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

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

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
Most relevant
interesting concepts covered, had to stop listening, as the narrator kept saying go to the pdf or notes for more info after EVERY single concept or page, making it very hard to concentrate on the story and disrupted the flow of the story.

interesting subject matter

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I have no choice but to review this book positively, and because of that, my brain will now make decisions It wouldn't have, had somebody prevented me from reading this book

I had no choice

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I made a complaint PDF because the PDF does not contain any footnotes. It’s been several weeks since I made the complaint and nothing has been done. It is absolutely pathetic that accompany like penguin can’t put together a PDF that contains footnotes. I can only imagine that the PDF that has been supplied to audible is not the PDF That was intended when the audible content was produced. Absolutely bloody disgraceful..
Other than that, this is a sensational book. I’m just totally pissed off that I had to go and buy a hard copy of it so that I could read the bloody foot notes really really annoying.

Annoying a all luck

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As with any book by Sapolsky it's great, but the recording features constant high frequency distortion that makes it intolerable to listen for long in headphones.

The performance is fine but Professor Sapolsky is a far more engaging speaker - would love to hear him narrate instead, but failing that just taking care to make sure the audio is listenable shouldn't be too much to ask for an audiobook! A common problem on Audible unfortunately.

Great book, badly recorded.

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So true. And hard to swallow. But true nonetheless, thank you for opening our eyes

On point!

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