For centuries we've searched for the chooser. We've imagined a soul, a conscious self or some hidden decision-maker somewhere inside the brain. Modern neuroscience has searched for it too.

Yet despite remarkable advances, the chooser remains elusive.

In The Pattern That Chooses, psychologist and behavioural scientist Bob Hurling explores a simple possibility: perhaps we've been looking for something that isn't there. Choosing may not be performed by a hidden entity at all. Instead, it may simply be what sufficiently organised physical patterns do.

Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, evolution, physics and everyday observation, Hurling examines a different way of thinking about human agency, one that avoids both mystical notions of free will and the bleak fatalism often associated with determinism. Along the way he asks whether we've made a surprisingly simple mistake: treating choosing as though it requires a separate chooser.

Inside you'll explore questions such as:

Why do we assume there must be a chooser behind every choice?

What if a brain is better understood as an organised physical pattern than a machine directed by an inner self?

Can responsibility, meaning and morality survive without traditional free will?

Does modern physics invite us to think differently about ourselves in space and time?

Accessible, thought-provoking and full of memorable analogies, The Pattern That Chooses offers a fresh perspective on one of humanity's oldest questions. Whether or not you agree with its conclusions, it may leave you looking at your own decisions, and yourself, in a rather different way.