The vast majority of people (including philosophers) are “compatibilists,” believing that the world is a materialist place with determinist rules yet…somehow…we still have free will. In this talk, I argue strenuously that free will is a myth, completely incompatible with how we know that the biology of behavior works. Moreover, I argue that it would be a great thing if we all accepted this.
Professor Robert M. Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology, Neurology and Neurosurgery, Stanford University, and a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya. His most recent books are Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Worst and Best (2017) and Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (2023).
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