Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will

Neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents evidence that we are not mere machines responding to physical forces but agents acting with purpose, arguing that we are not mere machines responding to physical forces but agents acting with purpose. He explains how the emergence of nervous systems provided a means to learn about the world, granting sentient animals the capacity to model, predict, and simulate.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 03 October 2023
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Scientists are gaining a deeper understanding of how brain activity influences behavior and how neural circuits evaluate options and initiate actions. Many people come to the conclusion that agency, or free will, is an illusion as we delve ever deeper into the mechanics of decision-making.

In his book "Free Agents," renowned neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents a wealth of evidence to the contrary, arguing that we are not mere machines responding to physical forces but agents acting with purpose.

Mitchell takes us on a remarkable journey spanning billions of years of evolution, tracing the emergence of living beings capable of choice from lifeless matter. He explains how the development of nervous systems enabled sentient animals to learn about the world, granting them the capacity to model, predict, and simulate. Mitchell reveals how these faculties reached their pinnacle in humans with our abilities to imagine, be introspective, reason in the moment, and shape our possible futures through the exercise of our individual agency.

Mitchell's argument holds significant implications for our understanding of decision-making, the enhancement or infringement of individual agency, our considerations of collective agency in the face of global crises, and our evaluation of the limitations and future of artificial intelligence.

"Free Agents" is an astonishing journey of discovery that offers a new framework for understanding how life evolved the power to choose and why it matters.

Weight: 692g
Dimension: 164 x 241 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691226231