You Don't Have Free Will. That's Good News. (NBI Vault)

Do we have free will? Do we have a choice in what we do? Philosophers and theologians have debated these questions for centuries; Robert Sapolsky answered them when he was 14. Free will, he concluded, simply does not exist.

Robert is now in his sixties. He has degrees from Harvard and Rockefeller University; he won a MacArthur “genius” award; and he’s a professor at Stanford, where he holds joint appointments in biology, neurology, and neurosurgery. But despite how much time has passed and how long his CV has grown, he never lost his youthful fascination with free will — or our lack thereof — so he decided to write a book about it. It’s called Determined, and in addition to assembling a formidable case against free will, Robert makes the intriguing argument that if we can abandon our illusion of volition, we can build a more humane world.

This episode first aired in January 2024.

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