I'm currently listening to Determined and it just so happens that Homo Deus is next on my reading list so I had to laugh when you compared the relationship between Sapolski's Behave and Determined to Harari's Sapiens and Homo Deus! I even thought of the comparison while listening to your review before you said it. 😄 As far as the issue itself, would you describe yourself more in the determism or free will camp? I'm in the former so perhaps in the choir he's preaching to. I enjoyed your review. Are you British? I'll still read Homo Deus in spite of any redundancy and even more interested in Behave based on your comments.
They’re all good books, and to be honest, if you really like the arguments and find it engaging hearing it from a different perspective, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I just personally wouldn’t be as able to recommend someone read such a similar book. I’m going to be honest, I’m in the camp of awkwardly avoiding answering the question, I think it’s a balancing act, you need to have an appreciation for both sides; I maybe a bit more determinism than the average person in the population.
When you say the person being mugged did not choose to give the money, well! Yes he did. The other option was to fight back and risk injury. He did what he wanted most and that was to survive. Every decision we make is what we want most. So we don't have freewill.
Sapolsky believes that free will doesn't exist, and therefore punishment as retribution is wrong and shouldn't be done. But if there's no free will, what could the words "wrong" and "shouldn't" mean?
Genetics being expressed live in your brain. So this semblance of neuronal excitement and inhibition occurring in multiple areas simultaneously create your unique conception and expression around the circumstances with regard to what is a wrong and a “shouldn’t”. It is also not fixed and can change for better or for worse (for a lack of better words) with time.
