Determined
Episodes about this book
2 episodesYou Don't Have Free Will. That's Good News. (NBI Vault)
Rufus Griscom interviews Robert Sapolsky about Determined, which argues that all human behavior is fully explainable by biology, evolution, and culture, leaving no room for free will. They discuss how this view shifts responsibility toward a quarantine-over-retribution model of criminal justice, the incremental cultural progress in treating conditions like dyslexia biologically rather than as personal failures, humans' evolved pleasure in punishing wrongdoers, and Sapolsky's personal depression as a lens for confronting hard truths about agency.
693: Tina Seelig - Fortune vs. Luck, The Power of Curiosity, Why Your Words Change Lives, Failure Résumés, Thank You Notes, and Creating Luck Through Relationships, Observation, & Daily Action
Robert Sapolsky's book Determined is mentioned as arguing there is no such thing as free will—that everything is predetermined from the moment of conception by genetics and circumstance. Tina Seelig describes calling Sapolsky directly because his thesis conflicts with her own argument that people can deliberately create luck; she disagrees with his framework.
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