If Sapolsky is right, this implies that to truly understand human behavior, we would have to know exactly what happens in the 100 trillion connections of the brain a nanosecond before the behavior occurs.

And consider what took place about five million years ago, when humans and chimpanzees share their last common ancestor and all the stuff that happened in between.

Mhm.

For example, when we see someone who has done something wonderful and altruistic or something brutal and savage, we can ask ourselves, Why did he do that just now on when we ask that we are asking something about what neurons in different parts of their brain did a fraction of a second ago way are also asking about what environmental stimuli in the previous seconds two minutes triggered those neurons.

And we're also asking, what did hormone levels in that morning have to do with making those neurons more or less sensitive to those triggers?

And then we are often running into neuro plasticity.

How his experience change those neurons in previous months, then you are back to adolescence and childhood and all the way back into his fetal life, which has a huge amount to do with what sort of brain we're going to have as adults and even further back genes come in and culture.

Because the way you were raised within minutes of birth reflects the culture that your ancestors were coming up with centuries ago and at the bottom of the barrel, why we evolved into this kind of species instead of that kind.

Mm.

If you trust Sapolsky theory of behavioral biology, you may at this point realize that things are much more complicated.

While a simple she did a so he did be may fulfill your need to bring order into this chaotic world.

It is likely not going to be the full explanation.

Sapolsky was born in New York, and he spent his youth reading about and imagining living with silverback gorillas.

By age 12, he was running fan letters to primatologists, and during high school he taught himself Swahili.

Later, he spent 25 years observing the same group of baboons in Africa every summer and then went on to study and teach behavioral biology at Stanford University.

Sapolsky left.

For those who try to understand others the following advice.

We are complicated, so you better be really sure and really careful and really cautious before you decide.

You understand why somebody did something, especially if that is something you're judging harshly.

It's like trying to judge how a movie got to its conclusion by only watching 30 seconds of it.

What do you think?

Is his theory solid?

And can we actually never really explain the behavior without taking the full picture into consideration?

Or is there something like a soul that takes decisions regardless of what happens to us?

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