“Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain” by Michael S. Gazzaniga

I picked this up because I found a reference to Gazzaniga’s work in another neuroscience book that I was reading (I’ve been reading a lot of pop science books recently, in case you couldn’t tell). It seemed like Gazzaniga was getting to the heart of something that I had been feeling on my own for a while. Namely the conflict between free will and determinism. He takes this to the next level and examines its implications for the legal system as well. The argument that he is making in this work is that free will is an illusion, but we should still be held accountable for our actions.

The science behind this is spelled out incredibly clearly, I am not a quantum physicist, but I understood his discussion of those principles anyways. At odds here is neuroscience and how we make decisions before we are conscious of them (meaning that our brains construct a narrative after the fact to make sense of everything) versus physics principles like the uncertainty theorem (meaning that measuring one aspect of a subatomic particle influences other aspects, so you can never know everything about it accurately). Everything is pre-determined versus wiggle room. Where do our actions fall?

The heart of his argument lies in how our social interactions determine our actions. It may be impossible to determine who will do what accurately, but there are functions in the justice system that deter others from committing crimes. He examines all of the different functions of punishment (deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution) and comes to the conclusion that just because our lives may be predetermined, that does not mean that we should get rid of the justice system. Because our social interactions with it still have value through its intended purposes.

I thought this was a great discussion of the different arguments for these two views on life, and all explained incredibly well. I’m sure that as science progresses we will see whether he is correct or not (in fact, someone has probably already poked holes into his work) but for now I am fascinated by his thought process and ideas.