Is Free Will Real?

We like to believe that we are masters of our own fate, that we are the cause of our choices and actions. But what if that’s not true? Imagine that all of our choices and actions are simply the product of history—whether that goes back one minute or 1000 years—and biological and environmental forces that we often don’t even understand. In this episode we’re exploring the question of whether free will exists and whether we should even want it to.

Brian’s guest is Robert Sapolsky: Professor of Biology, Neurology, Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery at Stanford University and author of Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will.