Source: Radio New Zealand
In his latest book, Determined , Robert Sapolsky argues that we are not, in fact, masters of our own destiny. Everything we think and do is beyond our control and caused by a combination of biology and environment.
The Stanford University professor was just 14 when one “very revelatory night”, he realised that humans have no free will at all.
“Suddenly, I woke up at two in the morning and said, ‘Ah, I get it. There’s no free will. And there’s no God. And there’s no purpose in the universe whatsoever.’ It all just evaporated right then and hasn’t been back since.”
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. But for him, this argument is “missing 99 percent of what’s going on”.
“It never asks the question, how did you become the sort of person who would choose regular coffee over decaf? How did you wind up being somebody who would be standing in that coffee shop at that time? How do you wind up being employed enough so you had money in your pocket to pay for it? How did you arrive at this moment?
“When you look at all the things that brought you to that instant – brain and hormones and genes and early environment – and throw all of that stuff in there, there’s simply no room in there for you to have made a decision completely free of your biology and the environment that it interacted with.”
The notion that we actually have no control over our lives is “a drag” for lots of people, Sapolsky admits.
“But if that depresses you, by definition, you are one of the lucky ones, because you’ve spent your life being treated better than average because of things you had nothing to do with.
“You didn’t choose the womb you were in. You didn’t choose your parents’ socioeconomic status. You didn’t choose your genome. You didn’t choose any of that stuff.”
Professor Robert Sapolsky: Life Without Free Will Saturday Morning
By contrast, if you’re someone whose been treated worse than average in your life for reasons you had nothing to do with, the idea of there being no free will is “liberating”.
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t choose your genes. You didn’t choose how your brain wired up. You didn’t choose your adolescent experiences.”
Once you really believe there’s no free will, it makes no sense, intellectually or ethically, to blame, punish, praise or reward another person, he says.
“It also makes the entire criminal justice system irrelevant and irrational – the whole legal system is built on a notion of free will that doesn’t exist.”
Acknowledging that it’s biology and circumstances that make us do the things we do is “hugely humane” and also “hugely scientifically sound”, Sapolsky says.
“Seeing where this stuff comes from makes us not only better at interventions, but it also makes us better at not constructing societies where, by definition, half the people are treated worse than average for stuff they had nothing to do with.”
Donald Trump had an awful upbringing. His father was a nightmare. His mother was ice-cold. He spent his whole life having to pay people to pretend that they love him. No wonder he turned out this way.
Robert Sapolsky
Donald Trump is “very, very damaging” and also fundamentally “unlucky”, says neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky.
AFP / Andrew Caballero-Reynolds
Hating an individual person who was unlucky in their combination of biology and upbringing, even destructive people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, makes as much sense as hating a virus for getting into your lungs or hating an earthquake, he says.
“I spent a lot of the last 10 years now having to think through why it’s not okay for me to hate Donald Trump. He had an awful upbringing. His father was a nightmare. His mother was ice-cold. He spent his whole life having to pay people to pretend that they love him. No wonder he turned out this way.
“Does that mean you shouldn’t be very activated in trying to keep him from doing what he’s doing to destroy our democracy? No. He sure as hell needs to be stopped, but he had nothing to do with it. Putin had nothing to do with it … but you recognise, nonetheless, they turned out to be very, very damaging people.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand