“The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over. We’ve got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn’t there.”

Robert Sapolsky
Stanford University neurobiologist

October 24 2023 — I have often wondered why an intelligent person becomes a whistleblower? Surely, he/she is fully aware of the consequences. Sometimes, it feels as if these people acted like they had absolutely no other choices. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

RELATED POST : US National Whistleblower Day — The Psychology of Whistleblowers : How The Accused And Their Accusers Face Off

“Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, Stanford University neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky believes that people have no free will.

A former US intelligence officer and whistleblower (NSA) reacted angrily to the article about Sapolsky’s research. “This is nonsense!”

What do you think? [Choose your answer and click the black button to submit.]

In any case, I would like to remind you that many great minds have reached the same conclusion. While Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud strongly leaned towards determinism, they are not typically seen as the most prominent advocates of this viewpoint. The list includes Baruch Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, Thomas Hobbes.

Here are a few quotes from Einstein.

“In living through this ‘great epoch’, it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will! In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!” — Albert Einstein (1914), “Letter to Paul Ehrenfest”

“I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew.” — Albert Einstein (1928), “Interview with George Viereck”

“If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.” — Albert Einstein (1931)

“I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer’s words: ‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,’ accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.” — Albert Einstein (1932), “My Credo”

“Objectively, there is, after all, no free will.” — Albert Einstein (April 11, 1946), “Letter to Otto Juliusburger”

Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy

REFERENCES

Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don’t have free will — Phys.org

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Do you believe in Free Will? [Poll]

“Man can do what he will, but cannot will what he wills.”— Arthur Schopenhauer (1839)