Speaking of conspiracy theories, the BlueAnon dupes of Russiagate are in for some more surprises. DNI Gabbard just dropped some frightening info.

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Russia-Hoax-Memo-and-Timeline_revisited.pdf

Apparently a lot more is to come, which they might even use to build a criminal conspiracy case. Yikes.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/07/16/exclusive_secret_meeting_opens_document_floodgates_on_trumprussia_hoax_1123108.html

On the other hand, one argument for keeping children away from voting might be that it gives them the opportunity to live their formative years without being inured to state dependency, serfdom, and the utter farce that is electoral politics and representative government. They can learn to form their own bonds and organizations rather than having them hoisted upon them by some oligarchy. Sure, the desensitization to that power dynamic begins early enough in public education, but not having the fetish of representation and the fantasy that we can vote ourselves to a better world might help foster the self-governance required to do what's right in such a deranged system.

I didn't say that. I said that there is more to causation than just the immediate transfer of kinetic energy. All of your examples are examples of causation, but so too are all of mine.

You believe turning on the stove causes the water to boil. I believe the transfer of heat causes the water to boil. The problem is there isn’t always a pot of water on the stove. Siri doesn’t always understand. The bulb needs to be changed. There is a body of water below the cliff. It’s such a flimsy account of causation.

Smoking can cause cancer, droughts can cause famines, I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff, and I can turn on the lights by flicking a switch, pulling a chord, pushing a button, clapping my hands, or saying “Siri, turn on the lights”. None of this is superstition or magical thinking. And neither is being persuaded by another's argument.

It is superstition to believe words have causal powers above and beyond the immediate effects of their physical structure. It is superstition to believe in telekinesis. We know this because you transfer no more measurable physical energy to a listener using persuasive or provocative language than you would if you were speaking gibberish or writing nonsense. We know this because writing begets varying responses, as is apparent in your own writing. Same words, varying responses. The only thing that could account for that variability is the listener. The responses are not a result of the words, but of the person reading them. No Rube Goldberg devices, no post hoc fallacy, no false analogies, nor weasel words required.

And you think that this is mutually exclusive with the words causally affecting your body and brain? The physical existence of the printed words are what physically cause light to reflect the way it does, which is what physically causes your eyes to release the neurotransmitters they do, which is what physically causes the neurons in the brain to behave the way they do ("understanding").

Your words cannot move my eyes. Your words do not transduce light into electrochemical energy. Your words do not send neurotransmitters. The words have not forced me to understand them. All of that activity is the result of and caused by my body, as is the response.

I can write a sentence in a different language and the words will never cause you to understand them. You’d have to first go out of your way learn what the words mean, whether through association or immersion. Understanding needs to be there before your cause, not after. That is why it cannot be an effect unless you believe in backwards causation.

Not so much of a democracy then.

Let everyone vote. Cradle-to-the-grave government requires cradle-to-the-grave participation, so why not?

It's not new. I first mentioned it a month ago.

The problems with counterfactual reasoning are not new either.

You keep repeating the same non sequitur ad nauseum. There is more to causation than just the immediate transfer of kinetic energy. Smoking can cause cancer, droughts can cause famines, I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff, and I can turn on the lights by flicking a switch, pulling a chord, pushing a button, clapping my hands, or saying “Siri, turn on the lights”.

You don’t believe the transfer of energy has any effect? So the transfer of momentum from one billiard ball to another doesn’t cause it to move? So the transfer of heat to water doesn’t cause it to boil?

You don’t seem so sure either with your steady application of weasel words. Not all smokers get cancer. Not all droughts cause famines. People can fall off cliffs and live.

You being able to read and understand them is proof that they causally affect your sense organs and brain, and you responding to them is a causal consequence of that, as per both the counterfactual theory of causation and causal determinism (given that eliminative materialism is true).

Words do not cause reading and understanding. In every case it is me moving my eyes, focussing on the words, reading them, and so on down the line.

I'm just waiting when @NOS4A2 will come here to enthusiastically defend Trump. :lol:

You disappeared for a couple weeks there. Did you finally find a little angle to exploit?

What do you think it means to be persuaded if not the appropriate areas of the brain being active in response to hearing or reading some words?

I believe it means we come to agree with an argument by assessing it with our own reasoning and judgement.

The counterfactual theory of causation says that A causes B if B would not have happened had A not happened. So their comments would have caused you to not respond to them if you would have not not responded to them (i.e would have responded to them) had they not been posted, which isn’t possible.

So no, the comments that you didn’t respond to didn’t cause you to not respond to them, but the comments that you did respond to did cause you to respond to them.

Great, a new theory of causation.

I can give you the answer. What caused me to both respond or not respond to these comments was me in both cases. I read, ignored, dismissed as stupid, or took seriously each argument and at my own discretion. The influence of this activity was my own interest and desires. The force behind the reading, response, and each keystroke was my own. The comments themselves had no causal power, for the simple reason that they do not possess the kind of energy to impel such actions.

Your reasoning is:

a) A causes B only if B is the immediate effect of A's kinetic energy
b) the brain's behaviour is not the immediate effect of the kinetic energy of speech or writing
c) therefore, the brain's behaviour is not caused by speech or writing

When you say “[words] physically cannot move the brain” you mean it in the sense of (b), which is irrelevant given that (a) is false. This is the mistake you keep repeating ad nauseum.

Smoking can cause cancer, droughts can cause famines, I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff, and I can turn on the lights by flicking a switch, pulling a chord, pushing a button, clapping my hands, or saying “Siri, turn on the lights”. These common sense examples are not metaphors or analogies or superstitions or magical thinkings, but are literal and prove that (a) is false. There is more to causation than just the immediate transfer of kinetic energy.

The impasse is that you insist on saying that all of these examples are false because (a) is true. You commit to the absurd implications of (a), which is evidently unreasonable.

Then you should be able to cause my brain state and any subsequent activity with your words, as if you were turning on a light. Let’s see it.

If any one of the people claiming to have the power to animate human beings with words animated me with words, it might show that they possess the powers they claim to possess. But a simple demonstration of the one requested is not forthcoming. So it raises the question, why can’t any of those who claim to be able to animate others with words animate their interlocutors with words?

one must hear/read the words from someone before one can (mis)understand them, yes?

Yes

The Neural Correlates of Persuasion: A Common Network across Cultures and Media

Yes, it’s obvious various brain regions light up when we read and come to agree with something.

How about you persuade me that the universe revolves around the earth? Should be a simple matter of arranging the symbols in various combinations and putting letters and numbers in your arguments.

Each of my posts has provoked you to respond. See the counterfactual theory of causation, coupled with the fact that eliminative materialism is true and that causal determinism applies to all physical objects and processes (whether organic or not, and whether "using its own energies" or not).

I’ve outright ignored countless people, even you. Did they provoke me not to respond, then? Did they cause me to ignore them?

This is another non sequitur. That words can persuade isn't that there's some specific sequence of words that can unavoidably cause any listener or reader to be persuaded. The human brain is far too complex for that.

You might not be persuaded by my words but it is an undeniable fact that many people throughout human history have been persuaded by others' words. Your persistent refusal to accept this is just willful ignorance.

People have said they were persuaded by another’s words. I don’t doubt that at all. That sort language has been in the western lexicon for thousands of years. The sophists of Ancient Greece actually treated words as if they were drugs, and the sophists of today carry on that superstitious tradition.

But none of that means the words moved or animated the brain, which is impossible, and for the reasons I’ve already stated. The words don’t make the eyes move over them. The words don’t force you to understand them. The words don’t cause you to agree just as they don’t cause you to disagree. They physically cannot move the brain in that way. Symbols do not nor cannot gain causal powers when they become words. It’s impossible and absolutely nothing has shown that it is possible.

This has been proved, empirically, time and time and time and time again. In this thread, through examples, and in your own life (obviously. Otherwise you'd not be replying here). Your refusal is just your stupidity being writ large. There are no versions of this than can be boiled down to an argument. You are ignorant. Plain and simple.

I’ve given you countless opportunities to demonstrate your powers and move me with your words and you haven’t been able to. There is really no excuse except that you’re projecting your mindlessness onto others.

Given your claim to some empirical fact it should be easy to devise some empirical test of it or some demonstration that anyone can observe. If words can persuade or otherwise move someone to some other behavior, then it should be easy to get me to agree. Yet I am not persuaded, and you have abjectly refused to persuade, incite, or provoke me into some behavior, as you have claimed to be able to do. No demonstration of your empirical fact is forthcoming.

So now that you’ve added your weasel words you have admitted the corollary that words sometimes cannot persuade someone. In those instances, where have the causal powers of your words disappeared to?

Thanks for the info.

1. a person can (often enough) understand words from another person
2. understanding another person's words is an effect
3. words can (often enough) have an effect

1. a person can misunderstand words from another person
2. misunderstanding another person's words is an effect
3. words can have an effect

Aren’t words an effect of the understanding? One must understand the language in order to know what the symbols mean, for example. If understanding was an effect of the symbols, one could know what a language means just by hearing it.

It’s not evidence against the claim. That’s why it’s a non sequitur. That I haven’t done something just isn’t evidence that it’s physically impossible. There are an immeasurable number of things that are physically possible but that I haven’t done.

The evidence for the claim is all of human history and psychology.

You said it was an empirical fact that we do so, nothing about it being possible or impossible. I’ve quoted it in full numerous times. I’ve corrected your strawman. Despite this you remain unpersuaded. That’s just more evidence to me.

But now it is in the realm of possibility; words both can and cannot persuade, incite, provoke. Before it was an empirical fact that they do, yet we no mention that it is an empirical fact that we don’t. And now it has to do psychology, a property of the listener, not a property of words and symbols. It’s a complete breakdown of the superstition at this point.

I didn't say it wasn't falsifiable. Try reading my words.

That we persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, teach, trick, etc. isn’t pseudoscience. It's an emprical fact about psychology.

But you refuse to say what would falsify it. Nor can you give us a demonstration of your powers.

We went over this a while ago. That words can, and do, persuade, isn't that they always persuade. You're just continuing with non sequiturs. It's tiresome. Your position throughout this discussion has been found absurd and now you're just floundering. I should have stopped when you refused to admit that we can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff.

It’s not a non-sequitur to note that the evidence against a claim contradicts a claim. It’s why you widened the goalposts and included more weasel words, so you can keep trying to wiggle out of it.

If there is no way to test or observe your theory and contradict it with evidence, it’s pseudoscience, I’m afraid. But a question remains: if your words persuade, why aren’t they persuading?

Then what would falsify your empirical fact that you persuade people with words? It’s a simple question.

Yes, that was my claim. And you claimed that me not having convinced you falsifies my claim. This is a non sequitur.

Then what would falsify your empirical fact if not the empirical fact that you’ve persuaded no one?

“I simply acknowledge that it is an empirical fact that we do persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, teach, trick, etc. with our words. It's not magic, it's not superstition, and it happens even if determinism is false.”

Quoted in full. It’s fine to admit that you were wrong, therefore your widening of the goalposts and your inclusion of other weasel words.

"You haven't done X to me, therefore X is impossible" is a non sequitur. This is such basic reasoning.

I never said that, though. What does your basic reasoning tell you about misrepresented arguments?



A complete lie.

I do know what a non-sequitur is but you have been unable to explain why the evidence against a claim (that I am not moved by your words) does not falsify your claim that it is a fact “people are moved by words”. If your fact is unfalsifiable, it is pseudoscience. If it can be falsified by observation, what can falsify your claim other than the direct evidence that I am unmoved by your words?

So either you don’t have a mind of your own, and live according to your claim that you are moved by another’s words, or you have a mind of your own and you are moved according to your own reasoning. So which is it?

Language, laws, government, and other products of the imagination change with the rise and fall of custom and usage, but the biology from which they are derived has hardly evolved since anyone started speaking them into existence. So it’s a matter of what it is we’re looking at, the people or their artifacts. The shifting veil of the artificial and abstract gives the impression of progress, or to some, of decadence and decay; but beneath the thread-bare language under which human history attempts to disguise itself is the same superstitious and tribalistic mammal that was there since the beginning.

I also mean that ideals such as “peace” or “prosperity” are so empty that we wouldn’t even know it if they manifested. Unfortunately, that is one of philosophy’s problems: it is often an exercise in multiplying nouns or playing with synonyms. Abstractions are a necessary fixture of language and thought, but when they cannot be tethered to the world by way of concrete example, or are stuffed solid with equally floaty terms, it becomes impossible to know what we are speaking about, let alone to know how to reach them.

I suspect that one who claims he and others can be moved by words is in some way is tacitly admitting guilt, namely, that he isn’t able to think for himself. This is now the fifth time someone has said my statement is a non-sequitur without explaining why that is so.

Clearly they’re not. But who knows? Someone might come to agree.

I never thought any demonstration of your powers was forthcoming. They never are, despite the claims.

Given your powers, it should be easy to trick, persuade, incite, or provoke me into tricking, persuading, inciting, or provoking you into this admission.

I would like you to admit that everything you’ve been writing is nonsense. How would I go about that?

That’s the rub for you.

What is compelled, and what is free.

I don’t think you can explain either consistently.

Do I have to put the words in a certain order or something?

I did way back - I tricked, incited, coerced, and provoked you into responding to me here on the forum. Remember? You are my slave now.

You keep posting as if you have a choice, but you don’t. My words are the cause, not you or your mind. I’m pretty sure if you posted some copyrighted material here I would be sued and you wouldn’t, because everyone knows you are just posting because I said so AND because you don’t understand how speech, like copy written material, can cause others to take physical action, like suing me.

The odd thing is, only if you have a mind of your own is there a possibility of words causing action. You seem to believe in a mind of your own. How is such a mind possible?

Maybe you can teach me your magic. How can I compel you to do what I want?

No it doesn't. Yet another absolutely inane non-sequitur.

Did someone convince you to say that, or do you have a mind of your own?

No it doesn't. This is a non sequitur.

You claimed “it is an empirical fact that we do persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, teach, trick, etc. with our words”.

So then persuade, convince, provoke, incite, teach, trick, etc. me into agreeing with you.

I turned on the lights.

Proof by assertion.

See the Wikipedia article on libertarian free will:

No thanks.

If (a) physics is deterministic and if (b) nothing non-physical explains an agent's behaviour then (c) an agent's behaviour is deterministic.

An agent’s behavior is determined by the agent, which I’ve been saying all along. Agents are physical. Wikipedia isn’t going to help with this one.

P1. You have persuaded and influenced precisely no one
C1. Therefore, your theory is falsified

This is a non sequitur.

Yet this evidence completely contradicts your claim that “it is an empirical fact that we do persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, teach, trick, etc. with our words”. Our mutual inability to persuade and convince each other is evidence against your claim that you can “influence their free decisions and behaviours by persuading, convincing, provoking, inciting, coercing, tricking, etc.”.

Given these statements your fact ought to be easy to prove with a simple demonstration, but for some reason you won’t.

You are misunderstanding the purpose of that example. Your argument was:

P1. Symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, cannot affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols.
C1. Therefore, incitement is physically impossible ("superstitious, magical-thinking").

The example of turning on the lights by saying "Siri, turn on the lights" is simply a refutation of P1. It's not meant to be anything more than that. Given that P1 is false you need to either offer a better justification for C1 or (which you now seem to have done) acknowledge that incitement is not physically impossible.

It wasn’t much of a refutation because you haven’t shown how you affected and moved anything beyond the diaphragm in the microphone.

Nonetheless, the other phases of matter I was speaking of were human beings. Human beings are not designed and engineered to operate according to your commands. So the question becomes: why aren’t you able to use a human being in your refutation instead of a device designed and engineered to move according to your commands?

I am not claiming that causal determinism is true. I am only arguing that agent-causal libertarian free will is incompatible with eliminative materialism, and so that your positions are inconsistent. If you want to argue against the "domino effect" then you must argue for something like interactionist dualism, because the domino effect is an inevitable consequence of physicalism (even counting quantum indeterminacy).

I just don’t understand how they’re inconsistent. And of course neither of them are really relevant. We can argue about the domino effect implied by your arguments with basic biology and physics, and without invoking free will, determinism, or non-physical entities.

With a domino effect, the energy required to move each piece in a standard set of dominos is provided and transferred by the fall of the preceding piece. But the body provides the energy required to both maintain the structure and function of all cells in the body, including in the ear and the subsequent parts involved in hearing. It also provides the energy required to transduce signals, to move impulses, and to respond to them. The body does all the work of hearing, thinking, moving etc. using exactly zero energy provided by the sound wave, and therefore completely unaffected and moved by it. In other words, all the energy required to move the body comes from the body, not the soundwaves, not from other speakers, and so on.

Words literally cause mindstates, when heard in certain contexts. Those mindstates are considered irresistible in some circumstances. Those mindstates are either supervenient or overwhelmingly causative of the actions in question. This is a causal chain which is morally brought back to the inciter.

He doesn't get this. It's hard to see where 'reason' would come in if so.

“In certain contexts” and “in some circumstances”—the weasel words keep piling on

You could write a whole page of inciting and coercive language and in every case my “mind-state” wouldn’t change in the slightest. Why is that?

This is simply because words cannot cause “mind-states”. My biology in combination with what I know and understand about what you’re saying and what is going on in my immediate environment causes all of my “mind states”: I know you’re no threat; I don’t want to do what you’re trying to coerce me to do; you have nothing over me or anything to threaten me with; and I have zero respect for most of what you type. In each and every case it is me causing my “mind state”. Poof, there goes your magic powers.

But then you bring a gun into it, and appear a little unhinged, so within limit I do what you request of me. You are guilty of coercion, sure, but it is not your words that force or cause me to act. It is my understanding and fears of what might happen if I don’t obey that determines my action. These are the “certain contexts” and “some circumstances” you guys continually leave out.

As for causal chains, numerous scenarios call it into question. Consider a comedian telling you a joke you do not understand, but later you do come to understand it and laugh. Or if it was told to you in a different language and you didn’t get it until you first learned the language. Or if you come to agree later in life with a book you read much earlier in life. Applying your causal chain theory would imply that the chain reaction suddenly stopped in your brain, as if frozen, until suddenly and without cause it goes on moving things around in there until an effect occurs. Or maybe the words just keep banging around in there until your effect occurs. It’s an incoherent theory based on magical thinking and superstition.

Your literal argument was:

1. You failed to persuade anyone
2. Therefore, your claim that persuasion is possible is falsified

It has never been suggested that if persuasion is possible then it's impossible for me to fail to persuade someone. Therefore, the above argument is a non sequitur.

My literal argument was: “The obvious falsification of your theory is that you’ve persuaded and influenced precisely no one.”

Your literal argument was: “ I simply acknowledge that it is an empirical fact that we do persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, teach, trick, etc. with our words.”

And

“I influence their free decisions and behaviours by persuading, convincing, provoking, inciting, coercing, tricking, etc. Do you just not understand what any of these words mean?”

Now we get to watch the deception as the goalposts widen.

At any rate, the words you’re using are a class of verbs which suggest that you’re literally causing the behaviors of others, in some way, which is evident by your false analogy that you’re causing the lights to turn on by talking to Siri. But your urge to use an analogy of a device that is programmed and engineered to obey your commands is a tell, to me, because human beings don’t operate like that. Someone might come to agree with you or believe as you do, but it isn’t because your soundwaves hit their eardrums setting off a domino effect in their skull.

I’m just one data point against your theory, but there are no doubt countless more.

Yes I can. I can turn on the lights by saying "Siri, turn on the lights". The fact that your understanding of causation leads you to reject this, and to reject the claim that I can kill John by pushing him off a cliff, is proof enough to any reasonable person that your understanding of causation is impoverished.

You’re telling Siri to turn on the lights. The device is turning on the lights.

Okay. It's still the case that we can, and do, persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, trick, etc. others with our arguments, rhetoric, insults, propaganda, threats, lies, etc.

Sure, but it isn’t the case that you cause changes and behaviors in others.

Your reasoning such an obvious non sequitur. Nobody in the history of the world has ever suggested that there is some foolproof manner to convince absolutely everyone.

I never said that’s anyone has suggested. What I’ve said, and have been saying, is that words cannot exert the type of action and cause changes people pretend they do. Case in point is yourself.

I know what those words mean. I even wrote a thread on them, and each of them have a metaphorical sense in their etymology. Influence, for instance, was once a kind of liquid that flowed from celestial bodies which determined human destiny. In Latin it came to mean “imperceptible or indirect action exerted to cause changes”. So you use words steeped in superstitious folk science and metaphor to explain which you struggled to prove earlier. But as we know you cannot cause any changes or move anything with words beyond the immediate changes in an ear drum or diaphragm.

The obvious falsification of your theory is that you’ve persuaded and influenced precisely no one. This is because words cannot exert the type of action and cause changes people pretend they do.

I’m asking you what physical properties words in the form of sound waves or written symbols have that other soundwaves and symbols don’t, so that you can make other people behave the way you want them to.

And as for the specific topic hand, it’s perfectly reasonable to be both a free will libertarian and accept that we can persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, etc. with our words. There’s just nothing superstitious or magical about any of this.

Then how do you persuade or convince or incite with some symbols, or soundwaves, but cannot with others? What physical, measurable property is in those symbols and soundwaves that the other symbols and soundwaves lack?

I just don’t know what “cause” means in the context of a discussion regarding moving other human beings with words. Philosophers have debated the nature of causation for millennia, and no one really seems to know what it means either. So I’m not only trying to be difficult, I’m also struggling with the use of the term.

If you’d define what you mean by “cause” I could try to adhere to your definition of it if you’d like. But it might be better to use the language of something like dynamics to discuss the things we can move with our voice and our writing, and weather a human being is one of those things.

Trump ends sanctions against Syria. Hopefully they can utilize the moment for reconstruction and prosperity.

Make Syria great again!

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/09/world/video/make-syria-great-again-trump-billboards-ward-vrtc