From: jimruttshow8596
Robert Sapolsky, a neuroendocrinology researcher and professor at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya, discusses his book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will [01:54:00]. Sapolsky’s core argument is that there is no free will [02:44:00].
The “Turtles All The Way Down” Analogy
Sapolsky uses the “Turtles all the way down” anecdote, where the world rests on a turtle, which rests on another turtle, and so on [03:19:00]. He applies this to explain human behavior: why did something happen just now? Because of what happened before, and that happened because of what happened before that. This chain of causality extends all the way back to the Big Bang [04:12:00]. Sapolsky argues that it is scientifically incorrect to suggest that, somewhere in this chain, a “turtle” can just “float in the air,” meaning an action can occur without any preceding causes—this is the “mythical thing that we call Free Will” [04:36:00].
His argument does not rely on a single discipline but paints a comprehensive picture from multiple perspectives that “closes off every little escape valve” for free will [05:01:00]. To understand why someone does something, one must consider:
- Immediate Brain Activity: What was happening in their brain just now [05:25:00].
- Current State: Are they tired, stressed, hungry, or euphoric? [05:30:00]
- Hormone Levels: What were their hormone levels that morning? [05:38:00]
- Recent Experiences: Trauma or wonderful experiences in previous months can change brain function [05:47:00].
- Developmental Stages: Adolescence, childhood, and even fetal life profoundly affect brain construction [05:57:00].
- Genetics: An individual’s genes play a role [06:06:00].
- Ancestral Culture/Ecosystems: These influences shape how one’s mother raised them and impact their development from birth [06:12:00].
Sapolsky contends that these are not separate disciplines but “one continuous arc of influences” [07:07:00]. He argues there is “not a crack anywhere in there in which you can shoehorn in a kind of free will that requires you to invoke magic” [07:16:00].
Critiquing “Urges” and Partial Influence
A common critique is that while many factors influence behavior, they are not necessarily determinative [07:42:00]. Sapolsky provides striking examples of how seemingly minor factors can have substantial, non-conscious effects:
- Environmental Odors: Being in a room smelling of garbage can make people more politically and socially conservative, while a smell of fresh cookies can make them more generous [09:27:00]. These effects occur “in the seconds before your making your decision and you haven’t a clue” [10:26:00].
- Fetal Stress: Chronic maternal stress during pregnancy can lead to a larger, more reactive amygdala in the child, making them more likely to perceive neutral faces as threatening years later [10:48:00].
- Ancestral Disease Load: Cultures whose ancestors experienced higher infectious disease loads 400 years ago tend to be more xenophobic and less open to novelty today [12:14:00]. This influence is mediated by how children were raised to perceive “different” faces [13:10:00].
Sapolsky’s challenge to proponents of free will is to “explain anything and identify anything which is not as follows” [15:30:00]. He challenges them to show that a specific action, like flexing a finger to pull a gun trigger, would have happened regardless of brain activity, stress levels, hormones, past experiences (adolescence, childhood, fetal life), genes, or culture [15:58:00]. If one cannot, he argues, free will is disproven [17:00:00].
Categorizing Free Will Positions
Sapolsky outlines four main positions in the free will debate [18:05:00]:
- Libertarianism (Philosophical): Believes in a completely undetermined world and complete free will in all actions [18:31:00]. Sapolsky dismisses this as largely ignored by philosophers [18:44:00].
- Undetermined World + Responsibility: Argues there’s no determinism but holds individuals responsible for actions [18:56:00]. Sapolsky finds this even less coherent [19:02:00].
- Compatibilism: The most common view among philosophers (90-95%) [19:37:00]. It reconciles free will and responsibility with a deterministic world, arguing they are compatible [19:41:00].
- Incompatibilism: Sapolsky’s position [19:56:00]. He argues that a deterministic world (where humans are “biological machines”) and free will are incompatible [20:06:00]. He believes this view is held by a “small majority of brain scientists” but a “small minority of philosophers” [20:34:00].
Determinism vs. Naturalism and Quantum Mechanics
The host raises the distinction between determinism and naturalism, acknowledging that quantum mechanics, while often interpreted as stochastic, still has deterministic interpretations (e.g., Many-Worlds, Bohm-de Broglie pilot wave model) [21:31:00].
Sapolsky addresses the attempts to use quantum indeterminacy, chaoticism, and emergent complexity as “escape valves” for free will [22:42:00]. He argues that using quantum indeterminacy to explain free will is “idiotic” [15:15:00] for three reasons:
- Scale Mismatch: Subatomic quantum events are too small to impact macro-level brain activity without an improbably massive, synchronized effect [16:18:00].
- Randomness vs. Will: If quantum indeterminacy did influence behavior, it would result in randomness, not stable, purposeful choices [17:01:00].
- “Harnessing” Problem: The idea that a “you” could “harness” quantum indeterminacy at the subatomic level to exert free will implies a magical, top-down control that contradicts how physical systems work [17:35:00].
Sapolsky agrees with the consensus that brains are “moist and warm and messy,” making them unsuitable for quantum effects to coherently bubble up to macro scales [19:59:00].
Redefining Intent and Agency
Sapolsky criticizes the traditional legal/intuitive definition of free will, which focuses on whether a defendant intended their actions, understood the consequences, and had choices [23:54:00]. He likens this to reviewing a movie after only seeing the last three minutes, ignoring the crucial question: “Where did that intent come from?” [24:42:00]. He argues that intent is the least important thing to know, as its origins lie in the vast “arc of influences” [25:01:00].
Regarding agency, Sapolsky distinguishes between mere physical agency (e.g., bumping into someone accidentally) and intuitive agency, which he sees as synonymous with free will [26:48:00]. His core argument is that “not only were you not the captain, there is no Captain” [27:02:00]. Even seemingly complex decisions, like choosing to fight an aggressor based on a risk-reward assessment and cultural background, are products of countless preceding influences [29:32:00]. Factors like blood glucose levels directly affect prefrontal cortex function, influencing impulse control and rational thought [33:36:00].
Key Neuroscience Demonstrations
Phineas Gage
Phineas Gage, a railroad foreman in the 1840s, suffered a traumatic brain injury where an iron pole passed through his prefrontal cortex (PFC) [34:45:00]. The PFC is crucial for impulse control, gratification postponement, and overriding urges [36:27:00]. After the accident, Gage’s personality fundamentally changed; he became abusive, alcoholic, and disinhibited, unable to hold a stable job [37:47:00].
Sapolsky emphasizes that such changes don’t require a dramatic injury. Subtler factors like fetal stress exposure, violent neighborhoods, or poverty can result in less active or smaller PFCs, affecting an individual’s ability to “do the right thing” [38:51:00]. He argues that people attribute their actions to conscious choices, rather than the underlying biological and historical influences [42:00:00]. This highlights the concept of confabulation, where the brain invents plausible explanations for behaviors it doesn’t consciously understand [43:31:00].
Benjamin Libet’s Experiment
Benjamin Libet’s experiment, conducted in the 1980s, showed that brain activity (readiness potential) precedes a person’s conscious decision to act [47:02:00]. Participants were asked to press a button whenever they felt like it and note the exact moment they decided. Brain monitoring showed neural activity indicative of the impending action up to 6/10 of a second before the conscious intent was reported [48:22:00]. Later studies extended this to nine seconds [48:54:00].
Sapolsky finds the ongoing debate about the milliseconds before conscious intent “totally boring” [50:07:00]. He argues it misses the fundamental point: “Where did that intent come from in the first place?” [50:27:00] He dismisses “free won’t” (the ability to veto an action) as just another aspect of the same deterministic process [54:48:00].
The Myth of Grit and the Marshmallow Test
Sapolsky challenges the concept of “grit” or “tenacity” as evidence of free will. He argues that the ability to be disciplined and persevere is just as biologically determined as physical attributes like height or natural talent [01:00:47:00]. This “false dichotomy” between natural abilities (handed to us) and what we do with them (fairy dust) is central to the illusion of free will [01:01:31:00]. Our PFC, influenced by a lifetime of factors, determines our capacity for “grit” [01:02:32:00].
The famous marshmallow test, where children decide whether to eat one marshmallow immediately or wait for two, demonstrates this. A child’s ability to delay gratification at age five, linked to PFC function, predicts long-term outcomes like health, earnings, and educational attainment decades later [01:06:15:00]. Sapolsky asserts that a child’s capacity for self-control is determined by their brain’s construction, not free choice [01:06:47:00].
Emergent Complexity
Sapolsky acknowledges the fascination of emergent complexity, where simple elements (like ants or neurons) following simple rules can produce complex, unpredictable collective behavior (like ant colonies or human brains) [01:21:31:00]. He uses the example of wetness: one H2O molecule cannot be wet, but a sufficient quantity of them creates the emergent property of wetness [01:23:24:00].
However, he rejects the idea that free will is an emergent property. He argues that models proposing this require the individual building blocks (e.g., neurons) to suddenly become “smarter” or function differently when part of a larger system, which is not how emergence works [01:24:52:00]. The core principle of emergence is that the individual elements remain the same [01:25:29:00].
While acknowledging “downward causality” (macro-level events influencing micro-level components, like rolling a stone down a hill affecting its electrons), Sapolsky distinguishes this from free will [01:28:36:00]. He maintains that abstractions like “honor” or “Law and Order” are products of the brain’s complex, determined activity, not independent entities that exert free will over physical reality [01:29:37:00]. He re-iterates his “Turtles all the way down” argument: the origin of the intent to act according to these abstractions is still determined by preceding influences [01:36:16:00].
Societal and Ethical Implications of Rejecting Free Will
Sapolsky argues that rejecting free will does not lead to societal collapse but creates a “much more Humane Planet” [01:39:15:00].
- Morality and Behavior: Studies show that people who have deeply considered the absence of free will (or belief in God) are just as ethical as those who hold conventional beliefs [01:40:00:00]. The act of thinking hard about these concepts, not the conclusion, correlates with ethical behavior [01:40:34:00].
- Change: While individuals don’t “choose to change,” they are changed by circumstances and their determined responses to them [01:41:53:00].
- Dealing with Dangerous People: Without free will, society can still protect itself from dangerous individuals by containing them (like a car with broken brakes) without attributing blame or moral judgment [01:42:19:00]. This approach removes the moralistic “punishment” aspect, focusing solely on safety [01:43:00:00].
- Compassion and Empathy: Discarding the notion of free will fosters greater compassion, as people are seen as products of their biology and environment, not freely choosing their circumstances [01:46:00:00]. This means acknowledging that someone’s obesity, for instance, might be due to a specific gene, not a “lack of willpower,” leading to a less judgmental society [01:45:04:00].
Sapolsky concludes that while accepting the absence of free will might feel unsettling for some (e.g., regarding earned success), it primarily benefits the vast majority who suffer due to being “punished or made to feel bad about themselves or whatever over things they had no control over” [01:46:10:00]. He asserts that eliminating belief in free will, much like rejecting the idea of witches causing hurricanes, leads to a “much better place” [01:46:51:00].