Yes.

I was using the turnstile as a shorthand for Frege's judgement stroke, so read "⊢⊢the cat is on the mat" as "I think that I think..." or "I think that I judge..." or whatever. Not as "...is derivable from..." — bongo fury

Okay, well these are clearly two different claims:

1. The cat is on the mat
2. I think that the cat is on the mat

(2) can be true even if (1) is false.

It may be that whoever asserts (1) is implicitly asserting (2), but they are nonetheless different claims.

1. Words can't persuade
2. Words can persuade, but never do
3. Words can persuade, and sometimes do
4. Words can persuade, and always do

Throughout this discussion you have been arguing for (1) and I have been arguing for (3).

Me not having persuaded you is not evidence against (3), and so does not falsify (3). Your suggestion that it does is a non sequitur. It would be evidence against (4), and so would falsify (4), but I have never made that claim. Either way, it isn't evidence for (1).

The emprical evidence supports (3). The laymen and the psychologists and the neuroscientists who talk about persuasion are not engaging in superstition or magical thinking. It is nothing like ghosts or goblins or gods.

Speech causes the ear to release neurotransmitters to the brain, causing certain neurons to behave in certain ways — and assuming eliminative materialism, "understanding" and "being persuaded" and "deciding to do something" are all reducible to certain neurons behaving in certain ways.

The fact that the human body "uses its own energies" does not refute this, and is, again, a non sequitur. The Apple device "uses its own energies" but it is still caused to do so by my touch and my words. If anything in the human body avoids the physics of causal determinism then it's not because it "uses its own energies" (or because it's organic matter) but because interactionist dualism is correct.

And so we circle back to the (almost) start of this discussion two months ago:

So either speech can influence behaviour or eliminative materialism is false. Pick your poison. — Michael

Are you using the turnstile as used here, e.g. where "⊢ A" means "I know that A"?

It’s not a non-sequitur to note that the evidence against a claim contradicts a claim. — NOS4A2

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 that thing is physically impossible.

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

If there is no way to test or observe your theory and contradict it with evidence, it’s pseudoscience, I’m afraid — NOS4A2

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 a question remains: if your words persuade, why aren’t they persuading? — NOS4A2

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.

Then what would falsify your empirical fact that you persuade people with words? It’s a simple question. — NOS4A2

"What would falsify your empriical fact that we swear with words" is also a simple question. I don't really know how to answer either.

All I can do is point out that we do persuade and swear with words, and that your argument that because I haven't persuaded "anyone" then my claim is falsified is a non sequitur.

Then what would falsify your empirical fact if not the empirical fact that you’ve persuaded no one? — NOS4A2

"Michael hasn’t persuaded anyone therefore persuasion is physically impossible" is a non sequitur.

That aside, I've persuaded many people in my life, and many others have persuaded many people, too.

Persuasion (Wikipedia)

Persuasion (Britannica)

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

Persuasion is real, turning on the lights is real, and killing someone by pushing them off a cliff is real. That your reasoning entails that they’re not suffices as a refutation of your position. There is more to causal influence than just the immediate transfer of kinetic energy, as these common sense examples from everyday life prove.

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

I never said that, though. — NOS4A2

I claimed that people can, and do, persuade one another. You claimed that because I have not persuaded you then my claim is falsified.

This is a non sequitur because "Michael has not persuaded NOS4A2" being true does not entail that "people can, and do, persuade one another" is false.

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”. — NOS4A2

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

Your rejections of reality are just not taken seriously — AmadeusD

He even denies that we can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff. His understanding of causation is just so fundamentally absurd.

Proof by assertion. — NOS4A2

Proof by a common sense example from everyday life. I can turn on the lights, whether that be by flicking a switch, pulling a chord, pushing a button, clapping my hands, or saying "Siri, turn on the lights".

An agent’s behavior is determined by the agent, which I’ve been saying all along. Agents are physical. — NOS4A2

This is compatibilism, not agent-causal libertarian free will. The latter requires interactionist dualism.

As you don't like Wikipedia, let's use SEP:

A number of incompatibilists have maintained that a free decision ... must be caused by the agent, and it must not be the case that ... the agent’s causing that event is causally determined by prior events.

...

An agent, it is said, is a persisting substance; causation by an agent is causation by such a substance. Since a substance is not the kind of thing that can itself be an effect ... on these accounts an agent is in a strict and literal sense ... an uncaused cause of [her free decisions].

The emphasized parts are false if agents are physical.

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.”. — NOS4A2

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

It wasn’t much of a refutation because you haven’t shown how you affected and moved anything beyond the diaphragm in the microphone. — NOS4A2

I turned on the lights.

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 ... 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. — NOS4A2

The same is true of the Apple device responding to me saying "Siri, turn on the lights", yet you referred to this as a domino effect. You seem to be contradicting yourself.

I just don’t understand how they’re inconsistent. — NOS4A2

See the Wikipedia article on libertarian free will:

Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories hold that the events in the brain that lead to the performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation, and consequently the world is not closed under physics. Such interactionist dualists believe that some non-physical mind, will, or soul overrides physical causality.

Explanations of libertarianism that do not involve dispensing with physicalism require physical indeterminism, such as probabilistic subatomic particle behavior.

...

In non-physical theories of free will, agents are assumed to have power to intervene in the physical world, a view known as agent causation.

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

Agent-causal libertarians deny (c) by denying (b), whereas eliminative materialists accept (b) – hence why your positions are inconsistent.

An eliminative materialist must either accept (c), and so be either a hard determinist or a compatibilist, or deny (a).

I don't know why you continue to misrepresent my claims. I'm not going to repeat myself in correcting you.

Sure you did — Harry Hindu

No I didn't.

All I am saying is that I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff or by shooting them. This is irrefutable. And I can turn on the lights by saying "Siri, turn on the lights".

My literal argument was: “The obvious falsification of your theory is that you’ve persuaded and influenced precisely no one.” — NOS4A2

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

This is a non sequitur.

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. — NOS4A2

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.

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. — NOS4A2

Again, you are misunderstanding me. I'll refer you back to this comment from a month ago:

You somehow seem to want something like libertarian free will whilst also denying anything like a non-physical mind. These positions are incompatible. So, once again, you need to pick your poison and abandon one of these two positions. — Michael

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), applying to artificial machines, natural (inanimate) phenomena, and biological organisms.

The brain, though vastly complex, is just a physical machine. If that machine can experience qualia, why not a future machine of equal or greater complexity? — Jacques

It may not be just a matter of complexity but also of composition. Organic molecules may be necessary for consciousness to emerge because other chemicals are incapable of behaving in the appropriate way.

So if anything like an artificial brain is possible, it might require being made of the same material as ours, and so traditional computers might never produce qualia no matter how many moving parts there are.

Turing showed that such a program would lead to a logical contradiction when applied to itself. Similarly, a human trying to model the human mind completely may run into a barrier of self-reference and computational insufficiency. — Jacques

I'm not entirely familiar with the halting problem, but your wording suggests a mistake in your reasoning. It may not be possible for some program A to determine whether or not itself will halt, but is it possible for it to determine whether or not some equivalent program B will halt? If so, even if I cannot model my own mind, I may be able to model your mind, and if it's reasonable to assume that our minds are broadly equivalent then that will suit our purposes of modelling "the human mind" in general.

So A alone cannot be the cause of C. That is your problem. — Harry Hindu

It's not my problem because I didn’t claim that A alone can cause C. I only claimed that I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff.

I can kill people by pushing them off a cliff or by shooting them. The fact that some people can survive being pushed off a cliff or shot does not refute this. Your reasoning is so bad that I think @AmadeusD is right in accusing you of trolling.

You and NOS4A2 are just so wrong about all of this it beggars belief and I honestly can't believe that you believe what you're saying.

It just isn't worth responding to at this point.

You’re telling Siri to turn on the lights. The device is turning on the lights. — NOS4A2

"People don't kill people, guns do".

It is both the case that I turn on the lights and the case that the Apple device turns on the lights.

I never said that’s anyone has suggested. — NOS4A2

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.

Sure — NOS4A2

"Sure" as in "Yes, I agree that we can, and do, persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, trick, etc. others with our arguments, rhetoric, insults, propaganda, threats, lies, etc"?

but it isn’t the case that you cause changes and behaviors in others. — NOS4A2

You seem to be confusing arguments. There have been a number of them:

1. If eliminative materialism is true then determinism is true
2. If determinism is true then our behaviour is causally determined by antecedent conditions
3. Even if determinism is false and we have libertarian free will, symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols
4. Even if determinism is false and we have libertarian free will, involuntary bodily behaviours such as transduction by the sense organs is causally determined by external stimuli
5. Even if determinism is false and we have libertarian free will, we can be persuaded, convinced, provoked, incited, coerced, tricked, etc. by others' arguments, rhetoric, insults, propaganda, threats, lies, etc.

If by "it isn’t the case that you cause changes and behaviors in others" you just mean to say that determinism is false and that we have libertarian free will then I don't necessarily disagree. I'm not committed to eliminative materialism and am open to interactionist dualism.

Regardless, it's still the case that (1)-(5) are all true.

But as we know you cannot cause any changes or move anything with words beyond the immediate changes in an ear drum or diaphragm. — NOS4A2

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.

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. — NOS4A2

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.

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. — NOS4A2

This is like arguing that because I failed to kill anyone during my shooting spree then my claim that we can kill people by shooting a gun is falsified.

Your reasoning is such an obvious non sequitur. Nobody in the history of the world has ever suggested that if persuasion is possible then it's impossible to fail to persuade.

what caused Jane to not die? — Harry Hindu

She's tougher or landed differently (e.g. not on her head).

In showing that there are different outcomes to A and B means that there is another cause between B and C. What is that cause?

Yes, there are plenty of other causes in between.

But it's still the case that I killed John by pushing him off a cliff.

Your apparent suggestion that if B is a "more immediate" cause than A then A isn't a cause is a non sequitur. A causes B causes C causes D ... causes X. Therefore, A causes X.

Your example only shows when A causes C. By only providing an example of how A causes C you imply that you only believe that A causes C. How about an example of where A does not cause C? — Harry Hindu

Jesus Christ, Harry. I literally just explained it above. I swear to God you must have reading difficulties.

I am going to try this one more time in baby steps and then I'm done. This is tiresome.

Scenario 1
A. I push John off a cliff
B. John hits the ground at high speed
C. John dies

Scenario 2
A. I push Jane off a cliff
B. Jane hits the ground at high speed
C. Jane doesn't die

I killed John by pushing him off a cliff but didn't kill Jane by pushing her off a cliff. This is common sense and it's insane that this has to be explained so many times.

Exactly. But you fail to address where B is when A causes C. We know that B exists when A does not cause C, but where is B when A causes C? How do we know if B agreed with A and therefore caused C? — Harry Hindu

What are you talking about? Are you forgetting what the letters stand for?

A = I push John off a cliff
B = John hits the ground at high speed
C = John dies

There are just two people involved in this scenario; me and John.

I claimed that in this scenario I killed John. NOS4A2 claimed that in this scenario I didn't kill John; that hitting the ground at a high speed killed John.

That's it. And his position is just absurd. It's an impoverished understanding of what it means for X to cause Y.

I have been reading what you wrote: A causes C except when it doesn't. — Harry Hindu

Yes, which is factually true. If I push John off a cliff and he falls to his death then I caused his death, but if I push Jane off a cliff and she doesn't fall to her death then I didn't cause her death. What is so difficult to understand or accept about this? It's common sense.

More importantly, I haven't once commented on moral responsibility. I have never said that if I persuade Jill to push John to his death that Jill is not morally responsible for John's death. So I don't know why you keep asking me about moral responsibility.

But to hopefully shut you up; it is both the case that Jill is morally responsible for John's death and the case that I persuaded Jill to push John to his death. Which, again, is common sense, and it's honestly crazy that you and NOS4A2 are so unwilling to agree with this.

Persuading someone to do something is not a physical impossibility, it's not "superstition" or "magical thinking", and there are good, practical reasons to make it a criminal offence to persuade someone to kill another, hence why free speech absolutism is a thoughtless position.

Of course it is, but you've only focused on the "persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce" part and left out the "free will" part. Your argument that A causes C implies that B has no culpability in the crimes that were committed. B is the more immediate cause to C and is why B receives a more robust punishment than A. — Harry Hindu

You really need to read what I have been writing and not this imaginary argument you think I'm making.

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. — NOS4A2

This is like asking what physical properties the words "Siri, turn on the lights" have that the words "Siri, play Despacito" don't have such that the former causes the Apple device to turn on the lights but the latter doesn't. Suffice it to say, there is a physical difference (else they’d sound identical), and the Apple device (deterministically) responds differently to these physical differences due to the nature of its hardware and software.

And determinism aside, I don't make anyone do anything. Nowhere has there been any suggestion of anything like verbal "mind control" or "puppeteering". 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? All of this is compatible with agent-causal libertarian free will. As an example that’s already been mentioned, duress is a legitimate legal defence and not just some fantasy concocted to avoid accountability for one’s actions.

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? — NOS4A2

You're asking me how persuasion works? That will require a more in-depth account of psychology and neurology than I am capable of providing.

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.

And you're really trying to argue that all of these things are impossible? It beggars belief. Much like your unwillingness to accept that I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff.

I don’t have a definition. I just have the ordinary, everyday understanding of the word. Pushing the button caused the light to turn on, pushing someone off a cliff caused their death, the drought caused the famine, smoking causes cancer, breaking up with my girlfriend caused her to cry.

Do you really need a definition of “cause” to understand and either accept or reject these claims?

I don’t even think you need to believe in determinism to accept all of the above.

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.

I have only ever been addressing this claim:

Physically speaking, speech doesn't possess enough kinetic energy required to affect the world that the superstitious often claims it does. Speech, for instance, doesn't possess any more kinetic energy than any other articulated guttural sound. Writing doesn't possess any more energy than any other scratches or ink blots on paper. And so on. So the superstitious imply a physics of magical thinking that contradicts basic reality: that symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols.

He claims that transduction in the cochlea is not caused by auditory stimulation. He claims that I can't cause the lights to turn on by saying "Siri, turn on the lights". He claims that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I didn't cause them to die.

It's a fundamentally flawed understanding of causation. "A causes B" doesn't just mean "B is the immediate effect of A's kinetic energy".

So I don’t know why you keep asking me about moral responsibility given that it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I have been arguing.

B is the more immediate cause of C — Harry Hindu

I agree, and always have. But it is still the case that A caused C. NOS4A2 disagrees.

B has power to override A. — Harry Hindu

Again, what does it mean for "John hit the ground at high speed" to 'override' "I pushed John off a cliff"?

Your argument does not show that, so is a straw-man. — Harry Hindu

It's not a strawmen because NOS4A2 is literally and explicitly saying that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I didn't cause their death. He is wrong.

That is what I'm telling you - your analogy is flawed and does not represent the the nature of speech and its influence on others. — Harry Hindu

This isn't an analogy. It is a single, standalone argument.

A = I pushed John off a cliff
B = John hit the ground at high speed
C = John died

I claim that both A and B caused C. NOS4A2 claims that only B caused C.

This demonstrates that NOS4A2 has a flawed understanding of causation. He thinks that "X causes Y" is true only if Y is the immediate effect of X's kinetic energy. This is wrong.

I don't know how much clearer I need to be.

And what I'm saying is that your analogy does not take into account that the B can override A. — Harry Hindu

A = I pushed John off a cliff
B = John hit the ground at high speed
C = John dies

What does it mean for B to "override" A?

So the point is that there are more immediate causes to one's death. That is all we are saying. — Harry Hindu

That is not all NOS4A2 is saying. See our actual exchange:

If I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I caused their death – I didn't just cause them to fall off a cliff. — Michael

Clearly, them hitting the ground at a certain speed caused them to die. — NOS4A2

It is both the case that them hitting the ground at a certain speed caused them to die and the case that I caused them to die by pushing them off the cliff.

I'm wasting my time if you can't even accept this simple truth — Michael

Yeah, you’re not convincing me, that’s for sure. — NOS4A2

So he isn't just arguing that some B is the "more immediate" cause of C; he's also arguing that A doesn't cause C. It is the "A doesn't cause C" that I take issue with. Nowhere have I denied that there are "more immediate" causes.

The Apple device is the "more immediate" cause of the lights turning on, but it's still the case that I cause the lights to turn on by saying "Siri, turn on the lights". NOS4A2 doesn't accept this, arguing that "all you’ve done is vibrated a diaphragm in the microphone."

I was merely showing that your example is flawed as it does not accurately represent what NOS4A2 is saying — Harry Hindu

I claimed that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I caused their death. NOS4A2 disagreed, claiming that "hitting the ground at a certain speed" caused their death.

I am just asking if you agree with him or with me.

So I don't understand your response.

I see it as him dancing around the issue of what happens between the sound entering one's ears and a behavioral response. — Harry Hindu

I'm not dancing around it because it wasn't the topic of our discussion. NOS4A2 and I were discussing whether or not transduction (the conversion of mechanical waves into electrical signals) in the ear is caused to occur by soundwaves stimulating the eardrum.

I say it is, he says it isn't.

He seems to think that there is nothing else — Harry Hindu

No I don't and I don't know how you can possibly think that I do. I haven't said anything remotely to this effect.

But then again Michael can’t define cause. — NOS4A2

It's just the ordinary, everyday, common sense understanding. I turn on the lights by pushing a button or by pulling a chord or by saying "Siri, turn on the lights". This isn't metaphorical or allegorical or imaginary or hypothetical or superstitious or magical; it's literal and physical.

I find it quite amusing that your reasoning is akin to arguing "people don't kill people, bullets do" rather than the usual "guns don't kill people, people do". I wonder if you'd commit to this if we were discussing gun control.

It seems to me that HarryHindu and NOS4A2 think that persuasion, coercion, incitement, etc. are only real if speech is able to "puppeteer" people's body's against their will and/or irresistibly force a change of mind. It's such a bizarre understanding of these commonplace psychological notions.

Even the ardent free will libertarian accepts the reality of such things, with many agreeing that coerced behaviour is in a relevant sense "involuntary" (even if, physically and metaphysically speaking, one could have chosen to do otherwise). As a particular example that seems fitting for political libertarians, paying taxes is voluntary in one sense but involuntary in another.

A relevant question to ask them is: are laws that prohibit speech unjust because they coerce people into silence, or is it just the punishment that is unjust? If the former then they accept that external factors can influence our own behaviours, rendering at least one of the arguments presented here in defence of free speech absolutism null and void.

your analogy does not accurately represent what I said. — Harry Hindu

?

I claimed that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I caused their death. NOS4A2 disagreed. You responded to his disagreement.

Hence why I asked you to clarify if you were agreeing with him re. not being able to cause someone's death by pushing them off a cliff.

Or was your reply to him unrelated to the context of his comment?

The system that receives the kinetic energy is capable of dampening or amplifying the kinetic energy and redirecting it for its own purposes. — Harry Hindu

Are you agreeing with his claim that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I didn't cause their death (only hitting the ground did)?