An article in the New York Times last week threw me into a brief existential funk.
The article –- “Robert Sapolsky Doesn’t Believe in Free Will. (But Feel Free to Disagree.” –- is a discussion with a Stanford neuroscientist and Macarthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient. In it, Sapolsky presents a provocative argument (because he has no choice in the matter, perhaps) that humans do not have free will, or agency. Our feeling of independent decision making, he suggests, is connected to actions actions that are determined by a mix of biology, hormones, and life experiences and circumstances.
So much for self-awareness and growth, right?
My first impulse -– as Sapolsky predicts in the interview –- was to dismiss his argument. As he says, it “completely strikes at our sense of identity and autonomy and where we get meaning from.”
For free will to exist, he continues, “you would be able to identify the neurons that caused a particular behavior, and it wouldn’t matter what any other neuron in the brain was doing, what the environment was, what the person’s hormone levels were, what culture they were brought up in. Show me that those neurons would do the exact same thing with all these other things changed, and you’ve proven free will to me.”
Walking the dog this weekend, I found myself second guessing everything. Did I take this particular route through this Northside neighborhood because I noticed the maple leaves were turning and independently chose to turn left? Or was it because my life experiences had imprinted in my cortex a predilection for autumn leaves? Or did the dog, whose free will is even harder to discern, pull me that way?
But then, there I was, walking down a quiet side street beneath a brilliant canopy of red and gold maple leaves listening to the quiet tap of Addie’s nails on the sidewalk, the cry of a hawk circling in search of a squirrel, and smiling at a memory of my old friend Michelle kicking leaves as we walked along a Fan sidewalk one October afternoon.
Did it matter why I chose the path I did, or whether the pleasant sense of solitude and memory were manufactured by biology and chemistry? The answer appears to be “sort of.” Or, “sometimes.”
“Every living organism is just a biological machine,” Sapolsky continues. “But we’re the only ones that know that we’re biological machines; we are trying to make sense of the fact that we feel as if our feelings are real. At some point, it doesn’t make a difference whether your feelings are real or whether your feeling of feelings being real is the case… Meaning feels real. Purpose feels real.”
In the self-awareness workshops I facilitate, I often end up discussing the whole “nature versus nurture” business. Sometimes I draw the infamous iceberg -– where our actions, and the experiences others have of us in the world are visible, describable, while beneath the water lies the other 90% of who we are, and why we do what we do. This, I think, is the stuff Sapolsky is trying to unpack. Our biology, the hormonal and chemical bubbling that goes on at a molecular level, the ways in which millions of moments over our lifetime –- a sudden burst of lightning, the death of a friend, a leaf floating to the ground, a memorable meal, a broken shoelace -– trigger synapses in our brain to form connections to other moments, other memories, and to shape everything that follows.
We are, in the end, marvelous constructs. And we have within us the ability to create new memories, fire new synapses, form new chemical connections that create new ways for us to be and to act and to grow in the world. Our daily decisions about how we want to be in our lives, with others, may be informed (or guided, or even determined) by chemistry or biology, but they remain wonderfully, uniquely ours.
On a second walk this weekend, Jack decided -– or did he? –- that we should collect leaves, berries and mushrooms. We stopped to evaluate neighborhood Halloween decorations. We stood and watched a particularly vibrant maple leaf spin down from above and settle at our feet.
In that moment, meaning felt real. Purpose felt real.
Kick some leaves this week, and find new ways to fire the synapses connected to curiosity, joy, connection and love. (You're going to do it anyway, so you might as well pretend it's on purpose.)