Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

by Robert M. Sapolsky

In the short story “What’s Expected of Us,” Ted Chiang takes a cue from Libet, writing about a gizmo called the Predictor, with a button and a light. Whenever you press the button, the light goes on a second before. No matter what you do, no matter how much you try not to think about pressing the button, strategize to sneak up on it, the light comes on a second before you press the button. In the moment between the light coming on and your supposedly freely choosing to press the button, your future action is already a determined past. The result? People are hollowed out. “Some people, realizing that their choices don’t matter, refuse to make any choices at all. Like a legion of Bartleby the Scriveners, they no longer engage in spontaneous action. Eventually, a third of those who play with a Predictor must be hospitalized because they won’t feed themselves. The end state is akinetic mutism, a kind of waking coma.”[7]