Are we really in charge?

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About this episode

Have you ever found yourself doing something – perhaps getting a glass of water, eating a snack, or even sitting on the toilet – without remembering making the decision to do it? CrowdScience listener Mohammed certainly has. It’s left him wondering: does he really have free will, or is he a puppet of his biological processes? To try and find the answer, we start in the brain. Presenter Caroline Steel meets neuroscientist Uri Maoz, from Chapman University in the US, to explore the controversial research into what happens when we make decisions. Does neuroscience say that we are free to make our own choices, or does our brain make decisions outside of our consciousness? Then there’s our guts…