Sapolsky – Determined

Book page: sapolsky-determined-part-2, sapolsky-determined-part-1

From: Quotes batch 21

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Concept

“The concept of ‘free will’ is a biological impossibility; we are the sum of every event that happened to our ancestors and ourselves.” (p. 5)

Behavior

“Every human behavior is ‘determined’ by the state of the brain a second before, which was determined by the minute before, and so on.” (p. 124)

Game Theory

“If there is no free will, the ‘game’ of criminal justice shifts from retribution to a model of quarantine and rehabilitation.” (p. 289)

Cognition

“Our cognition is an ‘after-the-fact’ storyteller, creating reasons for behaviors that were actually driven by neurobiology.” (p. 156)

Memory

“We remember ourselves as the ‘authors’ of our actions, but this is a convenient trick of memory to maintain social cohesion.” (p. 201)