Robert Sapolsky says we have no free will. Sapolsky, a Stanford University neurobiologist, explains in his book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, that neurochemical influences that occurred milliseconds ago to centuries in the past are to blame for everything that we do. After studying humans and other primates for the last 40 years, he states simply that all human behavior is beyond our conscious control.
Whether you believe him or not is up to you, or is it? Perhaps it’s out of your control.
The thought that we are life-sized pin balls being moved around a game board by our biological makeup sounds like a recipe for excusing everything that doesn’t work in life, and living a pretty numbing existence. It would also seem to erase the essence of human nature—hope.
Personally—and perhaps a little naively—I believe regardless of all that my cells have been preprogrammed to do or not do, I can continually make choices regarding the direction I want my life to take. And better than just random choices, I can design exactly the kind of life I want; I have that freedom, autonomy and control.
People have been making excuses for centuries, and rather than latch on to a ready-made reason for failing or not following through, let’s see his rationale as merely a thesis to disprove through determination and free will. What do you think?
What would it take for us to prove Sapolsky wrong by living our own designer lives, the one we were born to live? What would we need to start doing, stop doing or address in order to make that happen?
Ralph Waldo Emerson said “The only person you are destined to be is the person you decide to be.”
