Free will is the idea that humans can make their own choices and determine their own fates. Is a person’s will free, or are people's lives in fact shaped by powers outside of their control? The ...

Towards the end of a conversation about some of the deepest puzzles of human existence, the philosopher Galen Strawson paused, then asked me: “Have you spoken to anyone else yet who’s received weird ...

Fate was both a terrifying force and a philosophical challenge in Ancient Greece, revealing a conflict between destiny and ...

A SIMPLE insect can help us understand free will, and the lack of it. When a female digger wasp is ready to lay her eggs, she hunts down a cricket or similar prey, paralyses it with a sting, drags it ...

Philip Ball argues that “free will” is not ruled out by physics – because it doesn’t stem from physics in the first place Wrong way If physics can disprove free will, then it must override everything ...

Editor’s Note: This article previously appeared in a different format as part of The Atlantic’s Notes section, retired in 2021. Edmon de Haro I’m delighted that so many people have felt irresistibly ...

Robert Sapolsky, a 66-year-old Stanford neurobiologist, has a controversial view on the nature of human existence: he doesn’t think “free will” exists. At all. A MacArthur “genius” grant recipient at ...

The release of Determined, a new book by renowned Stanford professor of primate behavior and neuroscience Robert M. Sapolsky, has catapulted him into the middle of an ancient debate: whether humans ...

WHAT are you doing right now? Reading these words. Why? Presumably because you chose to. Even if you didn’t – if you are encountering them years in the future lining a forgotten box of crockery in the ...

From coffee table books and social media to popular science lectures, it seems it has has become increasing fashionable for neuroscientists, philosophers and other commentators to tell anyone that ...