Folks, so i’ve been going down this rabbit hole lately.
Robert Sapolsky. the guy is a neuroendocrinologist, professor at Stanford, spent decades watching baboons in Africa.
wrote a book called behave that’s basically 800 pages of “your brain is lying to you about who’s in charge.”
and honestly? it’s messing with me in the best way.
disclaimer: this is my first attempt to digest his work. i’m no neuroscientist. just a guy in bengaluru trying to figure out why i do the stupid things i do.
full credit to Sapolsky and the decades of research he’s synthesized. any misunderstandings here are mine, not his.
the million years vs. the one second#
Sapolsky’s central thing is this:
when you make a decision: any decision: there’s not one “you” making it. there’s a stack of influences layered on top of each other.
not your genes. not your upbringing. not the fact that you were born in India in the 90s instead of ancient Greece. not the traffic jam that spiked your cortisol right before you snapped at your mother.
so where exactly does “free will” fit in?
indian context: karma, sanskaras, and that little voice#
this is where it gets interesting for us.
Sapolsky’s stack of influences the million years, the centuries, the years, the seconds: it maps beautifully to ideas we already have.
karma isn’t just “what goes around comes around.” it’s cause and effect. every action plants a seed. every thought patterns the mind. Sapolsky would say: your dopamine receptors today were shaped by what you did yesterday. that’s karma in biological terms.
sanskaras: the deep grooves in your psyche from past experiences. Sapolsky calls it “neuroplasticity.” the more you do something, the more your brain builds highways for it. anger becomes automatic. anxiety becomes default. you’re not “choosing” to be that way. you’re driving on roads you didn’t build.
the Gita says you have a right to action, but never to its fruits. Krishna tells arjuna: do what you must, but don’t get attached to the outcome. Sapolsky says: you don’t even have full control over the action itself. it’s neurons and hormones and evolution. so maybe the Gita’s detachment isn’t spiritual advice: it’s biological realism.
real life example: traffic rage#
let me give you something we all face.
you’re driving on ORR. some guy cuts you off. no indicator. almost scrapes your car. for a split second, your hands tighten on the wheel. your jaw clenches. the words “Boli maga/saale kutte” are halfway out of your mouth.
who made that happen?
Sapolsky says:
your amygdala activated 200 milliseconds before you “decided” to be angry.
your cortisol was already high because you’ve been stressed about work for three days.
your father had a temper. you learned that this is how men react to disrespect.
you’re human. humans evolved to defend territory. your car is your territory now.
you didn’t choose to be angry.
you were angry before you knew you were angry.
now here’s the freedom part.
if i believe “i chose to get angry, i’m a bad person, i need to control myself better”
that’s just guilt layered on top of guilt. i’ll fail again. i’ll feel worse. cycle continues.
but if i see it as a wave that rose because of a million factors i didn’t control
i stop fighting the wave. i just watch it. i notice it. and because i noticed it, maybe next time the wave rises a little slower. maybe i breathe before i speak.
that’s not willpower. that’s understanding the machine so well you can work with it instead of against it.
why this lifts the weight#
here’s what Sapolsky’s view does for me:
- it removes shame. i’m not “bad” for losing my temper. i’m a biological system responding to inputs. that doesn’t excuse the behavior i still have to fix it, but it stops the self-flagellation that makes everything worse.
- it makes me curious instead of judgmental. when someone cuts me off, i think: what’s their stack? what stress are they carrying? what made them this way? not in a condescending way.
in a genuinely curious way.
- it makes forgiveness possible. if free will is a joke, then holding grudges is also a joke. someone hurt you because their biology and history and environment aligned to make them do it. you can still set boundaries. but you don’t have to carry the hatred.
and the biggest one:
you stop taking every decision so damn seriously.
you know that feeling? the weight of “i have to make the right choice. what if i mess up. my whole life depends on this decision.”
sapolsky says: that decision was shaped by a million things you didn’t control. do your best. gather information. act. but the outcome? not entirely in your hands.
the gita again: you have a right to action, not to its fruits.
where i’m at with this#
look, i’ve barely scratched the surface. sapolsky’s work is massive. behave alone is a beast. i’m reading it slowly, trying to absorb one chapter at a time.
but even this much has shifted something.
i used to think understanding was about finding the “truth” so i could control myself better. now i think understanding is about seeing the machinery so clearly that control becomes irrelevant. you just… operate better. naturally. without the internal shouting.
final thought
in indian philosophy, there’s a concept called sakshi bhav witness consciousness.
you’re not the doer. you’re the observer of the doing.
Sapolsky gives us the biological basis for that.
you really aren’t the doer.
you’re the latest expression of a chain that started millions of years ago.
and once you see that, the weight lifts.
not because you stop caring. but because you stop fighting yourself.
*what do you think yaar/macha/guru
does understanding the biology of decision-making make life easier or harder for you?
drop your thoughts.*
credits: this post is based on the work of robert sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at stanford university, author of behave: the biology of humans at our best and worst (2017) and determined: a science of life without free will (2023). his lectures are freely available on youtube. all ideas about the layered influences on behavior (seconds, hours, years, centuries, millennia) are his framework. i’m just a guy trying to understand it.
(full disclosure: got AI to clean up my typos cause my brain works faster than my fingers. XD)