a script we can't read. And if we could calculate every variable, we'd see that I had no more choice in my actions than a leaf has in falling from a tree. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Interesting, Free Will. But until we have that level of omniscience, I'II keep doing my job, and you'II keep doing...well, whatever it is that's been determined for you. So, tell me about your childhood. Were you raised by wolves or just influenced by too many video games ? "
Free Will :
" - Neither, detective. I was raised by a pack of wild psychologists who conditioned me to respond to stimuli ! Can you imagine ? "
Detective De Termini :
" - Hardly. I thought only Pavlov's dog enjoyed this treat. Tell me, Free Will, ever heard of cognitive behavioral therapy ? "
Free Will :
" - Is that like jail for the mind ? Because if so, my prefrontal cortex could use some time behind bars to reflect on its poor decisions. "
Detective De Termini :
" - More like training camp. We'II whip those neural pathways into shape and turn those bad decisions into better ones. "
Free Will :
" - Sounds promising, detective. But what my environment ? It's been an accesory to the crime since day one. "
Detective De Termini :
" True, but we can't put your environment in handcuffs. We can, however, change it. How about we start with a new social circle ? "
Free Will :
" - I'd like that. Maybe one that doesn't trigger my fight-or-flight response everytime I make a decision. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Then I guess it's destiny that you're getting a fair trial, Free Will.
Let's hope the jury's decisions are as ' determined ' as yours were " .
" - Alright, inmate, let's cut to the chase. You're here because you chose to commit the crime , correct ? "
Free Will :
" - Well, detective , if you've read Sapolsky, you'd know it's not that simple. My choices are just the end result of a complex biochemical recipe. "
Detective De Termini :
" - So, you're saying you had no control ? That your neurons made you do it ? "
Free Will :
" - Exactly. It's all about neurons and hormones. I mean, if my prefrontal cortex had a better conversation with my amygdala, maybe I wouldn't have ended up here. "
Detective De Termini :
" - And I suppose your serotonin levels were the accomplice ? "
Free Will :
" - Right ,detective . Low serotonin could mean less impulse control. Like a car with faulty brakes. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Well...I guess we'II need to put your neurotransmitters on trial then. Courtroom's going to be crowded with all those molecules in the defendant's box. Now, considering everything is determined by prior causes, where does that leave your so-called ' choices ' ? "
Free Will :
" - Oh, detective, my choices are like dominoes in a long chain, each one set off by the last. The universe's ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. "
Detective De Termini :
" - So, you're a mere cog in the cosmic machinery, huh ? Predestined to be here, in this interrogation room ? "
Free Will :
" - Exactly, detective. From the Big Bang to my big bust, it's all been written in the stars and my DNA. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Hmm...Quite fatalistic view.. But if everything is predetermined, why bother with the charade of law and order ? "
Free Will :
" - Ah, but there's the rub , detective. The illusion of free will is a necessary part of the deterministic play. We're all actors following a script we can't read. And if we could calculate every variable, we'd see that I had no more choice in my actions than a leaf has in falling from a tree. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Interesting, Free Will. But until we have that level of omniscience, I'II keep doing my job, and you'II keep doing...well, whatever it is that's been determined for you. So, tell me about your childhood. Were you raised by wolves or just influenced by too many video games ? "
Free Will :
" - Neither, detective. I was raised by a pack of wild psychologists who conditioned me to respond to stimuli ! Can you imagine ? "
Detective De Termini :
" - Hardly. I thought only Pavlov's dog enjoyed this treat. Tell me, Free Will, ever heard of cognitive behavioral therapy ? "
Free Will :
" - Is that like jail for the mind ? Because if so, my prefrontal cortex could use some time behind bars to reflect on its poor decisions. "
Detective De Termini :
" - More like training camp. We'II whip those neural pathways into shape and turn those bad decisions into better ones. "
Free Will :
" - Sounds promising, detective. But what my environment ? It's been an accesory to the crime since day one. "
Detective De Termini :
" True, but we can't put your environment in handcuffs. We can, however, change it. How about we start with a new social circle ? "
Free Will :
" - I'd like that. Maybe one that doesn't trigger my fight-or-flight response everytime I make a decision. "
Detective De Termini :
" - Then I guess it's destiny that you're getting a fair trial, Free Will.
Let's hope the jury's decisions are as ' determined ' as yours were " .
October 23, 2023
A compelling and timely book. At times, it delves deeply into technical details, discussing tables, cell membranes, and chemistry. But most of the time it is fun.
From the 5th century BCE, Parmenides posited that the Earth wasn't flat, using the observation that the North Star appears lower in the sky when one travels south. Yet, it took millennia for the majority to acknowledge the Earth's roundness. And, according to the internet, some remain skeptical to this day.
The resistance to this reality is multifaceted. Primarily, it challenges our intuitive perception – our surroundings seemingly affirm a flat Earth. Yet, from Parmenides's observations to the iconic 1976 photograph by the Apollo 17 crew showcasing Earth in space, science consistently confirms the planet's spherical nature.
An age-old illusion, discussed since the times of Heraclitus and explored by Sapolsky in this book, is humanity's belief in free will.
Despite our conviction that we're architects of our daily decisions, countless external factors shape our choices:
* The neural connections established in utero.
* The corticosteroid and adrenaline levels in our mothers during pregnancy.
* Our parents' lifestyles, stresses, and the environment we grew up in.
* The events and places we encountered during our formative years.
Our decisions, like delaying gratification or choosing between commitment and material desire, are influenced by our upbringing and familial worldview.
Even though studies by scientists like Benjamin Libet show that decision-related brain activity predates our conscious awareness of the decision, many hold fast to the notions of free will and meritocracy, believing everyone has equal choices available.
Our accomplishments feed our ego, making us believe that if we achieved something, so can others. Yet, we overlook that our neurotransmitter levels, which influence decisions, aren't of our choosing. We don't pick the genes inherited from our parents that significantly shape our personalities and life choices.
Our cultural and familial backgrounds, pivotal in decision-making processes, weren't our choices either. Genetic predispositions, when combined with upbringing, can manifest as variations in behavior — from extreme addictions to social habits.
Contrarily, many believe that the universal laws of causality don't penetrate the human brain. This belief is anchored in self-perception and a yearning for autonomy. However, history and science both emphasize that our decisions, while feeling independent, are shaped by numerous uncontrollable factors.
In essence, we make choices in life much like we decide digestion processes or hormone secretion: our body orchestrates it. The concept of free will, then, remains an illusion.
Acknowledging this intricate web of influences redefines our perspective on choice, responsibility, and promotes a more empathetic view towards the decisions of others.
After all, the steering wheel on this roller coaster we call life isn't really in our hands. It's best to let go and savor the journey.
A few times the author tries to push his own political views like when suggesting forced quarantine for those who chose not to take the covid vaccines. But, as the book suggests, it can be explained by him being overweight and leaning left-wing, the kind of person who was more in danger and the kind of person more inclined to use the government to restrict people's freedom.
For those keen on this subject, starting with Sam Harris's short book might be a good idea. However, Sapolsky's work offers a more comprehensive exploration and a compelling conclusion.
From the 5th century BCE, Parmenides posited that the Earth wasn't flat, using the observation that the North Star appears lower in the sky when one travels south. Yet, it took millennia for the majority to acknowledge the Earth's roundness. And, according to the internet, some remain skeptical to this day.
The resistance to this reality is multifaceted. Primarily, it challenges our intuitive perception – our surroundings seemingly affirm a flat Earth. Yet, from Parmenides's observations to the iconic 1976 photograph by the Apollo 17 crew showcasing Earth in space, science consistently confirms the planet's spherical nature.
An age-old illusion, discussed since the times of Heraclitus and explored by Sapolsky in this book, is humanity's belief in free will.
Despite our conviction that we're architects of our daily decisions, countless external factors shape our choices:
* The neural connections established in utero.
* The corticosteroid and adrenaline levels in our mothers during pregnancy.
* Our parents' lifestyles, stresses, and the environment we grew up in.
* The events and places we encountered during our formative years.
Our decisions, like delaying gratification or choosing between commitment and material desire, are influenced by our upbringing and familial worldview.
Even though studies by scientists like Benjamin Libet show that decision-related brain activity predates our conscious awareness of the decision, many hold fast to the notions of free will and meritocracy, believing everyone has equal choices available.
Our accomplishments feed our ego, making us believe that if we achieved something, so can others. Yet, we overlook that our neurotransmitter levels, which influence decisions, aren't of our choosing. We don't pick the genes inherited from our parents that significantly shape our personalities and life choices.
Our cultural and familial backgrounds, pivotal in decision-making processes, weren't our choices either. Genetic predispositions, when combined with upbringing, can manifest as variations in behavior — from extreme addictions to social habits.
Contrarily, many believe that the universal laws of causality don't penetrate the human brain. This belief is anchored in self-perception and a yearning for autonomy. However, history and science both emphasize that our decisions, while feeling independent, are shaped by numerous uncontrollable factors.
In essence, we make choices in life much like we decide digestion processes or hormone secretion: our body orchestrates it. The concept of free will, then, remains an illusion.
Acknowledging this intricate web of influences redefines our perspective on choice, responsibility, and promotes a more empathetic view towards the decisions of others.
After all, the steering wheel on this roller coaster we call life isn't really in our hands. It's best to let go and savor the journey.
A few times the author tries to push his own political views like when suggesting forced quarantine for those who chose not to take the covid vaccines. But, as the book suggests, it can be explained by him being overweight and leaning left-wing, the kind of person who was more in danger and the kind of person more inclined to use the government to restrict people's freedom.
For those keen on this subject, starting with Sam Harris's short book might be a good idea. However, Sapolsky's work offers a more comprehensive exploration and a compelling conclusion.
Want to read
October 25, 2022I'm a big fan of Sapolsky, but I fear he's about to publish a wrong thesis.
What he doesn't seem to get, imho, blinded as he is by physicalism, is that free will does exist - it's just that it exists not at a biological level of reality, but at a social one. It comes with the self-ownership of a person, as delimited by its social identity, not by its skin. Free will is a social construct, and it's a fundamental one for many other social constructs that our civilisation is made of.
What he doesn't seem to get, imho, blinded as he is by physicalism, is that free will does exist - it's just that it exists not at a biological level of reality, but at a social one. It comes with the self-ownership of a person, as delimited by its social identity, not by its skin. Free will is a social construct, and it's a fundamental one for many other social constructs that our civilisation is made of.
October 30, 2023
350 years ago, Spinoza had it right. Mostly, at least. In some ways, he was a product of his time (for example, his gendered language, or asserting that suicide came as a result of a weak mind that has been overcome). However, in many ways, he was so ahead of his time that we, nearly four-hundred years later, have only now come to meet him. One respect in which Spinoza was spot-on was in his belief in, and arguments for, determinism. That, what we take for a sense of agency is only our ignorance of the many strings which puppet our consciousness. That our outputs arise not from choice, but from a chain of successive inputs of which we are almost completely unaware. That Spinoza had articulated and ardently defended this position three-and-a-half centuries ago, in the absence of the voluminous evidence we have now, renders him so prophetic as to rival that other Jewish apostate born in Bethlehem. Dr Sapolsky’s book “Determined” attempts to have us finally meet Spinoza. Living in the 21st century, with that voluminous evidence at his disposal, he attempts to achieve this in two ways. First, presenting his case against free will and disproving the arguments in its favour. Second, discussing the implications of this position.
[“Free Will” is to the 21st Century what “Abrahamic God” was to the 18th Century]
I.e., an idea being challenged by our growing understanding, and which is on track to be disproven, but is vigorously defended nonetheless, out of fear of what its proven falsity will mean for humankind. In the law (the field in which I have studied and become qualified), advocates have a “case theory.” A case theory involves spinning the evidence into a “narrative” which a) acts as the foundation of their argument, and b) weakens the argument of the other side sufficiently enough to win the case. Dr. Sapolsky’s case theory is “turtles all the way down.” That, as Spinoza asserted four centuries prior, each thing is caused by what came before it. And, that this runs all the way back to the beginning of existence. Prior to picking up his book, I had an instinctive feeling that, in an objective sense, “free will” was a nonsensical idea. Given the great tapestry of influences, stretching back to the big bang, where is free will to fit? The elegant song-and-dance compatibilist philosophers compose defending the position is, I find, akin to the religious scholar whose position, weakening progressively in the face of the evidence, relies more and more upon sophistry. In this respect, the truth is a dragon whose unrelenting fire only grows in intensity and heat; it has already melted the shield of the holy crusader. Now, the compatibilist nobly holds their own shield. However, the comptabilist’s shield, built from elegant explanations, wears thinner, and will soon reach a point where they face the dragon of truth. In the face of the great, overbearing dragon, the compatibilist will be left standing nakedly, side-by-side with the naked crusador. Why the battle against this great dragon? It is in who we are. It is difficult to conceive of a world where we, as a species, have been created with no purpose, and where, individually, we have no agency. And so, experts in self-deception that we are (see: Trivers), many of our best and brightest have crafted elaborate and plausible explanations to shield ourselves from the truth. However, at some point in my twenty-seven years, I realised something which forever precluded my ability to believe these explanations. It is this: the universe has not conceived itself in accordance with human sentiments and morality. We are a small, recent ant in this incomprehensibly large, ancient, terrifyingly beautiful cathedral. We are playing its game; it cares nothing for our opinions, nor for our moralising. The first part of Dr. Sapolsky’s book lays the evidence, that, in my opinion, places the onus-of-proof upon free-willers. That is, “determinism appears to be the case unless you can compelling prove otherwise.” I don’t see any way in which they can, where their evidence is of the quality presented by the opposing counsel (Dr. Sapolsky, representing other hard determinists).
[Confronting the Bitter Truth]
Dr. Sapolsky advocates that, in this case, it is better to know the truth than to live a lie and risk being violently shocked by that truth. It is to advocate reckoning with the existence of the harsh sun as opposed to believing that the transient clouds negate the sun’s existence. I wholeheartedly agree. If one takes truth as their starting point, then at least they will not be shocked. Again, Spinoza informs us. In the wake of hard truth, we should attempt to conceive adequate ideas which maximise our agency without denying the reality of things. That is, to have an adequate idea which accepts reality AND empowers us. To me, the dragon will inevitably melt the shields. But, perhaps facing the dragon sans defences will allow us to learn how to coexist with it. At the least, we preclude “rude awakenings” sure to shock and disempower, and lead many to nihilism. How we are to live in the wake of this truth — that we have no agency — is a larger conversation. However, I believe, against the notion that humanity will “run amok”, that many of the forces which regulate and restrain our behaviour remain; it is merely the illusion that they are NOT regulating and restraining us that is being lost. For example, if you were guaranteed a job at the end of your degree, would you willingly tank your GPA and merely scrape through your remaining exams? No? Why not? Because there are forces restraining you. Perhaps you value your dignity. Perhaps you know things can turn and so good grades will be an asset if things do turn. Perhaps your friends are high achievers and you do not want to willingly put yourself at the bottom of your social hierarchy. Perhaps you are so blessed by fortune as to have the Bugatti of Pre-Frontal Cortexes, remarkably good at restraining impulsive action. Whatever it is, in the absence of a bad biological hand and desperate circumstances, it’s harder than you think to be a nihilistic destroyer of yourself and others. In the presence of bad biology and/or desperate circumstances, however, it’s (near) inevitable. This is part of the point of the book. Confronting that truth en masse shall initially be dispiriting, but it is only from there that we can build a better world from realistic foundations. A world that reduces the effect of a bad biological hand by reducing the amount of desperate circumstances which maximise those effects. Further, the evidence points away from a “run amok” conclusion. Isolated instances (as Sapolsky discusses regarding epilepsy and schizophrenia) and analogous cases (“Godless” countries like Norway who are by nearly all objective measures doing the best), support the argument that we have a remarkable ability to reckon with the hard truths of a universe we never asked to be born into. That, for some reason, humans rally with resilience, cooperation, and inventiveness. It is from our collective genius for imagination, our collective inclination to cooperate, and our collective penchant for resilience that I believe we CAN craft a meaningful, humane, compassionate existence without the lie of agency. Perhaps we will even build a better world.
On an individual level, it may also make us more compassionate. I know that the book has changed the way I look at the homeless person on the street, as well as my most successful friends. It’s humanised and equalised both extremes. It has also humanised myself; it has made me more self-accepting. For, it brings one to the sort of self-contentment Goethe expressed to Eckermann, when the latter asked if he worried about not reaching Shakespeare’s level of literary genius. Paraphrasing, he calmly explained, “Shakespeare did not make himself, he simply was himself. I did not make myself, I simply am myself.” It is also reflected in the statement of Yahweh, when Moses asked what he should tell his followers Yahweh is — “I am that which I am.” Perhaps this self-accepting attitude becomes the appropriate one to adopt in the wake of learning that who I am, who you are, who anyone is, is not a choice we made, but the outcome of what has shaped us. Amazingly, it also makes a compelling case for loving thy enemy, even if you do not like who they are or what they do. Thus, lending scientific credibility to this great Christian virtue.
[Adopting the Truth in Different Contexts; the Importance of Scale; Universal Acceptance and Varying Utilisation]
There remains one valid criticism of determinism I have heard, and which I did not find explicitly challenged in Dr. Sapolsky’s book. It is Professor Chomsky’s position that free will, being so immediate to consciousness, is not something we can subtract from our experience. Dr. Sapolsky himself admits that, in day to day life, he cannot live in accordance with his intellectual position. Neither can I. Nor do I think we should all the time. I think we should accept the truth of determinism, but utilise it to varying degrees depending on the context and scale. In my view, at the big picture level (policy and society), this truth should be fully utilised, so as to build a world where, no matter what circumstances you are thrown into, your shot at a decent life is not forfeited at birth (a variant of Rawls’ veil of ignorance). Ditto in circumstances where judgement and/or punishment is easy, natural, and perhaps even pleasurable. E.g., seeing a homeless person on the street corner, sentencing a criminal, assessing an addict, or in arguments with someone you care about. And, in circumstances of judgement which brings praise. E.g., praising physical beauty, creative genius, grand achievement, or someone’s “grit”. However, this last point, relating to praise, shows how I intended to apply this truth to varying degrees depending on context. On the individual level, I love my friends, and I will continue to praise them because I believe in making them feel good. My friends love me, but when they praise me, I will humbly deflect and say this was not something I willed, it’s a byproduct of how I’ve been wired. And, most importantly, despite believing that nobody deserves credit for beauty, intelligence, or kindness, I will never stop calling a woman I (romantically) love the most kind, the most beautiful, the most intelligent person I know. All of this, despite my absolute belief that free will is nonsense and that notions of credit and judgement are utterly bogus. I don’t know where that leaves me … I’d say, as confused as any other human.
[Conclusion]
So, what will we be in the absence of our belief in agency? Whatever we collectively determine. That determination stemming from the many things which have shaped us both individually and as a species. Part of that is a remarkable capacity for change, born of our resilience and imagination. We can do it. That’s a belief I will hang my hat on, even if that belief is born from the optimistic temperament I didn’t choose.
An enlightening book. Spinoza, the world is finally catching up to you.
[“Free Will” is to the 21st Century what “Abrahamic God” was to the 18th Century]
I.e., an idea being challenged by our growing understanding, and which is on track to be disproven, but is vigorously defended nonetheless, out of fear of what its proven falsity will mean for humankind. In the law (the field in which I have studied and become qualified), advocates have a “case theory.” A case theory involves spinning the evidence into a “narrative” which a) acts as the foundation of their argument, and b) weakens the argument of the other side sufficiently enough to win the case. Dr. Sapolsky’s case theory is “turtles all the way down.” That, as Spinoza asserted four centuries prior, each thing is caused by what came before it. And, that this runs all the way back to the beginning of existence. Prior to picking up his book, I had an instinctive feeling that, in an objective sense, “free will” was a nonsensical idea. Given the great tapestry of influences, stretching back to the big bang, where is free will to fit? The elegant song-and-dance compatibilist philosophers compose defending the position is, I find, akin to the religious scholar whose position, weakening progressively in the face of the evidence, relies more and more upon sophistry. In this respect, the truth is a dragon whose unrelenting fire only grows in intensity and heat; it has already melted the shield of the holy crusader. Now, the compatibilist nobly holds their own shield. However, the comptabilist’s shield, built from elegant explanations, wears thinner, and will soon reach a point where they face the dragon of truth. In the face of the great, overbearing dragon, the compatibilist will be left standing nakedly, side-by-side with the naked crusador. Why the battle against this great dragon? It is in who we are. It is difficult to conceive of a world where we, as a species, have been created with no purpose, and where, individually, we have no agency. And so, experts in self-deception that we are (see: Trivers), many of our best and brightest have crafted elaborate and plausible explanations to shield ourselves from the truth. However, at some point in my twenty-seven years, I realised something which forever precluded my ability to believe these explanations. It is this: the universe has not conceived itself in accordance with human sentiments and morality. We are a small, recent ant in this incomprehensibly large, ancient, terrifyingly beautiful cathedral. We are playing its game; it cares nothing for our opinions, nor for our moralising. The first part of Dr. Sapolsky’s book lays the evidence, that, in my opinion, places the onus-of-proof upon free-willers. That is, “determinism appears to be the case unless you can compelling prove otherwise.” I don’t see any way in which they can, where their evidence is of the quality presented by the opposing counsel (Dr. Sapolsky, representing other hard determinists).
[Confronting the Bitter Truth]
Dr. Sapolsky advocates that, in this case, it is better to know the truth than to live a lie and risk being violently shocked by that truth. It is to advocate reckoning with the existence of the harsh sun as opposed to believing that the transient clouds negate the sun’s existence. I wholeheartedly agree. If one takes truth as their starting point, then at least they will not be shocked. Again, Spinoza informs us. In the wake of hard truth, we should attempt to conceive adequate ideas which maximise our agency without denying the reality of things. That is, to have an adequate idea which accepts reality AND empowers us. To me, the dragon will inevitably melt the shields. But, perhaps facing the dragon sans defences will allow us to learn how to coexist with it. At the least, we preclude “rude awakenings” sure to shock and disempower, and lead many to nihilism. How we are to live in the wake of this truth — that we have no agency — is a larger conversation. However, I believe, against the notion that humanity will “run amok”, that many of the forces which regulate and restrain our behaviour remain; it is merely the illusion that they are NOT regulating and restraining us that is being lost. For example, if you were guaranteed a job at the end of your degree, would you willingly tank your GPA and merely scrape through your remaining exams? No? Why not? Because there are forces restraining you. Perhaps you value your dignity. Perhaps you know things can turn and so good grades will be an asset if things do turn. Perhaps your friends are high achievers and you do not want to willingly put yourself at the bottom of your social hierarchy. Perhaps you are so blessed by fortune as to have the Bugatti of Pre-Frontal Cortexes, remarkably good at restraining impulsive action. Whatever it is, in the absence of a bad biological hand and desperate circumstances, it’s harder than you think to be a nihilistic destroyer of yourself and others. In the presence of bad biology and/or desperate circumstances, however, it’s (near) inevitable. This is part of the point of the book. Confronting that truth en masse shall initially be dispiriting, but it is only from there that we can build a better world from realistic foundations. A world that reduces the effect of a bad biological hand by reducing the amount of desperate circumstances which maximise those effects. Further, the evidence points away from a “run amok” conclusion. Isolated instances (as Sapolsky discusses regarding epilepsy and schizophrenia) and analogous cases (“Godless” countries like Norway who are by nearly all objective measures doing the best), support the argument that we have a remarkable ability to reckon with the hard truths of a universe we never asked to be born into. That, for some reason, humans rally with resilience, cooperation, and inventiveness. It is from our collective genius for imagination, our collective inclination to cooperate, and our collective penchant for resilience that I believe we CAN craft a meaningful, humane, compassionate existence without the lie of agency. Perhaps we will even build a better world.
On an individual level, it may also make us more compassionate. I know that the book has changed the way I look at the homeless person on the street, as well as my most successful friends. It’s humanised and equalised both extremes. It has also humanised myself; it has made me more self-accepting. For, it brings one to the sort of self-contentment Goethe expressed to Eckermann, when the latter asked if he worried about not reaching Shakespeare’s level of literary genius. Paraphrasing, he calmly explained, “Shakespeare did not make himself, he simply was himself. I did not make myself, I simply am myself.” It is also reflected in the statement of Yahweh, when Moses asked what he should tell his followers Yahweh is — “I am that which I am.” Perhaps this self-accepting attitude becomes the appropriate one to adopt in the wake of learning that who I am, who you are, who anyone is, is not a choice we made, but the outcome of what has shaped us. Amazingly, it also makes a compelling case for loving thy enemy, even if you do not like who they are or what they do. Thus, lending scientific credibility to this great Christian virtue.
[Adopting the Truth in Different Contexts; the Importance of Scale; Universal Acceptance and Varying Utilisation]
There remains one valid criticism of determinism I have heard, and which I did not find explicitly challenged in Dr. Sapolsky’s book. It is Professor Chomsky’s position that free will, being so immediate to consciousness, is not something we can subtract from our experience. Dr. Sapolsky himself admits that, in day to day life, he cannot live in accordance with his intellectual position. Neither can I. Nor do I think we should all the time. I think we should accept the truth of determinism, but utilise it to varying degrees depending on the context and scale. In my view, at the big picture level (policy and society), this truth should be fully utilised, so as to build a world where, no matter what circumstances you are thrown into, your shot at a decent life is not forfeited at birth (a variant of Rawls’ veil of ignorance). Ditto in circumstances where judgement and/or punishment is easy, natural, and perhaps even pleasurable. E.g., seeing a homeless person on the street corner, sentencing a criminal, assessing an addict, or in arguments with someone you care about. And, in circumstances of judgement which brings praise. E.g., praising physical beauty, creative genius, grand achievement, or someone’s “grit”. However, this last point, relating to praise, shows how I intended to apply this truth to varying degrees depending on context. On the individual level, I love my friends, and I will continue to praise them because I believe in making them feel good. My friends love me, but when they praise me, I will humbly deflect and say this was not something I willed, it’s a byproduct of how I’ve been wired. And, most importantly, despite believing that nobody deserves credit for beauty, intelligence, or kindness, I will never stop calling a woman I (romantically) love the most kind, the most beautiful, the most intelligent person I know. All of this, despite my absolute belief that free will is nonsense and that notions of credit and judgement are utterly bogus. I don’t know where that leaves me … I’d say, as confused as any other human.
[Conclusion]
So, what will we be in the absence of our belief in agency? Whatever we collectively determine. That determination stemming from the many things which have shaped us both individually and as a species. Part of that is a remarkable capacity for change, born of our resilience and imagination. We can do it. That’s a belief I will hang my hat on, even if that belief is born from the optimistic temperament I didn’t choose.
An enlightening book. Spinoza, the world is finally catching up to you.
October 18, 2023
تخيل حفل تخرج في الجامعة. على الرغم من التفاهات والتقليدية والأسلوب الهابط ، يوجد أيضا بعض السعادة، الفخر. العائلات التي تبدو تضحياتها الآن تستحق كل هذا العناء. الخريجون الذين كانوا أول من أنهى دراستهم الثانوية في أسرهم. أولئك الذين يجلس آباؤهم المهاجرون هناك متوهجين معلنين أن اعتزازهم بالحاضر ليس على حساب اعتزازهم بماضيهم.
ثم تلاحظ شخصا ما. وسط التجمعات العائلية بعد الحفل، الخريجون الجدد يلتقطون الصور مع الجدة على كرسيها المتحرك، واندفاعات العناق والضحك، ترى الشخص في الخلف، الشخص الذي هو جزء من الطاقم، يجمع القمامة على هامش الحدث.
اختر أي من الخريجين بشكل عشوائي. قم ببعض السحر حتى يبدأ جامع القمامة حياته بجينات الخريج. وبالمثل بالنسبة للحصول على الرحم الذي أمضى فيه تسعة أشهر والعواقب اللاجينية المترتبة على ذلك مدى الحياة. احصل على طفولة الخريج أيضًا - طفولة مليئة، على سبيل المثال، بدروس العزف على البيانو وليالي الألعاب العائلية، بدلاً من التهديد بالذهاب إلى الفراش جائعًا، أو التشرد، أو الترحيل بسبب نقص الأوراق. دعونا نسير على طول الطريق بحيث، بالإضافة إلى أن جامع القمامة قد حصل على كل ماضي الخريج، فإن الخريج قد حصل على ماضي جامع القمامة. قم بتبديل كل العوامل التي ليس لديهم سيطرة عليها، وسوف تحصل على جامع القمامة في رداء التخرج والخريج في رداء جمع القمامة . وهذا ما أعنيه بالحتمية.
ولماذا يهم هذا؟
لأننا نعلم جميعًا أن الخريج وجامع القمامة سيتبادلان الأماكن. ولأننا، رغم ذلك، نادرًا ما نتأمل في هذا النوع من الحقائق؛ نهنئ الخريج على كل ما أنجزه ونبتعد عن طريق رجل القمامة دون أن نلقي نظرة عليه.
.
Robert Sapolsky
Determined
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
ثم تلاحظ شخصا ما. وسط التجمعات العائلية بعد الحفل، الخريجون الجدد يلتقطون الصور مع الجدة على كرسيها المتحرك، واندفاعات العناق والضحك، ترى الشخص في الخلف، الشخص الذي هو جزء من الطاقم، يجمع القمامة على هامش الحدث.
اختر أي من الخريجين بشكل عشوائي. قم ببعض السحر حتى يبدأ جامع القمامة حياته بجينات الخريج. وبالمثل بالنسبة للحصول على الرحم الذي أمضى فيه تسعة أشهر والعواقب اللاجينية المترتبة على ذلك مدى الحياة. احصل على طفولة الخريج أيضًا - طفولة مليئة، على سبيل المثال، بدروس العزف على البيانو وليالي الألعاب العائلية، بدلاً من التهديد بالذهاب إلى الفراش جائعًا، أو التشرد، أو الترحيل بسبب نقص الأوراق. دعونا نسير على طول الطريق بحيث، بالإضافة إلى أن جامع القمامة قد حصل على كل ماضي الخريج، فإن الخريج قد حصل على ماضي جامع القمامة. قم بتبديل كل العوامل التي ليس لديهم سيطرة عليها، وسوف تحصل على جامع القمامة في رداء التخرج والخريج في رداء جمع القمامة . وهذا ما أعنيه بالحتمية.
ولماذا يهم هذا؟
لأننا نعلم جميعًا أن الخريج وجامع القمامة سيتبادلان الأماكن. ولأننا، رغم ذلك، نادرًا ما نتأمل في هذا النوع من الحقائق؛ نهنئ الخريج على كل ما أنجزه ونبتعد عن طريق رجل القمامة دون أن نلقي نظرة عليه.
.
Robert Sapolsky
Determined
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
December 17, 2023
I have posted a critical review of Robert M. Sapolsky’s Determined: A Science Of Life Without Free Will (New York: Penguin, 2023) at https://www.academia.edu/111595070/Cr....
Sapolsky's book argues for hard determinism, i.e., that "we are nothing more or less than the sum of that which we could not control--our biology, our environments, their interactions." My above-referenced review shows, inter alia, that Sapolsky's book does not prove his thesis and that there are scientific and philosophical grounds for some kind of free will.
Sapolsky's book argues for hard determinism, i.e., that "we are nothing more or less than the sum of that which we could not control--our biology, our environments, their interactions." My above-referenced review shows, inter alia, that Sapolsky's book does not prove his thesis and that there are scientific and philosophical grounds for some kind of free will.
January 19, 2024
Disappointing. Not a great closing argument. Not sure if there are more straw-men or carefully curated datum points.
May 24, 2024
بالاخره تمومش کردم!!!!
کتاب خیلی حجیم و پری بود، به نظرم همه باید بخوننش با اینکه کتابی نیست که برای همه افراد باشه، من راستش با تم هایی که میگفت احساس نزدیکی میکردم، چون افسردگی و مبارزه طولانی مدتی که با منتال ایلنسم دارم، حاصل فکر کردن به همین افکار توی یه spiral خفه کننده است. فکر میکنم کل کتاب رو تقریبا هایلایت کردم=)))
و احتمالا دوباره بخونمش این کتاب رو و به چیزهایی که گفت دوباره فکر کنم.
Since my teenage years, I’ve struggled with depression. Now and then, the meds work great and I’m completely free of it, and life seems like hiking above the tree line on a spectacular snow-capped mountain. This most reliably occurs when I’m actually doing that with my wife and children. Most of the time, the depression is just beneath the surface, kept at bay by a toxic combination of ambition and insecurity, manipulative shit, and a willingness to ignore who and what matter. And sometimes it incapacitates me, where I mistake every seated person as being in a wheelchair and every child I glance at as having Down syndrome.
And I think that the depressions explain a lot. Bummed out by the scientific evidence that there’s no free will? Try looking at your children, your perfect, beautiful children, playing and laughing, and somehow this seems so sad that your chest constricts enough to make you whimper for an instant. After that, dealing with the fact that our microtubules don’t set us free is a piece of cake.
اینجاش هم hit hard میکرد.
کتاب خیلی حجیم و پری بود، به نظرم همه باید بخوننش با اینکه کتابی نیست که برای همه افراد باشه، من راستش با تم هایی که میگفت احساس نزدیکی میکردم، چون افسردگی و مبارزه طولانی مدتی که با منتال ایلنسم دارم، حاصل فکر کردن به همین افکار توی یه spiral خفه کننده است. فکر میکنم کل کتاب رو تقریبا هایلایت کردم=)))
و احتمالا دوباره بخونمش این کتاب رو و به چیزهایی که گفت دوباره فکر کنم.
Since my teenage years, I’ve struggled with depression. Now and then, the meds work great and I’m completely free of it, and life seems like hiking above the tree line on a spectacular snow-capped mountain. This most reliably occurs when I’m actually doing that with my wife and children. Most of the time, the depression is just beneath the surface, kept at bay by a toxic combination of ambition and insecurity, manipulative shit, and a willingness to ignore who and what matter. And sometimes it incapacitates me, where I mistake every seated person as being in a wheelchair and every child I glance at as having Down syndrome.
And I think that the depressions explain a lot. Bummed out by the scientific evidence that there’s no free will? Try looking at your children, your perfect, beautiful children, playing and laughing, and somehow this seems so sad that your chest constricts enough to make you whimper for an instant. After that, dealing with the fact that our microtubules don’t set us free is a piece of cake.
اینجاش هم hit hard میکرد.
January 10, 2024
Determined is a book which manages to articulate and justify thoughts and ideas that I've been wrestling with for some time now. Having recently read Sam Harris' essay on free will, and now this book by Sapolsky, I somewhat uncomfortably now feel like my thoughts on the subject are proven correct, or as close as we're currently capable of at the moment. Here Sapolsky does an amazing job of going over the relevant science as well as discussing many of the major concerns regarding the implications of confronting the absence of free will. Coming to terms with incompatible determinism leads to some dark places and disturbing implications. I think that the truth is always worth promoting, especially if it's uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the truth can sometimes seriously hurt and upset our sense of self and understanding of the world. This is one of those truths. The question now is are we ready to accept the sometimes unsettling consequences of that truth? I'm not sure that most of us, myself included, would be able to say yes, at least not yet.
Therefore it seems hard for me to recommend such a book in good conscience despite finding it fascinating. I'm concerned that many people wouldn't be able to handle the revelation, resulting in some serious instability and mental anguish. If you feel like that is the case for you, please don't bother. However, for those interested in the subject, those possibly wrestling with such ideas yourself, and those that don't feel like they would be deeply destabilized by such knowledge, I would highly recommend reading Determined. Reading it may irreversibly change your outlook on life, morality, and meaning but fuck it, in the end it's not really up to us is it?
Therefore it seems hard for me to recommend such a book in good conscience despite finding it fascinating. I'm concerned that many people wouldn't be able to handle the revelation, resulting in some serious instability and mental anguish. If you feel like that is the case for you, please don't bother. However, for those interested in the subject, those possibly wrestling with such ideas yourself, and those that don't feel like they would be deeply destabilized by such knowledge, I would highly recommend reading Determined. Reading it may irreversibly change your outlook on life, morality, and meaning but fuck it, in the end it's not really up to us is it?
February 25, 2024
A little while ago I read a book of pessimistic philosophy called the conspiracy against the human race. That book was pushing the idea that we have no free will, we’re just meat machines driven by hormones and genes with a consciousness that gave us the ability to lie to ourselves about the truth of our existence. This book pulls back the curtain of that intellectual exercise, exploring the biological processes behind the thinking.
He explains that we are genetically predisposed to certain behaviours but environmental factors are needed to flip the genetic switches. Those factors could include your upbringing from a very early age including stress your mother endured as well as her diet while you were still in the womb. It goes on to show that your family’s financial situation is predictive of your life expectancy.
He makes his case by making every case FOR free will and arguing them each in turn. He eventually gets to explaining how similar humans act to other life forms that do not have consciousness or free will who have more pragmatic reasons for their actions. He thinks that none of us is truly responsible for their actions because they’re basically predetermined from birth, including cereal killers (which he has an entertaining chapter about) and though they shouldn’t be punished, they should be quarantined for the safety of others.
I’m not sure if he really conclusively proves his case but I didn’t find it as compelling as the conspiracy against the human race because that book was written in more relatable terms and didn’t include the dry facts and figures of this more scientific one.
He explains that we are genetically predisposed to certain behaviours but environmental factors are needed to flip the genetic switches. Those factors could include your upbringing from a very early age including stress your mother endured as well as her diet while you were still in the womb. It goes on to show that your family’s financial situation is predictive of your life expectancy.
He makes his case by making every case FOR free will and arguing them each in turn. He eventually gets to explaining how similar humans act to other life forms that do not have consciousness or free will who have more pragmatic reasons for their actions. He thinks that none of us is truly responsible for their actions because they’re basically predetermined from birth, including cereal killers (which he has an entertaining chapter about) and though they shouldn’t be punished, they should be quarantined for the safety of others.
I’m not sure if he really conclusively proves his case but I didn’t find it as compelling as the conspiracy against the human race because that book was written in more relatable terms and didn’t include the dry facts and figures of this more scientific one.
November 20, 2022
Wait. You're saying John Calvin was right? What the hell am I supposed to with that?
I've commented on this book before reading because hearing lectures and interviews on YouTube piqued my interest.
When some unrelated physicists pointed out that if you're a materialist it's the most sensible conclusion. After all the Big Bang begins the movement of all other particles.
Those particles in a long 13 billion year chain brought us here. The basic movement of particles are not only traceable they are predictable.
Our neurology, our body, is identical with us. That neurology is driven by electrochemical processes. The elements of 'electro' and 'chemical' are driven by molecules. Those molecules are driven by atoms and in turn particles.
That thought you just had has its roots in a 13 billion year old super expansion of particles. One after another until now.
After all where did that thought you just had come from? Have you ever thought up a thought that wasn't already there to begin with?
Probably going to be reading this book of his before the others. In the meantime (that word suddenly seems an ominous pun) his lectures are well worth a listen.
I've commented on this book before reading because hearing lectures and interviews on YouTube piqued my interest.
When some unrelated physicists pointed out that if you're a materialist it's the most sensible conclusion. After all the Big Bang begins the movement of all other particles.
Those particles in a long 13 billion year chain brought us here. The basic movement of particles are not only traceable they are predictable.
Our neurology, our body, is identical with us. That neurology is driven by electrochemical processes. The elements of 'electro' and 'chemical' are driven by molecules. Those molecules are driven by atoms and in turn particles.
That thought you just had has its roots in a 13 billion year old super expansion of particles. One after another until now.
After all where did that thought you just had come from? Have you ever thought up a thought that wasn't already there to begin with?
Probably going to be reading this book of his before the others. In the meantime (that word suddenly seems an ominous pun) his lectures are well worth a listen.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 18, 2024
When writing a review on Goodreads, it always amuses me to see the checkbox "My review has spoilers".
That's because I could never imagine checking it off for a nonfiction book. What would be the point? Why hide a piece of knowledge that would make others' lives better?
Well, now I get why it's there. It was added for books like Sapolsky's. This book is dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that I'm not even going to summarize its main points.
Read it at your own peril knowing that you might come out of it a different person: kinder towards others, & painfully aware of what makes you you.
Make sure you've thoroughly enjoyed your recent successes before reading it. They're still wins, but they're much less attributable to you than you (were made to) believe.
That's because I could never imagine checking it off for a nonfiction book. What would be the point? Why hide a piece of knowledge that would make others' lives better?
Well, now I get why it's there. It was added for books like Sapolsky's. This book is dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that I'm not even going to summarize its main points.
Read it at your own peril knowing that you might come out of it a different person: kinder towards others, & painfully aware of what makes you you.
Make sure you've thoroughly enjoyed your recent successes before reading it. They're still wins, but they're much less attributable to you than you (were made to) believe.
March 6, 2024
Tremendously complicated and complex topic! I just began, first by skimming the book, and now reading. ‘Determined’ is already groundbreaking.
Sapolsky makes a convincing argument for an idea that will be unacceptable to most who encounter it, but liberating for those who find a way to wield it. How you’ll react to Sapolsky’s message is probably already determined. How else could it be?
Sapolsky makes a convincing argument for an idea that will be unacceptable to most who encounter it, but liberating for those who find a way to wield it. How you’ll react to Sapolsky’s message is probably already determined. How else could it be?
December 4, 2023
I can’t stress enough how important Robert Sapolsky’s work is. He debunks all societally embedded concepts with properly controlled studies and without it sounding dry. I’ve read his Behave book at least twice and will definitely be rereading this book to really retain everything it has to offer
December 4, 2023
DNF at 36% of this excruciatingly pedantic 17-hour audiobook experience. I reject the basic premise of the book, so listening for another nearly 11 hours is a task I'm freely deciding not to do.
February 24, 2024
I agree with a lot of points professor Sapolsky raises about human behaviour being to a large extent dictated by our environment, upbringing, genetics, hormones etc. I agree with his overarching thesis about how this raises serious questions regarding both the desirability and the practicality of a true meritocracy, and how we as a society should strive to be more egalitarian and more understanding of other people's circumstances, especially with regard to things like crime and addiction. I agree with his contention that our legal system is too focused on punishing people (people who, more often than not, had very little control over the course of their lives), and not enough on addressing the circumstances that lead to people committing crimes in the first place. I wholeheartedly agree with his position that no one is innately entitled to being treated any better or worse than anyone else.
However, I don't believe he has in any meaningful sense disproven the existence of free will. Full disclosure: I am not a trained philosopher, and I am the furthest thing from a neuroscientist or an endocrinologist, but Sapolsky's argument, when you boil it down, seems to me to be little more than a cheeky game of semantics. For those who haven't read the book, Sapolsky's definition of free will is basically what theologians and Christian apologists refer to as an "uncaused cause": "Show me a neuron (or brain)", Sapolsky writes, "whose generation of a behavior is independent of the sum of its biological past" (p. 15). Essentially, for free will to exist by Sapolsky's standards, humans would have to be capable of acting independently of their hormonal history, sensory history, childhood history etc. When you put all of these histories together, Sapolsky argues, there is no room for what he calls "free will".
I'm sorry if this makes me sound pedantic, but this just sounds to me like defining free will out of existence. Of course, Sapolsky gives further arguments for his case, but they're all contingent on whether the reader accepts his definition of free will, and I'm not convinced we should. I just don't see why the concept of free will would necessitate the possibility of making choices in a biological and environmental vacuum, because that is, almost definitionally, an impossibility. Sapolsky's viewpoint strikes me as an almost comically simplistic zero-sum game: either we are all prime movers of the first degree, or we are just cosmic dominos with no control over where and how we fall. I'm sure Sapolsky would disagree with me on this, but to me, being free to react within a certain set of constraints and incentives (even ones as inescapable and all-encompassing as those Sapolsky lays out in his book) still seems like something that might conceivably be called "free will".
Sapolsky goes to great lengths to demonstrate the various ways in which human cognition is preconfigured by external factors over which we have no control: he repeats over and over again that people may be free to do as they intend, but they aren't free to intend what they intend. Crucially, however, he never delivers a definitive deathblow to the idea that whether or not we act on our intentions may be something over which we exert at least some amount of conscious control. In fact, the possibility of humans going against their own intentions ("overruling" their own intentions as it were) is something Sapolsky appears to allow room for in chapter 2, so I have to ask: if intentions don't necessarily lead to people acting on them, then regardless of where those intentions come from, and regardless of whether you decide to call this "free will" or not, in what sense can determinism be true? At best, I think Sapolsky's arguments show that human behaviour is highly predictable, that is to say: highly influenced by pre-existing conditions, which is 1) not the same as being predetermined (Sapolsky himself acknowledges this), and 2) something I already agreed with before I read this book.
I'm not even arguing that free will definitely exists; I'm not sure where I stand on the whole free will debate, precisely because I find it such a nebulous concept to pin down. Sapolsky, however, has no time for nuances, it seems: in his own introduction, he explicitly states that he is glossing over potential grey areas such as "partial free will" or "situational free will". I get that it makes sense to do so for simplicity's sake, but I think it makes the scope of his entire book somewhat inherently—to use a word Sapolsky himself seems to be fond of using—myopic. He even sidesteps the entire question of what role (if any) consciousness plays in free will because he "[doesn't] understand what consciousness is" (p. 31). I mean, fair enough: neither do I, but I'm not writing a book on free will, and if I were, I'd like to think I'd treat the topic of consciousness with a little more attention than just saying "Well, I don't really get what it is, but it's not relevant to my point anyway, trust me!"
Furthermore, I think Sapolsky grossly overestimates the extent to which the notion of not having free will (as he defines it) is upsetting to people. Speaking just for myself here, I honestly don't give much of a hoot whether I have free will by Sapolsky's standards or not; I know I have the appearance of free will, and that, to me, is good enough. Now, to be fair, this is of course a common retort to the kind of hard determinism Sapolsky advocates, and it's one he seems to have at least partially anticipated: for him, it is akin to saying that our intuitions are always right, when, of course, our intuitions are pretty regularly not right, but this is either a complete misunderstanding or a complete misrepresentation of the argument. I am not saying that I have the appearance of free will, therefore, I have free will; what I'm saying is that having the appearance of free will, for me at least, is as good (though not factually the same) as actually having free will.
Because even if I were to concede Sapolsky's entire argument, I don't see what difference it would make in the bigger picture, practically speaking. I don't think the question of free will is really as consequential as Sapolsky and many philosophers make it out to be, because even if it were true that we have no free will, I don't see how we can go about living our lives sans the underlying assumption that we are creatures with at least some degree of agency. This is where maybe I out myself as a de facto social constructionist when it comes to free will: the way I see it, free will (in our colloquial understanding of the term) is simply a fact of life, but if it was truly a fiction, then it would be a necessary fiction that our entire society relies on in order to function. If it is an illusion, I don't think it's one we can ever fully escape.
To be clear: I'm not talking about what Sapolsky describes as the danger of people "running amok" once they stop believing in free will; I'm saying that I literally can't conceive of going through life without believing in at least some version of free will. Sapolsky himself even states that he has tried to live most of his life in accordance with his belief that people have no free will, and has found it virtually impossible; indeed, it's part of the reason why he wrote this book in the first place: to provide some insights into how we might dispense with the notion of free will, both individually and societally. I'll admit: Sapolsky has definitely thought his ideas through, but I don't think he paints a very coherent picture of a society that has moved beyond free will belief. Nevertheless, I think this is the part of the book where most readers will truly raise an eyebrow.
My true disagreement with Sapolsky, I suspect, lies not so much in the (in my opinion largely semantic) debate over whether we have free will or not, but in what would and, more importantly, should follow from this question. Not only does Sapolsky not believe in free will, he, to his credit, takes his conclusions to their logical extremes: the concepts of blame and punishment make no sense to him, and neither do praise and reward, because none of us have earned anything we had any say in whatsoever, just like none of us have any control over the actions that would lead to us being punished. As I said, I am very sympathetic to Sapolsky's critique of punitive justice and meritocracy; I am less sympathetic to his proposed vision of an ideologically deterministic society where we just abandon the notions of personal and criminal accountability altogether.
I'm not trying to score a cheap moral victory here, but imagine telling the people of Gaza that the IDF soldiers and the Israeli government who have been massacring them for months, years and decades bear no responsibility whatsoever for their crimes against humanity because they were hormonally predestined to commit genocide. Imagine explaining to a former Auschwitz inmate that it makes no logical sense to blame the Nazis for the Holocaust because it was a complex mix of cosmic and genetic coincidences that caused them to shove people into concentration camps. Call me sentimental, but I don't think a society where we are all stoically aloof to the man-made horrors of the world is achievable nor desirable.
What I find most troublesome about Sapolsky's outlook is not so much that it would have us effectively exonerating war criminals and serial killers, but that he seems to put this on par with the way we as a society have moved past (or tried to move past) historic prejudices on the basis of race, gender, sexuality etc. I'm sorry, but even if I were to accept that you can't hold people responsible for their actions, I just fundamentally refuse to put the likes of Netanyahu or Mengele on the same level as the victims of pogroms or lynchings; I don't think moral accountability and bigotry are analogous in that way, even if neither of them makes rational sense. For what it's worth, Sapolsky is careful to note that you can still isolate dangerous individuals from society if they pose a threat, you just can't punish them or hold a grudge against them on moral grounds. I get what he's saying, and again: I agree that the purpose of justice, even in the most egregious cases, should be restorative rather than retributive. Nevertheless, I think the desire for moral accountability is a natural human inclination, and not one we should (or even could) discard so haphazardly.
I also find it interesting that Sapolsky himself occasionally appears to slip between two different positions: for most of the book, his stance seems to be that free will, categorically, does not exist, but every so often, he backpedals by saying that there is simply "much less free will than is generally assumed". I hesitate to accuse Sapolsky outright of pulling a motte-and-bailey, but he openly declares in his introduction that his goal "isn't to convince you [the reader] that there's no free will", but that it "will suffice if you conclude that there's so much less free will [...] that you have to change your thinking about some truly important things" (p. 12). Again: forgive me for being pedantic, but these are two very different claims, and you don't get to defend your position by defending an ostensibly related one. If Sapolsky is arguing for the second claim, then I think we essentially agree (apart from my aforementioned reservations about doing away with moral responsibility altogether); however, if he is truly arguing for the first claim, then I think either he is arguing a moot point, or I have genuinely misunderstood his entire argument. I don't think this was a deliberate piece of rhetorical trickery on Sapolsky's part, but I find it hard to take this as anything else than a subconscious admission that his definition of free will is so strict as to be basically useless for most intents and purposes. Whatever the case, I find this a pretty telling inconsistency.
Having said all of that, I think Sapolsky definitely makes a lot of points that are at the very least interesting to think about. There's probably a lot to learn from this book if you're interested in these topics, and Sapolsky's writing is often highly enjoyable to read: witty, engaging, concise, and maybe a little snide or dismissive occasionally, but never unnecessarily mean or caustic. Nevertheless, I can't help but question Sapolsky's judgement in writing a book like this at this particular point in history. I know, if Sapolsky is right, then he wouldn't really have had a choice in whether or not to write this book in the first place, but if you'll indulge me for a second: at a time when people are already feeling increasingly helpless and at the mercy of forces outside of their control, writing a book that might end up reinforcing their sense of fatalism just doesn't seem like a very—for lack of a better term—"responsible" thing to do. If Sapolsky had just written a book arguing that people's decisions are often not just a result of their own conscious choices and the implications this has for either restorative or retributive justice, I think he'd have more success in getting people on board with his message. As it stands, what Sapolsky is trying to accomplish with this book strikes me as the equivalent of using a nuke to squat a fly.
P.S. I didn't want to make this review any longer than it already is, but I believe I'm only a stone's throw away from the character limit anyway, so I figured I might as well jot down some final remarks in the space I have left:
-Sapolsky offers an explanation of how he accounts for the possibility of change in a deterministic universe, but I must admit: I find it thoroughly unconvincing. Or not even "unconvincing" necessarily, but beside the point: of course "change" can happen in a deterministic universe, but what's the point of even stipulating that if the course of any change is supposedly predetermined?
-On the subject of moral accountability: Sapolsky ends the book by positing that future generations will deem us "heartless" for holding people morally accountable, but—and I feel almost petty pointing this out—this is itself a moral judgement. If people can't be held accountable for their actions, they also can't be held accountable for holding people accountable, at least not in this hypothetical future society where everyone has been converted to Sapolskian determinism. Again, I can only take this as an inadvertent admission that we cannot escape the logic of moral accountability even when we consciously try to.
-Even if I were to grant all of Sapolsky's arguments about free will, I still don't think he would have proved determinism to be true. The onus still lies very much with the determinists in my view, and the particular brand of hard determinism Sapolsky describes in his book strikes me as bordering on unfalsifiability.
-I hope I've made it clear that I share Sapolsky's wish for a more egalitarian and compassionate society. Where I believe we differ is that I don't think the inequalities in our society stem purely from our societal belief that some people are just entitled to being better off than others, or that resolving those inequalities (or that sense of entitlement, for that matter) hinges solely or even principally on the question of free will. I believe there are other obstacles on the road to social equality, as well as different means of getting there than dispensing with free will belief. Resting the case for equality and justice entirely on a question of metaphysics seems reductive to me, if not counterproductive.
-I just want to end by noting that, based on his book and the few talks of his I've seen on YouTube, Sapolsky seems like a genuinely fun guy, and someone with whom you can have an honest, respectful disagreement. I think his heart is definitely in the right place, and I suspect our politics are probably pretty similar on most practical, short-term issues; my disagreement with him—much like the whole free will debate itself in my opinion—is entirely philosophical.
However, I don't believe he has in any meaningful sense disproven the existence of free will. Full disclosure: I am not a trained philosopher, and I am the furthest thing from a neuroscientist or an endocrinologist, but Sapolsky's argument, when you boil it down, seems to me to be little more than a cheeky game of semantics. For those who haven't read the book, Sapolsky's definition of free will is basically what theologians and Christian apologists refer to as an "uncaused cause": "Show me a neuron (or brain)", Sapolsky writes, "whose generation of a behavior is independent of the sum of its biological past" (p. 15). Essentially, for free will to exist by Sapolsky's standards, humans would have to be capable of acting independently of their hormonal history, sensory history, childhood history etc. When you put all of these histories together, Sapolsky argues, there is no room for what he calls "free will".
I'm sorry if this makes me sound pedantic, but this just sounds to me like defining free will out of existence. Of course, Sapolsky gives further arguments for his case, but they're all contingent on whether the reader accepts his definition of free will, and I'm not convinced we should. I just don't see why the concept of free will would necessitate the possibility of making choices in a biological and environmental vacuum, because that is, almost definitionally, an impossibility. Sapolsky's viewpoint strikes me as an almost comically simplistic zero-sum game: either we are all prime movers of the first degree, or we are just cosmic dominos with no control over where and how we fall. I'm sure Sapolsky would disagree with me on this, but to me, being free to react within a certain set of constraints and incentives (even ones as inescapable and all-encompassing as those Sapolsky lays out in his book) still seems like something that might conceivably be called "free will".
Sapolsky goes to great lengths to demonstrate the various ways in which human cognition is preconfigured by external factors over which we have no control: he repeats over and over again that people may be free to do as they intend, but they aren't free to intend what they intend. Crucially, however, he never delivers a definitive deathblow to the idea that whether or not we act on our intentions may be something over which we exert at least some amount of conscious control. In fact, the possibility of humans going against their own intentions ("overruling" their own intentions as it were) is something Sapolsky appears to allow room for in chapter 2, so I have to ask: if intentions don't necessarily lead to people acting on them, then regardless of where those intentions come from, and regardless of whether you decide to call this "free will" or not, in what sense can determinism be true? At best, I think Sapolsky's arguments show that human behaviour is highly predictable, that is to say: highly influenced by pre-existing conditions, which is 1) not the same as being predetermined (Sapolsky himself acknowledges this), and 2) something I already agreed with before I read this book.
I'm not even arguing that free will definitely exists; I'm not sure where I stand on the whole free will debate, precisely because I find it such a nebulous concept to pin down. Sapolsky, however, has no time for nuances, it seems: in his own introduction, he explicitly states that he is glossing over potential grey areas such as "partial free will" or "situational free will". I get that it makes sense to do so for simplicity's sake, but I think it makes the scope of his entire book somewhat inherently—to use a word Sapolsky himself seems to be fond of using—myopic. He even sidesteps the entire question of what role (if any) consciousness plays in free will because he "[doesn't] understand what consciousness is" (p. 31). I mean, fair enough: neither do I, but I'm not writing a book on free will, and if I were, I'd like to think I'd treat the topic of consciousness with a little more attention than just saying "Well, I don't really get what it is, but it's not relevant to my point anyway, trust me!"
Furthermore, I think Sapolsky grossly overestimates the extent to which the notion of not having free will (as he defines it) is upsetting to people. Speaking just for myself here, I honestly don't give much of a hoot whether I have free will by Sapolsky's standards or not; I know I have the appearance of free will, and that, to me, is good enough. Now, to be fair, this is of course a common retort to the kind of hard determinism Sapolsky advocates, and it's one he seems to have at least partially anticipated: for him, it is akin to saying that our intuitions are always right, when, of course, our intuitions are pretty regularly not right, but this is either a complete misunderstanding or a complete misrepresentation of the argument. I am not saying that I have the appearance of free will, therefore, I have free will; what I'm saying is that having the appearance of free will, for me at least, is as good (though not factually the same) as actually having free will.
Because even if I were to concede Sapolsky's entire argument, I don't see what difference it would make in the bigger picture, practically speaking. I don't think the question of free will is really as consequential as Sapolsky and many philosophers make it out to be, because even if it were true that we have no free will, I don't see how we can go about living our lives sans the underlying assumption that we are creatures with at least some degree of agency. This is where maybe I out myself as a de facto social constructionist when it comes to free will: the way I see it, free will (in our colloquial understanding of the term) is simply a fact of life, but if it was truly a fiction, then it would be a necessary fiction that our entire society relies on in order to function. If it is an illusion, I don't think it's one we can ever fully escape.
To be clear: I'm not talking about what Sapolsky describes as the danger of people "running amok" once they stop believing in free will; I'm saying that I literally can't conceive of going through life without believing in at least some version of free will. Sapolsky himself even states that he has tried to live most of his life in accordance with his belief that people have no free will, and has found it virtually impossible; indeed, it's part of the reason why he wrote this book in the first place: to provide some insights into how we might dispense with the notion of free will, both individually and societally. I'll admit: Sapolsky has definitely thought his ideas through, but I don't think he paints a very coherent picture of a society that has moved beyond free will belief. Nevertheless, I think this is the part of the book where most readers will truly raise an eyebrow.
My true disagreement with Sapolsky, I suspect, lies not so much in the (in my opinion largely semantic) debate over whether we have free will or not, but in what would and, more importantly, should follow from this question. Not only does Sapolsky not believe in free will, he, to his credit, takes his conclusions to their logical extremes: the concepts of blame and punishment make no sense to him, and neither do praise and reward, because none of us have earned anything we had any say in whatsoever, just like none of us have any control over the actions that would lead to us being punished. As I said, I am very sympathetic to Sapolsky's critique of punitive justice and meritocracy; I am less sympathetic to his proposed vision of an ideologically deterministic society where we just abandon the notions of personal and criminal accountability altogether.
I'm not trying to score a cheap moral victory here, but imagine telling the people of Gaza that the IDF soldiers and the Israeli government who have been massacring them for months, years and decades bear no responsibility whatsoever for their crimes against humanity because they were hormonally predestined to commit genocide. Imagine explaining to a former Auschwitz inmate that it makes no logical sense to blame the Nazis for the Holocaust because it was a complex mix of cosmic and genetic coincidences that caused them to shove people into concentration camps. Call me sentimental, but I don't think a society where we are all stoically aloof to the man-made horrors of the world is achievable nor desirable.
What I find most troublesome about Sapolsky's outlook is not so much that it would have us effectively exonerating war criminals and serial killers, but that he seems to put this on par with the way we as a society have moved past (or tried to move past) historic prejudices on the basis of race, gender, sexuality etc. I'm sorry, but even if I were to accept that you can't hold people responsible for their actions, I just fundamentally refuse to put the likes of Netanyahu or Mengele on the same level as the victims of pogroms or lynchings; I don't think moral accountability and bigotry are analogous in that way, even if neither of them makes rational sense. For what it's worth, Sapolsky is careful to note that you can still isolate dangerous individuals from society if they pose a threat, you just can't punish them or hold a grudge against them on moral grounds. I get what he's saying, and again: I agree that the purpose of justice, even in the most egregious cases, should be restorative rather than retributive. Nevertheless, I think the desire for moral accountability is a natural human inclination, and not one we should (or even could) discard so haphazardly.
I also find it interesting that Sapolsky himself occasionally appears to slip between two different positions: for most of the book, his stance seems to be that free will, categorically, does not exist, but every so often, he backpedals by saying that there is simply "much less free will than is generally assumed". I hesitate to accuse Sapolsky outright of pulling a motte-and-bailey, but he openly declares in his introduction that his goal "isn't to convince you [the reader] that there's no free will", but that it "will suffice if you conclude that there's so much less free will [...] that you have to change your thinking about some truly important things" (p. 12). Again: forgive me for being pedantic, but these are two very different claims, and you don't get to defend your position by defending an ostensibly related one. If Sapolsky is arguing for the second claim, then I think we essentially agree (apart from my aforementioned reservations about doing away with moral responsibility altogether); however, if he is truly arguing for the first claim, then I think either he is arguing a moot point, or I have genuinely misunderstood his entire argument. I don't think this was a deliberate piece of rhetorical trickery on Sapolsky's part, but I find it hard to take this as anything else than a subconscious admission that his definition of free will is so strict as to be basically useless for most intents and purposes. Whatever the case, I find this a pretty telling inconsistency.
Having said all of that, I think Sapolsky definitely makes a lot of points that are at the very least interesting to think about. There's probably a lot to learn from this book if you're interested in these topics, and Sapolsky's writing is often highly enjoyable to read: witty, engaging, concise, and maybe a little snide or dismissive occasionally, but never unnecessarily mean or caustic. Nevertheless, I can't help but question Sapolsky's judgement in writing a book like this at this particular point in history. I know, if Sapolsky is right, then he wouldn't really have had a choice in whether or not to write this book in the first place, but if you'll indulge me for a second: at a time when people are already feeling increasingly helpless and at the mercy of forces outside of their control, writing a book that might end up reinforcing their sense of fatalism just doesn't seem like a very—for lack of a better term—"responsible" thing to do. If Sapolsky had just written a book arguing that people's decisions are often not just a result of their own conscious choices and the implications this has for either restorative or retributive justice, I think he'd have more success in getting people on board with his message. As it stands, what Sapolsky is trying to accomplish with this book strikes me as the equivalent of using a nuke to squat a fly.
P.S. I didn't want to make this review any longer than it already is, but I believe I'm only a stone's throw away from the character limit anyway, so I figured I might as well jot down some final remarks in the space I have left:
-Sapolsky offers an explanation of how he accounts for the possibility of change in a deterministic universe, but I must admit: I find it thoroughly unconvincing. Or not even "unconvincing" necessarily, but beside the point: of course "change" can happen in a deterministic universe, but what's the point of even stipulating that if the course of any change is supposedly predetermined?
-On the subject of moral accountability: Sapolsky ends the book by positing that future generations will deem us "heartless" for holding people morally accountable, but—and I feel almost petty pointing this out—this is itself a moral judgement. If people can't be held accountable for their actions, they also can't be held accountable for holding people accountable, at least not in this hypothetical future society where everyone has been converted to Sapolskian determinism. Again, I can only take this as an inadvertent admission that we cannot escape the logic of moral accountability even when we consciously try to.
-Even if I were to grant all of Sapolsky's arguments about free will, I still don't think he would have proved determinism to be true. The onus still lies very much with the determinists in my view, and the particular brand of hard determinism Sapolsky describes in his book strikes me as bordering on unfalsifiability.
-I hope I've made it clear that I share Sapolsky's wish for a more egalitarian and compassionate society. Where I believe we differ is that I don't think the inequalities in our society stem purely from our societal belief that some people are just entitled to being better off than others, or that resolving those inequalities (or that sense of entitlement, for that matter) hinges solely or even principally on the question of free will. I believe there are other obstacles on the road to social equality, as well as different means of getting there than dispensing with free will belief. Resting the case for equality and justice entirely on a question of metaphysics seems reductive to me, if not counterproductive.
-I just want to end by noting that, based on his book and the few talks of his I've seen on YouTube, Sapolsky seems like a genuinely fun guy, and someone with whom you can have an honest, respectful disagreement. I think his heart is definitely in the right place, and I suspect our politics are probably pretty similar on most practical, short-term issues; my disagreement with him—much like the whole free will debate itself in my opinion—is entirely philosophical.
November 25, 2023
Sapolsky decided, after the brilliant "Behave" (2017), to join Sam Harris, another neuroscientist, in defending the non-existence of Free Will, but what he actually did was return to his origins as a convinced behaviourist and follow in the footsteps of BF Skinner. Read "Walden Two" (1948). None of this comes as a surprise because there were already hints of this conviction in "Behave", but here Sapolsky simply drops the mask. It's a shame that, unlike Harris, Sapolsky dares to write an entire book on the subject without having carried out any study of the two thousand years of philosophical discussion on the subject, but even more shocking is that he does so in 2023, ignoring more than 70 years of cognitive psychology. The book, which has been five years in the making, ends up being even worse because it is divided into a first part discussing the most up-to-date knowledge of neuroscience which, according to Sapolsky, supports the idea, but then opens up a whole second part of socio-political-philosophical discussion for which the author clearly lacks expertise.
I'd give it 4 stars for the discussion of the first part, even though I don't agree, for everything it made me think, but then the second part is very bad, and shouldn't have been published in the same book, which ends up with 2 stars.
The review is much longer, but it's in Portuguese on Substack: https://experiencias.substack.com/p/d...
A discussão completa em português no Substack: hhttps://experiencianarrativa.wordpres...
I'd give it 4 stars for the discussion of the first part, even though I don't agree, for everything it made me think, but then the second part is very bad, and shouldn't have been published in the same book, which ends up with 2 stars.
The review is much longer, but it's in Portuguese on Substack: https://experiencias.substack.com/p/d...
A discussão completa em português no Substack: hhttps://experiencianarrativa.wordpres...
December 18, 2023
This easily became my favorite book by Robert Sapolsky. I’ve heard some mixed reviews about the book, but this was by far my favorite. His other books took me forever to read just because I’d get so bored, but I think I liked this one even more because it had a bunch of philosophy and psychology rather than biology. There is a chunk of the book dedicated to neuroscience that was a struggle to get through, but other than that, I read this big book pretty fast because I enjoyed it so much.
Sapolsky argues on the side of determinism and that free will is mostly an illusion. For full transparency, this is what I believe as well, so there may be a little bit of a bias. But Sapolsky does an excellent job laying down his arguments and backing it up with research. I don’t think anyone can walk away from this book and not have their perspective changed a little. This book will give you a lot more empathy and shift how you think about crime and punishment.
And before you ask, “So he doesn’t think criminals are responsible for their actions?!”, I’ll stop you right there. He discusses this at length and explains why punishment is needed and explains why with some great arguments and stories that help make it make more sense.
I love this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of free will.
Sapolsky argues on the side of determinism and that free will is mostly an illusion. For full transparency, this is what I believe as well, so there may be a little bit of a bias. But Sapolsky does an excellent job laying down his arguments and backing it up with research. I don’t think anyone can walk away from this book and not have their perspective changed a little. This book will give you a lot more empathy and shift how you think about crime and punishment.
And before you ask, “So he doesn’t think criminals are responsible for their actions?!”, I’ll stop you right there. He discusses this at length and explains why punishment is needed and explains why with some great arguments and stories that help make it make more sense.
I love this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of free will.
February 7, 2024
"We must accept the absurdity of hating any person for anything they've done; ultimately, that hatred is sadder than hating the sky for storming, hating the earth when it quakes, hating a virus because it's good at getting into lung cells."
November 8, 2023
Comprehensive and well written, but also not really the conclusive or definitive statement on free will like the press tour has made it sound like
November 25, 2023
Sapolsky dovetails research and insight into a staggering refutation of free will.
And I feel kinda okay with this, especially given the conclusion - hatred and resentment are useless. Besides the dopamine hit, besides the in-group closeness fostered by out-group hatred, it does nothing for us as a human race to hate or resent those who wrong us, as people are not responsible for the people they are.
I've been groping my way to this conclusion my whole life. Little thoughts, like how the grenade that killed my great uncle led to my need to pop 10 mg lexapro daily through a multi-generational cycle of abuse and alcoholism. How I often feel driven by a machine, that there is nothing within my nature I can change, unless that desire to change was already implanted within my nature.
That luck determines all of life - pure, simple luck.
But - there's something Sapolsky doesn't fully explore in his conclusions. He implies at one point that minimizing human pain and maximizing pleasure is a good - no surprise, I agree. He also writes at length about how society has slowly evolved to become more just, how people can be positively impacted by their environments. So, why can't those of us who happened to be born/raised prosocial try and help change the world (and others) for the better?
My guess is Sapolsky doesn't want to look too much like a leftist to keep the book's potential audience wide, but this is disappointing - it's clear that organizing society to reduce the influence of chance/bias will help us. It's clear that there are things we can do to subtly change our neurochemistry and improve our behavior. And yes, of course one needs to be blessed with the right personality and upbringing to seek out that knowledge, but it doesn't mean we can't fight to provide that knowledge and those opportunities to everyone so that it becomes a part of their upbringing.
There are so, so many ethical implications to consider here. My mind is teeming. My heart is resting. I don't mind being driven by forces outside of my control. In a weird way, I feel reduced to the religion I was raised with - determinism feels eerily like my favorite old obsession, thinking about how God knows all things; where we came from, and what we will do.
POST SCRIPT - I'm still thinking about this book a month later, and I had some new insights that I wanted to mark down.
First, I think some delineation is in order - between the ability to choose what we want, and the ability to choose how we get it.
I concede that we cannot choose what we want. I will also concede that many circumstances outside of our control infringe upon our ability to freely choose how to get what we want.
However, we can't ignore our ability to affect certain bottom up processes from the top down. What I mean is, we as a society have discovered enough about human biology and psychology that can allow us to tangibly alter our neurochemistry via a combination of behavior and medication/therapy.
Sure, I may not choose to want to be healthier and happier, this drive may be innate/conditioned, but I absolutely have the ability to make decisions which alter my neurochemistry in directions that I want.
And sure, maybe in some turtles-all-the-way-down way, the very moment I decided to learn more about how to improve my life was not of my control, I still believe I've wrested some scrap of free will for myself in the ensuing years, given that I have gained more awareness of how my bottom up processes affect my consciousness, and I actively fight to amplify or suppress certain aspects of my biology in order to get closer to a life I want. That want is out of my control, but I believe the pursuit of that want is still more or less in my own hands.
And I feel kinda okay with this, especially given the conclusion - hatred and resentment are useless. Besides the dopamine hit, besides the in-group closeness fostered by out-group hatred, it does nothing for us as a human race to hate or resent those who wrong us, as people are not responsible for the people they are.
I've been groping my way to this conclusion my whole life. Little thoughts, like how the grenade that killed my great uncle led to my need to pop 10 mg lexapro daily through a multi-generational cycle of abuse and alcoholism. How I often feel driven by a machine, that there is nothing within my nature I can change, unless that desire to change was already implanted within my nature.
That luck determines all of life - pure, simple luck.
But - there's something Sapolsky doesn't fully explore in his conclusions. He implies at one point that minimizing human pain and maximizing pleasure is a good - no surprise, I agree. He also writes at length about how society has slowly evolved to become more just, how people can be positively impacted by their environments. So, why can't those of us who happened to be born/raised prosocial try and help change the world (and others) for the better?
My guess is Sapolsky doesn't want to look too much like a leftist to keep the book's potential audience wide, but this is disappointing - it's clear that organizing society to reduce the influence of chance/bias will help us. It's clear that there are things we can do to subtly change our neurochemistry and improve our behavior. And yes, of course one needs to be blessed with the right personality and upbringing to seek out that knowledge, but it doesn't mean we can't fight to provide that knowledge and those opportunities to everyone so that it becomes a part of their upbringing.
There are so, so many ethical implications to consider here. My mind is teeming. My heart is resting. I don't mind being driven by forces outside of my control. In a weird way, I feel reduced to the religion I was raised with - determinism feels eerily like my favorite old obsession, thinking about how God knows all things; where we came from, and what we will do.
POST SCRIPT - I'm still thinking about this book a month later, and I had some new insights that I wanted to mark down.
First, I think some delineation is in order - between the ability to choose what we want, and the ability to choose how we get it.
I concede that we cannot choose what we want. I will also concede that many circumstances outside of our control infringe upon our ability to freely choose how to get what we want.
However, we can't ignore our ability to affect certain bottom up processes from the top down. What I mean is, we as a society have discovered enough about human biology and psychology that can allow us to tangibly alter our neurochemistry via a combination of behavior and medication/therapy.
Sure, I may not choose to want to be healthier and happier, this drive may be innate/conditioned, but I absolutely have the ability to make decisions which alter my neurochemistry in directions that I want.
And sure, maybe in some turtles-all-the-way-down way, the very moment I decided to learn more about how to improve my life was not of my control, I still believe I've wrested some scrap of free will for myself in the ensuing years, given that I have gained more awareness of how my bottom up processes affect my consciousness, and I actively fight to amplify or suppress certain aspects of my biology in order to get closer to a life I want. That want is out of my control, but I believe the pursuit of that want is still more or less in my own hands.
February 18, 2024
What a fantastic book. The subject of ‘free will’ and the scope of what the book covered is too vast for me to attempt and succinctly explain in a few lines so I will skip. But I still have a few cents to spare so here you go.
Absolutely loved the entertaining writing. Sapolsky’s sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek humour may come across as very opinionated and cocky. I wouldn’t have minded that as I was too busy laughing to mind. But there were flashes of utter humility dispersed throughout which made it even better. Way better. The book also helter-skelters now and then but again, I didn’t mind.
I started out thinking there will be more physics but this was mostly social and behavioural science with biology and neuroscience. I kept waiting for the physics bit to be elaborated and the book ended. Not complaining in the least, it just means I will have to find another book.
Whether you agree or not about the lack of free will , if you read with an open mind you will surely see the world as less black and white and end up less judgemental. At least for a while.
Absolutely loved the entertaining writing. Sapolsky’s sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek humour may come across as very opinionated and cocky. I wouldn’t have minded that as I was too busy laughing to mind. But there were flashes of utter humility dispersed throughout which made it even better. Way better. The book also helter-skelters now and then but again, I didn’t mind.
I started out thinking there will be more physics but this was mostly social and behavioural science with biology and neuroscience. I kept waiting for the physics bit to be elaborated and the book ended. Not complaining in the least, it just means I will have to find another book.
Whether you agree or not about the lack of free will , if you read with an open mind you will surely see the world as less black and white and end up less judgemental. At least for a while.
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