"Message the show"

Free will is the sacred cow of our modern civilisation. Everyone believes they have it but no one can justify this belief. 

In our season finale of The Will to Joy, we put that belief on the chopping block. I start by offering up a simple challenge: demonstrate free will. When that inevitably fails we follow the chain of consequences and travel into the deepest strata of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

This is the first part of a three part episode and it's most ambitious episode I’ve made: an odyssey from the birth of the solar system through the blind mechanics of evolution, the rise of consciousness, the illusion of choice, the social need for moral responsibility, and the psychological tricks that keep the myth of autonomy alive. Only then do can we get to the heart of it: Nietzsche’s will to power as a total theory of becoming — metaphysical, biological, psychological, and spiritual.

This isn’t a motivational gloss or a “Nietzsche for beginners” pamphlet. It’s a rigorous survey of the architecture of will to power. You’ll see why free will is a noble lie, why our institutions depend on it, why our minds fall for the illusion, and why Nietzsche thought its abandonment is the real beginning of freedom.

If you’re ready for a tour that runs from volcanic hellscapes to the chemistry of life, from memes to morality, from fumbling deliberation to Dionysus himself — lock the door. Pour a drink. Settle in.

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