Gahey, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas, and this is the most

dangerous and earth-shattering and mind-boggling idea that any Homo sapien could countenance,

which is, are we just machines? Are we just basically biological machines?

Evolved from other animals subject to the forces of physics and genetics and biology.

There is no soul or spirit being injected into our consciousness that gives us the capacity to change what we

want or to behave differently than we do. And even more bizarrely, is this actually not just kind of

some weird philosophical argument that people in ivory towers and universities believe,

but this is where the science

takes us. Now, don't dismay. Don't not listen to this conversation because you're afraid that

you're going to be sapped of all your willpower and energy and vitality. That will all still be here.

This is a great chat with one of the world's leading writers and thinkers about the brain.

Robert Sapolsky, he is a huge deal.

He's a professor of biology, neurology, the neurological sciences, and neurosurgery at Stanford University.

So I'm sure he kind of knows what he's talking about.

I first came across Robert with his book, Behave, which is subtitled, the biology of humans

at our best and worst.

And his new book is Determined, a Science of Life without Free Will.

He is a hardcore disbeliever in free will.

It's absolutely fascinating to try to wrestle through all of the implications of that.

And I hope you enjoy as much as I do this conversation any other way than the way that I am right now. And when we say things like, how are you feeling? Uh, is there any circumstance under which

you could be feeling differently than the way that you're feeling now as you chat to me?

No, absolutely not. Um, but opening up a whole can of worms there. Yeah, dig into it.

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