--- title: "Neuroscientist Says We Don’t Have Free Will After All" description: "Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford neurobiologist, thinks \"free will\" is really just the culmination of biology, upbringing, and circumstance." date: "2023-10-19" modified: "2023-10-19" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientist-no-free-will" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" - "Neuroscience and Brain" tags: - "free will" - "philosophy" --- # Neuroscientist Says We Don’t Have Free Will After All ![Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford neurobiologist, thinks "free will" is really just the culmination of biology, upbringing, and circumstance.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Robert Sapolsky, a 66-year-old Stanford neurobiologist, has a controversial view on the nature of human existence: he doesn't think "free will" exists. At all. A MacArthur "genius" grant recipient at the age of 30, Sapolsky has spent over four decades extensively studying human and primate behavior. His new book, "[Determined: Life Without Free Will]()," is an examination and brutal takedown of the major arguments in favor of human volition. His verdict is that pretty much everything we do boils down to biology, upbringing, circumstance, and whatever curveballs life throws us. We are, like every living organism, mere "biological machines." "The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over," Sapolsky [told *The* *LA Times*](). "We've got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn't there." It's a fringe belief, to be sure, and you may feel differently. But as Sapolsky argues, even a small, supposed decision like that is predetermined. The idea that free will means we're in charge of our actions is a "completely useless definition," he [told *The New York Times*](). "For that sort of free will to exist, it would have to function on a biological level completely independently of the history of that organism," he told the paper. "You would be able to identify the neurons that caused a particular behavior, and it wouldn't matter what any other neuron in the brain was doing, what the environment was, what the person's hormone levels were, what culture they were brought up in." But it *does* matter, he says. We spend our whole lives being conditioned to respond to different stimuli — a bad smell, for example. How we act in the face of that smell is determined by our genetics, genetics that programmed our olfactory receptors, and what we're conditioned during our upbringing to do in response to that perception. "At any meaningful juncture, we're making decisions based on our tastes and predilections and values and character," he told *NYT*. These all come from *somewhere*, and our minds don't act independently of them. It gets deeper. If free will is a sham, Sapolsky says, then moral responsibility wouldn't exist. We could only "take ownership" of what we do — including moral decisions — "in a purely mechanical sense." Peter U. Tse, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth College, called Sapolsky "both brilliant and utterly wrong." "Those who push the idea that we are nothing but deterministic biochemical puppets are responsible for enhancing psychological suffering and hopelessness in this world," Tse told *The LA Times*. Whether or not that critique holds up, Sapolsky maintains that he wants humans to be happy, not to suffer — which, he admits, might not hold up in the context of his main argument. "It is logically indefensible, ludicrous, meaningless to believe that something 'good' can happen to a machine," he wrote, per the *LA Times*. "Nonetheless, I am certain that it is good if people feel less pain and more happiness." **More on neuroscience:** *[If You Had a Concussion When You Were Younger, Scientists Have Bad News]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()