Has anybody else picked this up yet? It’s really done a number on me. Prior to reading it I would consider myself a Stoic. One of my central philosophies being that “The choices I make define who I am”.
So obviously being told that my choices were never even mine to begin with was kind of a slap in the face.
It rings true though. The choices we make at any given time are a result of our genetics, or environment, the media we’ve consumed, how tired we are…
I’m not a stranger to the concept of Ego death but it had been a hot minute since I thought about it.
Sapolsky is largely on the money for most of the book, and probably undersells just how profound the pure stimuli->response nature of behavior is.
If your philosophy stops with Descartes, the book is probably going to pose interesting arguments rather than compelling ones. Anything more modern and I think his examples do a good job of making it seem obvious.
If you have the opportunity to read any of his other books, you can see his growth toward this standpoint by evidence and deduction. Taken with Determined, it’s interesting to see someone who is sensitive enough to their own errors that they allow it to modify their viewpoint in consistent yet dramatic ways. The path through his last few books have felt more like a long running internal argument from someone invested enough in the topic they dedicate themselves to it.
Which is character development, cool.