“…Just by Chance” by Tassos Bitsakakis

I did not really know what to expect from this one, but I enjoyed it.

It is very easy, light reading, while still having enough philosophical stuff underneath to make you stop and think every once in a while. The main question is basically how much of what happens to us — and how much of who we become — is actually the result of free choice, and how much is just genetics, upbringing, culture, geography, economy, random events, and everything else that happened before we ever got to “choose.”

I particularly liked that the book does not reduce this to just nature or just nurture. Both matter, and they constantly interact. Genes may create tendencies, environments may trigger or suppress them, and then culture, family, peers, and circumstances keep adding more layers on top.

The book also made me think a lot about mimetic desire — the idea that many of the things we want are not really invented inside our heads, but learned from other people. Honestly, when I think about most things I want, I can usually trace them back to someone or something else. The chapters about culture, economy, and place of birth shaping entire lives fit very nicely with that.

I also liked the chapter about identical twins. Behavioural genetics is a strange and fascinating field, especially when combined with developmental psychology, because it makes the whole “how much do parents actually shape their children?” question much more complicated than people usually want it to be.

And then there is free will.

There is a lot of research showing how seemingly insignificant things that happen before a decision can bias what we eventually choose. Which leads to the slightly uncomfortable thought that a lot of our decisions may be at least partly predetermined, while the brain comes in afterward and produces a very convincing story about why we deliberately chose them.

Fun!

Obviously, free will is one of those subjects sitting at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, genetics, sociology, and probably another ten fields, so no single book is going to settle it.

But this one does something useful: it gives people who have never thought much about the subject a good entry point, while still giving people who have already spent too much time thinking about it a few new angles to chew on.

Easy to read, thoughtful, and very easy to recommend.