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Who's in Charge?
- Free Will and the Science of the Brain
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
The father of cognitive neuroscience and author of Human offers a provocative argument against the common belief that our lives are wholly determined by physical processes and we are therefore not responsible for our actions.
A powerful orthodoxy in the study of the brain has taken hold in recent years: Since physical laws govern the physical world and our own brains are part of that world, physical laws therefore govern our behavior and even our conscious selves. Free will is meaningless, goes the mantra; we live in a “determined” world.
Not so, argues the renowned neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga in this thoughtful, provocative book based on his Gifford Lectures - one of the foremost lecture series in the world dealing with religion, science, and philosophy. Who's in Charge? proposes that the mind, which is somehow generated by the physical processes of the brain, “constrains” the brain just as cars are constrained by the traffic they create. Writing with what Steven Pinker has called “his trademark wit and lack of pretension”, Gazzaniga shows how determinism immeasurably weakens our views of human responsibility; it allows a murderer to argue, in effect, “It wasn’t me who did it - it was my brain.” Gazzaniga convincingly argues that even given the latest insights into the physical mechanisms of the mind, there is an undeniable human reality: We are responsible agents who should be held accountable for our actions, because responsibility is found in how people interact, not in brains.
An extraordinary book that ranges across neuroscience, psychology, ethics, and the law with a light touch but profound implications, Who’s in Charge? is a lasting contribution from one of the leading thinkers of our time.
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The late Carl Rogers, founder of the humanistic psychology movement and father of client-centered therapy, based his life's work on his fundamental belief in the human potential for growth. A Way of Being was written in the early 1980s, near the end of Carl Rogers's career, and serves as a coda to his classic On Becoming a Person. More philosophical than his earlier writings, it traces his professional and personal development and ends with a prophetic call for a more humane future.
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Read before On Being
- By Anonymous on 01-28-19
By: Carl R. Rogers, and others
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Mathematics
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Timothy Gowers
- Narrated by: Craig Jessen
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The aim of this book is to explain, carefully but not technically, the differences between advanced, research-level mathematics and the sort of mathematics we learn at school. The most fundamental differences are philosophical, and listeners of this book will emerge with a clearer understanding of paradoxical-sounding concepts such as infinity, curved space, and imaginary numbers. The first few chapters are about general aspects of mathematical thought.
By: Timothy Gowers
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Brain Bugs
- How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.
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Superficial, but mostly correct
- By Sean on 09-03-11
By: Dean Buonomano
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Conscious
- A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind
- By: Annaka Harris
- Narrated by: Annaka Harris
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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This mind-expanding dive into the mystery of consciousness is an illuminating meditation on the self, free will, and felt experience.
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Perhaps a better definition?
- By Eratosthenes on 06-19-19
By: Annaka Harris
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Free Agents
- How Evolution Gave Us Free Will
- By: Kevin J. Mitchell
- Narrated by: Kevin J. Mitchell
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Adding Clarity to Agency
- By Brad Caldwell on 10-10-23
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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Consciousness, 2nd Edition
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Susan Blackmore
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Exciting new developments in brain science are continuing the debates on these issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories, while also outlining the amazing pace of discoveries in neuroscience. Covering areas such as the construction of self in the brain, mechanisms of attention, the neural correlates of consciousness, and the physiology of altered states of consciousness, Susan Blackmore highlights our latest findings.
By: Susan Blackmore
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Free Will
- By: Mark Balaguer
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In our daily lives, it really seems as though we have free will, that what we do from moment to moment is determined by conscious decisions that we freely make. You get up from the couch, you go for a walk, you eat chocolate ice cream. It seems that we're in control of actions like these; if we are then we have free will. But in recent years, some have argued that free will is an illusion. The neuroscientist (and best-selling author) Sam Harris and the late Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner, for example, claim that certain scientific findings disprove free will.
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Basic Intro. Could be summed up in a 15min YouTube video.
- By Serial Amazon Shopper on 06-20-24
By: Mark Balaguer
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The Tell-Tale Brain
- A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
- By: V. S. Ramachandran
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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V. S. Ramachandran is at the forefront of his field - so much so that Richard Dawkins dubbed him the "Marco Polo of neuroscience". Now, in a major new work, Ramachandran sets his sights on the mystery of human uniqueness. Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, he reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about normal brain function and how it evolved.
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Great if you like understanding how brains work
- By Michael on 12-25-11
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The Archaeology of Mind
- Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions
- By: Jaak Panksepp, Lucy Biven, Daniel J. Siegel - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 27 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach - which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share - to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals - for the first time - the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.
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Narrator 👎🏻
- By shiva on 12-03-21
By: Jaak Panksepp, and others
What listeners say about Who's in Charge?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- david keyser
- 11-12-12
Needs more detail but good
More detail would be nice but a good start for people asking questions about free will and decision making.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Pickledgringo
- 06-30-16
Very interesting read.
Would you listen to Who's in Charge? again? Why?
Yes, probably. Lots of good information here. Some of it a bit unsettling. I liked this book.
Who was your favorite character and why?
This is not a character driven book.
Which character – as performed by Pete Larkin – was your favorite?
Again, not a character driven book.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, this is one to savor and contemplate.
Any additional comments?
Again, I liked it. Interesting to learn about my brain. Sometimes I wonder who the heck is up there.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jeffrey W. Rudisel
- 09-01-21
FREE WILL?
A very wise teasing out of the confusing elements involved in the concepts of free will, self, mind/brain, and such.
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- Lynn
- 07-31-12
You Didn't Do It Alone?
Michael Gazzaniga (Psychological Science; Cognitive Neuroscience; The Ethical Brain) now has produced Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain. Gazzaniga is a well known expert in cognitive neuroscience, but this book makes the topic easy to follow and readily available to anyone willing to turns its pages. Most important, this book brings neuroscience and philosophy together. The result is a deeper understanding of free will as experienced (or thought experienced) by individuals. Gazzaniga would have been more helpful to me had he defined what he means by free will. I would have greatly benefited from having such a guide post. Such context would have been helpful. Nonetheless, the book is thought provoking and helpful from both the philosophical and the neuroscience perspectives. It will certainly make the reader stop and think. The reading of Pete Larkin is well done.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Stephane
- 07-06-16
Very insightful.
A very informative and non speculative view on the brain, the mind, consciousness and neuroscience.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Duncan
- 01-16-12
Informative and generally comprehendable
What did you love best about Who's in Charge??
Plain English in a field of in penetrable jargon
Which character – as performed by Pete Larkin – was your favorite?
Non fiction, no characters
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
A film of the mind
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1 person found this helpful
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- eric
- 08-25-13
Great book
Any additional comments?
There is a lot of interesting information in this book. The title would have you believe it is about the unconscious mind but its really about the whole brain, and whole person for that matter. He does go off on a lot of different tangents, but very interesting ones.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tama
- 04-22-19
Yes, indeed!
It seems that self-obsessed humans ....or more accurately groups of humans....cling to fairy tales and myths of convenience rather than delight in the understanding that even unconscious “thoughts” originate within them, and that survival of the fittest and perpetuation of the species are always what an organism strives for. The “global community” that we hear so much about these days....needs to place focus on adapting to the current conditions that threaten mankind, or the laws that govern systems will handle it for us. I can foresee large numbers of humans being eradicated by the system. World war, famine, etc....are some of the ways ecosystems cleanse themselves. Sort of like the purpose of a forest fire. Thank you for this.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-21-22
WOW just Wow!
This book will absolutely change the way you look at people behavior and probably change the way you look at yourself. Great book!
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- ML
- 05-01-12
Tough listen
Is there anything you would change about this book?
Maybe neuroscience isn't the best topic to listen to. I just didn't find myself eager to listen after a while. I was most attentive when he talked about specific examples with patients, moral dilemmas, split brain patients, how the interpreter comes up with absurd explanations for situations, and bizarre brain disorders. Too much detail, and not enough of a compelling storyline in my view. But I guess that's just how my brain perceived it, ;-)
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8 people found this helpful