Free Agents

How Evolution Gave Us Free Will

By: Kevin J. Mitchell

Narrated by: Kevin J. Mitchell

This audiobook narrated by neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents an evolutionary case for the existence of free will.

Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion. In Free Agents, leading 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.

Traversing billions of years of evolution, Mitchell tells the remarkable story of how living beings capable of choice emerged from lifeless matter. 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. Mitchell reveals how these faculties reached their peak in humans with our abilities to imagine and to be introspective, to reason in the moment, and to shape our possible futures through the exercise of our individual agency. Mitchell’s argument has important implications—for how we understand decision making, for how our individual agency can be enhanced or infringed, for how we think about collective agency in the face of global crises, and for how we consider the limitations and future of artificial intelligence.

An astonishing journey of discovery, Free Agents offers a new framework for understanding how, across a billion years of Earth history, life evolved the power to choose and why this matters.

©2023 Kevin J. Mitchell (P)2023 Princeton University Press

Critic reviews

“If you believe that free will is an illusion, you will change your mind after reading this irresistible book. Mitchell tells the epic story of the evolution of life from its origins to the emergence of purposeful behavior as you have never heard it before. He forcefully counters reductionism and makes a compelling case for agency as the central condition of living beings.”—Uta Frith, coauthor of What Makes Us Social?

I chose to listen to this breath of fresh air

Very thoughtful defense of free will. As a software engineer, I look forward to using the book as a bluepint for Skynet.

Excellent non religious explication

A thorough exploration from chemistry, to cells to organisms. The accounting for indeterminacy, causation, memory, and choice is very helpful.

Makes sense

I really enjoyed this book and very glad it was written. I recently read Determined, a book arguing that we have no free will. This book provides an eloquent and substantive counterpoint, and rings much more true, in my opinion. I really like how grounded in evolution it is, as nothing in biology makes sense without it. I am interested in reading everything this author has written as his thinking and writing is clear and his thoughts deep.

The best treatment of Free Will available today.

This book is an evolution of the long-held discussion of Free Will and Determinism. Firstly, as someone who enjoys science, this was a joy to read. "The story of Free Will is the story of Life" states the author, and beautifully moves through the related history of both.

If you've read Sapolsky or Dennet or Harris on free will, this will be an excellent rebuttal. If you've had a sense that they were missing something key about the nature of free will, this is a fleshed-out answer to their ignorance.

Dr. Mitchell puts muscle and bone to a framework that successfully synapses a hopeful response to a seemingly mechanistic universe. He does so with scientific rigor that is also free of unnecessary superstition or mysticism. This book is a triumph of thought and scholarship.

I'm grateful to have found this read, and for the author's courage and talent in bringing it to being. You will be too.

Best argument against the free will.

I listened to this book to find the best arguments for having free will. I started out convinced that we do not have it and that because of that fact you should show compassion to everyone because their actions can not be helped. After the book I am even more convinced of this. Although the author will strongly disagree with me. I find his structured layout of evolution, is a very good reason to not fault anyone for their "choices" because it all depends on previous experience.