When belief in free will is challenged, and people become less certain about their ability to determine their own outcomes, upward social mobility feels less feasible. Source: Samantha Garrote / ...

I ended a previous post on free will by suggesting that assumptions about free will have "profound implications on practical matters such as moral and criminal responsibility, blaming and praising ...

You’re walking fast, late for work. The line into the subway is barely moving. A man is walking very slowly, holding up everyone behind him. You’re annoyed. And then you catch a glimpse of him. He’s ...

Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic ...

A new book by a Stanford neurobiologist offers a jarring proposition: that humans do not have free will and thus cannot be considered morally responsible for our actions. In “Determined: A Science of ...

Imagine standing at a crossroads. You pause, thinking you’re about to make a choice — left or right, stay or go, yes or no. It feels deliberate, conscious, yours. But what if that moment of decision ...

Imagine you are shopping online for a new pair of headphones. There is an array of colors, brands and features to look at. You feel that you can pick any model that you like and are in complete ...

The takeaway of Robert Sapolsky’s Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will is basically the same as that espoused by those Snickers commercials: You’re not you when you’re hungry. Except ...

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 ...

Do you believe in free will? Some scholars do not—and they rely on evidence from the brain sciences to make their case. Some people find the dismissal of the idea that we are in control of our ...

What does quantum mechanics, the most successful theory ever proposed by physics, teach us about reality? The starting point for most philosophers of physics is that quantum mechanics must somehow ...