George Scialabba at The Hedgehog Review:
The disagreement between Sapolsky and Mitchell can be put succinctly. Mitchell shows how our reasoning power evolved over billions of years, through a sequence that was wholly accidental but profoundly logical, and that acting for reasons is our defining property and another name for free will. Sapolsky’s rejoinder is simple: Where do reasons come from? They come, he answers, from milliseconds before making our choice, and also from seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, and decades before that—from adolescence, childhood, and fetal life; from our genome, our ancestral culture, and our species history. At every point, experiences lay down traces in our brain that affect our present choices, and in measurable fashion—Sapolsky cites a tremendous array of studies from the behavioral sciences over the last several decades. It’s a rare intellectual confrontation: both sides deeply informed, fair-minded, incisively argued. My intuitions are with Sapolsky, but Mitchell makes a stronger case for free will than I would have thought possible.
more here.
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