Sapolsky

(Robert Morris Sapolsky, US-American primatologist, neurologist, and writer)

I know I’ve been making myself a nuisance by pestering all the world with incessant eulogies on Robert Sapolsky. But I can’t help it.

I read his marvellous »Behave« three times already. And this summer, I’ve bought his latest book, »Determined«, in which Sapolsky pursues the question of whether the abundance of scientific findings (that still keep accruing) leaves any room for the thing we call free will.

Sapolsky’s stance is unequivocal: nope, no free will. All the decisions you made yesterday, make today, will make tomorrow are shaped by your biology – which in turn is shaped by a myriad of environmental influences, from if you’re hungry or under intense stress, to if your mother was under intense stress when she had you in her womb, to how social norms had evolved in the culture you’ve been born into.

The idea of a world without free will is very hard to get one’s head around. Sapolsky himself admits that he struggles to really let it sink in and heed the consequences in everyday life. – One might find his vision appallingly mechanistic, even dehumanising, degrading us to mere automata. But there’s a different take: Sapolsky’s theory opens up a world without blame and shame (and, yep: without praise and pride, too). I think it’s a fascinating and wellfounded outlook worth a thought.