As recommended by John Caputo (and myself) https://www.introducingbooks.com/ 'comic books' but they are a quick intro, and some not bad IMO.

If you are new, a quick historical overview is I think a good place to start, as you could spend several lifetimes exploring just one philosopher or one idea.

When I stated it was Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, but it's very dated now.

Beware of YouTube, unless by some respectable source. The Gregory Sadler ones seem OK.

Also many 'commentary' books on philosophers often have a bias.

The problem – or joy of philosophy is unlike science, (very) old theories are still very relevant.

You do realize GS341 was only part of what he thought was a physical reality? And that ones life was always and will always be fully determined.

Or that it is the most “gruesome” of ideas, to quote. It's reality.

Or that he was just trying to help us in our individual lives, live better. And it wasn't real at all.

> For example, his own fMRI studies on dogs have shown that they can feel genuine affection for their owners.

Made my day, having owned three. Next up fMRI studies on their owners show the same...

And as this is a philosophy sub, I think Wittgenstein said something to the effect even if lions could speak English we would not be able to understand them.

Times change?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War#/media/File:Kisabur%C5%8D_Ohara,_Europe_and_Asia_Octopus_Map,_1904_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1145_01.jpg

> I don't think Godel's ontological proof of God makes any sense.

On what basis?

> but a good majority of them don't because many believe in Sartre's motto of "existence precedes essence".

"The idea originates from a speech by F. W. J. Schelling delivered in December 1841.[4] Søren Kierkegaard was present at this occasion and the idea can be found in Kierkegaard's works in the 19th century,"

Both Christians, and theists.

Sartre latter believed in Communism and Maoism. A central idea in many religions is that mankind was given free will by the creator. If you like our essence is a freedom.

> Many of my future articles are based off the idea of not believing in a God, because it is rooted in existentialism.

Are you aware that there was a number of Christian Existentialists?

An amusing idea is that AI chews at Gödel's ontological proof of God, and comes up with a "Yep!".

> So much wrong here. Where to start?

Tip: When reading something you think wrong, don't jump to assumptions, ask questions to get where the other guy is coming from.

> First of all, my original post did not even imply materialism. Nowhere did I state that all mental states have a physical basis, merely that some do.

I need to go back and find it.

“You don't need any conception of physics to arrive logically at the conclusion that the common conception of "free will" is an absurdity. The best arguments deal solely with what we know of the way minds work and their connection to what we know of the brain and biological life in general.”

Reading the above it is not clear that you think some mental states have a non physical basis, so do you. For my part I can't see why 'free will' cannot have a physical basis, I see nothing other than that and the information within such a process.

> If you are going to deny that, then please explain to me how it is that reading this is producing thoughts in your head?

I've no idea. I suspect it's a fairly complex process, as yet unknown. I might add, the physical processes of say this CPU is well known. What it is capable of doing is not.

> Even the most hardcore dualist has to acknowledge the connection between mind and brain.

I see no connection – they are one and the same- is my best guess.

> Second, you seem to be stuck on this point that a deterministic world is like a factory that produces the same things over and over.

It's the idea of Newton, and the determinism of Laplace.

> The world is so, so far away from this that I'm unclear how you came to that conclusion.

Which is my point. The world does not seem to run on mechanical determinism.

> Let's remove life from the question. Is the world of minerals, rocks, chemicals, etc. deterministic?

I doubt it.

> If it is, voila, a deterministic world that produces nothing identical.

Which why I doubt it. Like a die, throwing is get you 1,2,3,4,5,6 – never 7.

> Science is unsurprised.

What does that mean. When Rutherford split the atom he was surprised, gob smacked in fact.

> There is of course quantum indeterminacy, but this is not well understood and even then, would just be randomness.

I'm guessing your not a scientist. Or am I, but I think QM is very well understood. As for randomness, again “just”, that's not the case.

> I certainly hope this is not what you are looking to in order to avoid determinism.

I'm not avoiding it. I just would like proof.

“That the sun will rise to-morrow, is an hypothesis; and that means that we do not know whether it will rise.”

> If this world is not deterministic, please give me the mechanism outside of cause and effect that influences it.

I can't, or can I refute Hume's famous analysis of 'cause and effect' being a psychological phenomena. Or Nietzsche's? That the actual reasoning is always from the effect to the cause. Or that some, like Julian Barbour think time, events, are illusions, in which case how can an effect follow a cause. Or problems in SR with simultaneity...?

> I'll respond to the free will argument you posted. It is quite poor in my opinion.

OK, but as a 'flag' it was made by two very smart guys.

> The scientist, or Laplace's demon, or whoever is in the position to know all deterministic factors possible, would also know the effect their telling would have upon the person making the choice.

Yes, that's part of the killer effect. Maybe you don't get it, the machine, or demon goes into a endless self reference, unless it keeps the prediction secret. But that exposes another fault, found in Tristram Shandy.

My knowledge now T1, say is K1. I then predict T2, which changes my knowledge at T1, to knowing K1 and K2, but then my knowledge is K3, knowing K1 and K2... etc. An infinite regression occurs.

> This is simply another deterministic factor. The knowledge that a person has about what is being predicted, or what is being deliberated in their own mind, is itself a causal factor.

Whatever, the predictor can't predict. They can lie, but that isn't a prediction. They say soup, I choose salad.

> If they are causal -

They are- the argument is clever, it accepts the idea, it's a form of reducto absurdism. The demon, machine falls into an endless loop of self causation.

> a process with a conclusion defined by its beginning.

Sure, and it can then never get going, it ends at the beginning in this case in a salad/soup
loop. Imagine a picture of you in your room, I give it to you, you see in the picture a picture of you in the room, and the picture... ad infinitum. You cannot see the picture of you in the room looking at the picture as the picture extends to infinity.

> If not causal, then we must introduce randomness

No need. The idea has been refuted.

> this too is of course problematic, because randomness, even more than causality, removes the agent's freedom.

How can it remove it more?

> So which class does "their knowledge" (that of the choice-maker) fall into? Is it causal? Then the choice is not free. Is it random? Then also, not free.

Do you know the mechanism for intelligence? Are you intelligent? My answer is No, and yes to some extent.

Intelligence is useful though, so is free, non deterministic – will.

I'm arguing about the idea of free will, and a materialism based on cause and effect. Thus the idea that such is the case. Imagine such a universe, how different would t be to a factory that manufactures automobiles? Now it would be surprising if these acted differently?

Not trolling. Here is another argument, though not my own which demonstrates the determinists problem.

Physical determinism can't invalidate our experience as free agents.

From John D. Barrow – using an argument from Donald MacKay.

Consider a totally deterministic world, without QM etc. Laplace's vision realised. We know the complete state of the universe including the subjects brain. A person is about to choose soup or salad for lunch. Can the scientist given complete knowledge infallibly predict the choice. NO. The person can, if the scientist says soup, choose salad.

The scientist must keep his prediction secret from the person. As such the person enjoys a freedom of choice.

The fact that telling the person in advance will cause a change, if they are obstinate, means the person's choice is conditioned on their knowledge. Now if it is conditioned on their knowledge – their knowledge gives them free will.

I've simplified this, and Barrow goes into more detail, but the crux is that the subjects knowledge determines the choice, so choosing on the basis of what one knows is free choice.

And we can make this simpler, the scientist can apply it to their own choice. They are free to ignore what is predicted.

http://www.arn.org/docs/feucht/df_determinism.htm#:~:text=MacKay%20argues%20%5B1%5D%20that%20even%20if%20we%2C%20as,and%20mind%3A%20brain%20and%20mental%20activities%20are%20correlates.

“From this, we can conclude that either the logic we employ in our understanding of determinism is inadequate to describe the world in (at least) the case of self-conscious agents, or the world is itself limited in ways that we recognize through the logical indeterminacies in our understanding of it. In neither case can we conclude that our understanding of physical determinism invalidates our experience as free agents.”

The vaccine for covid 19 has the identical affect on every individual it is given?

Thinking of a reply to your post above changed my mental state.

"We may not know the ins and outs of how physical events lead to mental states, but we do know that they in fact do so."

This.

Well in a deterministic universe identity should prevail.

That is what one would expect from deterministic systems.

Determinate machines are fixed state machines. Computers, if human will is determinate.

Wouldn't one expect fixed-state determinist machines to all come up with identical answers in a determinate universe?

I remember back in the 1980s similar headlines.

> Okay, the key claim is that God’s omnipotence does not mean the ability to violate genuine principles of logic, so God is in some sense limited.

"In classical logic, intuitionistic logic and similar logical systems, the principle of explosion... once a contradiction has been asserted, any proposition (including their negations) can be inferred from it; this is known as deductive explosion."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

> My thesis is: it's better to have one random human die in this case.

So the resources that one random reasonably affluent person, who is educated, has access to technology, is dependant on resources which could allow possibly hundreds to survive, both human and animal, that person who thinks “it's better to have one random human die in this case.” should not necessarily kill themselves, but certainly not enjoy 'luxuries' of consumerism. So the thesis is contradicted by the person proposing it.

> True, but well, I also never signed a contract saying I consented to paying taxes.

You did in effect it's the social contract. And you are free to drop out anytime. You can then achieve a goal of being not responsible for resources you do not need to live.

The ethics then is, is it ethical to pose such thought experiments, where the consequences are purely hypothetical, and the person proposes a solution that they do not take.