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Index
Cover
Also by Robert M. Sapolsky
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
1. Turtles All the Way Down
Styles of Views: Whom I Will Be Disagreeing With
Ground Rules and Definitions
And Why Does This Matter?
2. The Final Three Minutes of a Movie
Three Hundred Milliseconds
You Guys Proclaim the Death of Free Will, Based on Spontaneous Finger Movements?
60 Percent? Really?
What Is Consciousness?
Free Won’t: The Power to Veto
Just in Case You Thought This Was All Academic
The Death of Free Will in the Shadow of Intent
3. Where Does Intent Come From?
Seconds to Minutes Before
Minutes to Days Before
Weeks to Years Before
Back to Adolescence
And Childhood
Back to the Womb
Back to Your Very Beginning: Genes
Back Centuries: The Sort of People You Come From
Oh, Why Not? Evolution
Seamless
4. Willing Willpower: The Myth of Grit
Was-ness
What You Were Given and What You Do with It
Doing the Right Thing When It’s the Harder Thing to Do
The Cognitive PFC
The Social PFC
Cognition versus Emotion, Cognition and Emotion, or Cognition via Emotion?
The Same Exact Stuff
The Legacy of the Preceding Seconds to an Hour
The Legacy of the Preceding Hours to Days
The Legacy of the Preceding Days to Years
The Legacy of the Time of Pimples
Further Back
The Legacy of the Genes You Were Handed, and Their Evolution
The Cultural Legacy Bequeathed to Your PFC by Your Ancestors
The Death of the Myth of Freely Chosen Grit
5. A Primer on Chaos
Back When Things Made Sense
Chaotic Unpredictability
Chaoticism You Can Do at Home
6. Is Your Free Will Chaotic?
The Age of Chaos
Wrong Conclusion #1: The Freely Choosing Cloud
Wrong Conclusion #2: A Causeless Fire
Conclusion
7. A Primer on Emergent Complexity
Why We’re Not Talking about Michael Jackson Moonwalking
Informative Scouts Followed by Random Encounters
Fitting Infinitely Large Things into Infinitely Small Spaces
Let’s Design a Town
Talk Locally, but Don’t Forget to Also Talk Globally Now and Then
Emergence Deluxe
8. Does Your Free Will Just Emerge?
First, What All of Us Can Agree On
Problem #1: Chaotic Missteps Redux
Problem #2: Orphans Running Wild
Problem #3: Defying Gravity
At Last, Some Conclusions
9. A Primer on Quantum Indeterminacy
Undetermined Randomness
Low-Rent Randomness: Brownian Motion
Quantum Indeterminacy
Wave/Particle Duality
Entanglement and nonlocality
Quantum Tunneling
10. Is Your Free Will Random?
Quantum Orgasmic-ness: Attention and Intention Are the Mechanics of Manifestation
Problem #1: Bubbling Up
Neuronal Spontaneity
Problem #2: Is Your Free Will a Smear?
Problem #3: Harnessing the Randomness of Quantum Indeterminacy to Direct the Consistencies of Who We Are
Some Conclusions
And Some Conclusions about the Last Six Chapters
10.5. Interlude
11. Will We Run Amok?
Hard Determinists Careening through the Streets
An Ideal Model System
Atheists Gone Wild
Saying versus Doing
Old, Rich, Socialized Women versus Young, Poor, Solitary Guys
When You’re Primed to Be Good for Goodness’ Sake
One Atheist at a Time versus an Infestation of Them
Who Needs the Help?
Into the Valley of the Indifferent
12. The Ancient Gears within Us: How Does Change Happen?
Protecting Your Gill
The Learned Aplysia
Detecting a Coincidence
When They Become Thems
Speeding Up and Slowing Down
13. We Really Have Done This Before
The Falling Sickness
Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is
Generators and Refrigerators
So What Is Actually Wrong?
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words—on Television
Snapshots MIDMETAMORPHOSIS
Conclusion
14. The Joy of Punishment
Justice Served I
Those Bleeding-Heart Liberals
Justice Served II
Reconciliation and Restorative Justice as Band-Aids
Justice Served III
Punishing Cheaters
Justice Served IV
Delicious, Whether Served Hot or Cold
Justice Served V
15. If You Die Poor
What You’d Give Up Along with Free Will
A Liberatory Science (without Tongue in Cheek)
Over and Over and Over
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Neuroscience 101
One Neuron at a Time
Two Neurons at a Time: Synaptic Communication
More Than Two Neurons at a Time
One More Round of Scaling Up
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index
About the Author
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