Peter Watts - Echopraxia

Vihang A. Narkar et al., “AMPK and PPARδ Agonists Are Exercise Mimetics,” Cell 134, no. 3 (August 8, 2008): 405–415, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2008.06.051.

“Christian Bök,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia , September 14, 2013.

Jamie Condliffe, “Cryptic Poetry Written in a Microbe’s DNA,” CultureLab, New Scientist Online , 2011, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/05/christian-boks-dynamic-dna-poetry.html.

“ Deinococcus Radiodurans ,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia , July 29, 2013.

Yes, there may be random elements—quantum flickers that introduce unpredictability into one’s behavior—but slaving your decisions to a dice roll doesn’t make you free.

Benjamin Libet et al., “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (readiness-Potential) the Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act,” Brain 106, no. 3 (September 1, 1983): 623–642, doi:10.1093/brain/106.3.623.

Chun Siong Soon et al., “Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain,” Nature Neuroscience 11, no. 5 (May 2008): 543–545, doi:10.1038/nn.2112.

Björn Brembs, “Towards a Scientific Concept of Free Will as a Biological Trait: Spontaneous Actions and Decision-making in Invertebrates,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (December 15, 2010), doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2325.

Alexander Maye et al., “Order in Spontaneous Behavior,” PLoS ONE 2, no. 5 (May 16, 2007): e443, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000443.

Anthony R Cashmore, “The Lucretian Swerve: The Biological Basis of Human Behavior and the Criminal Justice System,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, no. 10 (March 9, 2010): 4499–4504, doi:10.1073/pnas.0915161107.

David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (New York: Vintage Books, 2012).

Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002).

Sam Harris on “Free Will,” 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g&feature=youtube_gdata_player.

Davide Rigoni et al., “Inducing Disbelief in Free Will Alters Brain Correlates of Preconscious Motor Preparation: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not,” Psychological Science 22, no. 5 (May 2011): 613–618, doi:10.1177/0956797611405680.

Roy F. Baumeister, E. J. Masicampo, and C. Nathan DeWall, “Prosocial Benefits of Feeling Free: Disbelief in Free Will Increases Aggression and Reduces Helpfulness,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35, no. 2 (February 1, 2009): 260–268, doi:10.1177/0146167208327217.

Kathleen D. Vohs and Jonathan W. Schooler, “The Value of Believing in Free Will Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating,” Psychological Science 19, no. 1 (January 1, 2008): 49–54, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02045.x.

Hagop Sarkissian et al., “Is Belief in Free Will a Cultural Universal?,” Mind & Language 25, no. 3 (2010): 346–358, doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2010.01393.x.

Wasn’t it Joss Whedon, in one of his X-Men comics, who stated that “Contradiction is the seed of consciousness”?