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? — NOS4A2

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.

Not all smokers get cancer. Not all droughts cause famines. People can fall off cliffs and live. — NOS4A2

I have never claimed otherwise. That A can cause B isn't that A always causes B (and so that some particular A didn't cause B isn't that A can't cause B).

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.

In every case it is me moving my eyes, focussing on the words, reading them, and so on down the line. — NOS4A2

And you think that this is mutually exclusive with the words causally affecting your body and brain?

The physical existence of the printed words physically cause light to reflect the way it does, physically causing your eyes to release the neurotransmitters they do, physically causing the neurons in your brain to behave the way they do ("understanding").

Tim apparently asserts that language is governed by conventions. The best rebuttal of that of which I am aware is Davidson's essay. I've used it before, it has been discussed at length. — Banno

Quoting from here:

Davidson denies that conventions shared by members of a linguistic community play any philosophically interesting role in an account of meaning. Shared conventions facilitate communication, but they are in principle dispensible. For so long as an audience discerns the intention behind a speaker’s utterance, for example, he intends that his utterance of “Schnee ist weiss” mean that snow is white, then his utterance means that snow is white, regardless of whether he and they share the practice that speakers use “Schnee ist weiss” to mean that snow is white.

Assuming that this is an accurate summary, it seems to me that Davidson believes both that words and phrases have conventional meanings and that words and phrases can be used to mean anything a speaker intends. So yours and Count Timothy's positions might not be incompatible.

But what if we actually spoke about assertions rather than circumlocutions that may or may not indicate assertion? What about:

a) "The cat is on the mat."
b) "I assert the cat is on the mat." — Leontiskos

They mean different things and have different truth conditions.

(a) is true if and only if the cat is on the mat
(b) is true if and only if I assert that the cat is on the mat

(b) can be true even if (a) is false.

I believe it means we come to agree with an argument by assessing it with our own reasoning and judgement. — NOS4A2

And you think that this is mutually exclusive with "his argument persuaded me"?

Great, a new theory of causation. — NOS4A2

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

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. — NOS4A2

And you think that this is mutually exclusive with the comments causing you to respond?

The comments themselves had no causal power, for the simple reason that they do not possess the kind of energy to impel such actions. — NOS4A2

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”.

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. — NOS4A2

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).

The notion that material strings have strict meanings without taking context and intention into account is not going to get us anywhere. — Leontiskos

I wasn't offered any context when bongo fury asked me what they mean. So I think it's both reasonable and correct to say that "the cat is on the mat" and "I think that the cat is on the mat" mean different things and have different truth conditions, with it being possible that one is true and the other false.

Yes, it’s obvious various brain regions light up when we read and come to agree with something — NOS4A2

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’ve outright ignored countless people, even you. Did they provoke me not to respond, then? — NOS4A2

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.

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. — NOS4A2

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.

Do you think that those sentence strings mean those different things as they stand? Or do you only mean that they will end up meaning the different things if and when they are later on asserted? — bongo fury

They mean different things whether asserted or not.

Haha, 3 a step too far?

Are you back peddling on 1 also? Its being a claim and an assertion, even while lacking a prefix to that effect?

You seemed to provide confirmation on the point. But there may have been a misunderstanding. — bongo fury

I just don't understand what you're trying to say.

All I am saying is that "the cat is on the mat" and "I think that the cat is on the mat" mean different things, as shown by the fact that one can be true and the other false.

And 1. is no less a claim (or assertion) for lacking a personal endorsement (or other assertion sign).

And the string "the cat is on the mat" is no less a claim (etc.) even for being embedded in

3. It's false that the cat is on the mat. — bongo fury

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

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. — NOS4A2

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

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. — NOS4A2

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).

In those instances, where have the causal powers of your words disappeared to? — NOS4A2

They haven't disappeared. They caused your eyes to release neurotransmitters to your brain, causing certain neurons to behave in certain ways. It just happens to be that this neural behaviour is not the neural behaviour referred to by the phrase "understanding the words and being persuaded" but instead by the phrase "understanding the words and being stubborn".

If words can persuade or otherwise move someone to some other behavior, then it should be easy to get me to agree. — NOS4A2

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.

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.