Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will (Unabridged)
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4.3 • 65 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
The instant New York Times bestseller
“Excellent…Outstanding for its breadth of research, the liveliness of the writing, and the depth of humanity it conveys.” – Wall Street Journal
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 the 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 is 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.
*This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF containing Tables, Charts, Diagrams, and Footnotes from the book.
Customer Reviews
Free will biology
Big fan of the author and this book is worth reading if you like his other works. I personally appreciate how the author dives into the biology that happens behind the scenes. My main issue with the book is that a lot of it ends up reflecting about the criminal justice system. A logical topic to explore when it comes to free will, but I feel there are so many other aspects of human existence that could be explored in context of free will, but it is not often done in this book. Still, I recommend this book.
The author doesn’t deserve five stars
Or any amount of stars or no stars. Regardless the work is highly informative.
A heavy slog
It's my fault. I thought this was aimed at the general reader, not just biology grad-students. One thing I'll say, the reader is excellent & kept me listening even through the densest techno-babble. And from the narrative I was able to follow, the author has sold me on Determinism.