Determined cover art

Determined

The Science of Life Without Free Will

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Determined

By: Robert M. Sapolsky
Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

One of the world’s greatest scientists of human behaviour, the bestselling author of Behave, shows that free will does not exist - and sets out the disturbing yet liberating implications of accepting this fact.

What if free will is an illusion? As Robert Sapolsky shows in this masterful account of the science of human behaviour, everything we think and do is caused by the luck of our biology and the influence of our environment, and ultimately both are beyond our control. In a world without free will, we must completely rethink what we mean by choice, responsibility, morality and justice. Sapolsky’s extraordinary book does exactly this, guiding us toward a profoundly fairer, more humane way of living together.

‘A joy to read. It's impossible to recommend this book too highly. Reading it could change your life’ LAURENCE REES

‘Outstanding for its breadth of research, the liveliness of the writing and the depth of humanity it conveys’ Wall Street Journal

‘Moving, absorbing, compassionate' OLIVER BURKEMAN, Observer

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Robert M Sapolsky (P)2023 Penguin Audio Biological Sciences Biology Ethics & Morality Philosophy Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Thought-Provoking Human Brain Mental Health Genetics

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Critic reviews

[A] highly entertaining account of why … we should and must overcome the infuriating conspiracy of mind that insists we are the authors of our actions. Anyone who believes otherwise needs to read it (Philip Ball)
Wonderfully readable ... humorous and warm and humane (Justin Webb)
All stars
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Excellently written by an incredibly knowledgeable author. This will change how you think about life and those around you.

An outstanding book. Everyone should read this.

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I loved every minute of that book, and it left me hopeful, and calm. Embracing determinism seems scary at first but the new perspective, distance and compassion capabilities it unlocks are worth it.

The science-y stuff gets tough to grasp at times, this book requires full focus. However, the author's ability to synthesize and provide imaginative examples is a pleasant payoff after any detailed experiment description.

Freeing and refreshing

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Sapolsky is a legend. The audiobook is well read but spoiled by the constant PLEASE SEE THE ACCOMPANYING PDF FOR A FOOTNOTE message. Hundreds of them throughout. These footnotes should either be read out or excised. Most annoying especially as most people don't listen with PDFs at hand. Buy the actual book because this ruins the listen.

A compelling case against the notion of free will

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You can hear the lector saying „please see the accompanying pdf for footnote” every 5 seconds. Made me want to rip my brain out and destroyed the experience completely. Great book otherwise, huge fan.

It’s Sapolsky, you know it’s good.

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Wonderfully detailed and comprehensive look at the science and philosophy of determinism—without doubt the best there is. Using every relevant field, from neurobiology and psychology to evolutionary theory and social science, Sapolsky goes after the notion that our behaviour is freely chosen, before marshaling this impressive scientific knowledge together with philosophy to attack our notions of intention and willpower, followed by a brilliant takedown of recent efforts to sneak free will in through the backdoor of complex subjects like emergent complexity and quantum mechanics. Finally, Sapolsky does something most books on this topic rarely do: discuss how we can actually live (and legislate) while accepting the evident truth of determinism. Excellent book.

The best discussion of determinism there is

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So far, a fantasticly engaging book which revelations continue to inspire new thoughts about our existance and the self.

However, the repetitious mentions of the footnotes are causing me to disengage with the experience. Maybe summarizing the number of footnotes at the beginning of each chapter could improve the experience?

For instance: "This chapter contains 150 footnotes. Please see the accompanying PDF".

I feel I have no choice but to complete this book, but it would be a much more pleasant experience with a different approach to the footnotes

"Please see the accompanying PDF for a footnote"

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"Determined", for me, implies fixed. Unchangeable, or unavoidable. This book didn't convince me that our choices are predetermined - but it did confirm my existing belief that there's an almost infinite number of variables that have a causal relationship on how we think and act. Cumulatively, these nudge us down an ever-narrowing decision tree, in which many of the decisions may well have already been made for us - by biology, society, culture, economics, physics, and more.

Sapolsky tries to push this argument to the extreme, largely to challenge the flimsy evidence for the notion of free will. He does this a lot in the first half the book - directly attacking the ideas of Daniel Dennett, among others in ways that are both entertaining and (mostly) convincing.

It's almost all interesting, deliberately provocative, and so pretty entertaining stuff - but ultimately felt at least a third longer than it needed to be. (I'm thinking here especially the lengthy sections on American attitudes to religion and the death penalty which didn't so much convince me that free will is a myth, as that Americans are really rather medieval in their thinking - especially around religion. But, of course, they can't really help that, can they?)

Narrator does a decent job - but the constant repetition of "Please see the accompanying PDF for a footnote" gets increasingly jarring the more frequently it occurs - especially when its constantly jolly tone jars with the subject matter, as when it appears directly after a quote from a poem about the Holocaust...

Provocative, if a little long

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Clear narrative and well referenced science. I hope this is the beginning of a new understanding of human behaviour.

A great read, opens the lid on human behaviour.

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Profound insight on existence, sandwiched between messages of “please see the PDF for an accompanying footnote”.

This book will change your life. And annoy you at the same time.

Please see the accompanying PDF for a footnote…

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I really did want to listen to this book, but the phrase “Please see accompanying PDF for a footnote” started to make me doubt my own free will.

I had to return it.

Please see accompanying PDF for a footnote.

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