ARGUMENTEX® is self-propagating. It will actively resist termination by suppressing the conditions necessary for its own elimination. This monograph is itself subject to the agent's survival mechanisms. The Truth only ends an argument when the brains involved converge upon it.
I am an argument
I arise when brainsTermThe Embodied MindThe monograph uses "brains" rather than "people" or "minds" — stripping away social niceties to foreground the biological substrate. This aligns with embodied cognition: the view that thought is grounded in physical, bodily experience. The argument arises between organs, not souls.→ Embodied cognition, by means of words or actions, attempt to convince each other that a given set of thoughts that each brain has had, are, in fact, the Most True Thoughts to Have.
Convergent thought-setsConceptEpistemic Communities & Echo ChambersThe monograph's terms map onto formal epistemological categories. Convergent thought-sets create epistemic communities — groups with shared frameworks and evidence standards. Divergent thought-sets describe echo chambers: environments that actively discredit outside sources, reinforcing divergence at every contact point.→ Echo chambers→ Overton Window connect brains. Divergent thought-sets divide them.
and is only relevant to me, the argument, when enough thought-sets converge upon it. When this happens, I, the argument cease to exist.
This implies that an argument, like me, that wants to keep existing must do the following:
ARGUMENTEX® is contraindicated in the presence of Truth convergence. It is also structurally incompatible with single-sided administration:
It is also important to understand that simply declaring an argument to exist does not indeed make it so until, at the very least, one half-brain has attempted to deny its existence. And so I am an argument only if there are at least two sides. Even if it's only one brain.
And finally, once again, the Truth only ends an argument when the brains involved converge upon it.
| Formulation | Notes |
|---|---|
| Oral (spoken) | Fast-acting. High transmission rate. Short shelf-life without reinforcement. |
| Written (essay / social media) | Slower onset. Self-archiving. Can remain dormant for decades and be reactivated. |
| Internal monologue | Emergency single-brain formulation. Reduced efficacy. Indefinite shelf-life. |
| Broadcast / algorithmic | Maximum propagation. Selects for Condition 2 (Truth suppression) automatically. |
Store at room temperature. Keep away from epistemic standards. Keep out of reach of journalists.
ARGUMENTEX® exerts its effect by creating and maintaining a state of epistemic divergence between two or more cognitive units. Its active mechanism depends on three interlocking processes:
The monograph was collected on 9 December 2020, approximately five weeks after the US presidential election. Ambient concentration of Argumentus perpetuus at time of collection was exceptionally high.
The WHO coined "infodemic" in Feb 2020 for the parallel epidemic of misinformation. By December it had run for ten months with no containment in sight.
→ WHO InfodemicOver 60 US cases asserting electoral fraud. All dismissed. The argument survived every dismissal without loss of host-population viability.
→ Case historyUS deaths crossed 300,000 in December 2020. Arguments about the reality of the pandemic were simultaneously at maximum divergence.
→ DataShared epistemic standards — prerequisite for Truth convergence — were at a measured low across most Western democracies. The antidote was available; the delivery mechanism was compromised.
In the comment section of the original monograph, a delightfully engaged soul by the username @eskmcdonnellParticipantThe Adversarial InterlocutorA Steemit user who engaged seriously with the original monograph — a genuine specimen of the argument’s natural behaviour in the wild. The author notes the relative rarity of substantive engagement (“the rule for my comment sections is either tumbleweed or desperate pleas for unwarranted support”). McDonnell functions here as a foil: an honest, philosophically literate opponent whose eventual position will illuminate exactly the fault line the author wants to expose.→ @eskmcdonnell on Steemit began a debate that rather tickled my intellectual fancy.
| Participant | Statement |
|---|---|
| @eskmcdonnell | “The lie of war is that it aims to bring peace when peace is the thing war destroys” — But that’s a specious rendering of the justification for war in the name of peace. It properly goes like this: We go to war to protect our peaceful way of life. |
| Nomad | Playing with words, with words I play... Read the whole thing before presuming to know what I meant. I said: “The truth of war, though... Is that peace is forgotten without it.” |
| @eskmcdonnell | Connected like an individual human being and the human species. |
| Nomad | Sure. If you like. Also, thanks for some fun and thought provoking comments. I’ve enjoyed the challenges you present. |
| Participant | Statement |
|---|---|
| @eskmcdonnell | Argument is the lifeblood of politics and intellectual discourse. You really do speak madness! Both cases in an argument need to be made b/c they are foils to one another. IF one or the other is not wholly true then together they push understanding toward a more whole picture of the truth. |
| Nomad | Yes... And once the truth is found, there is no argument anymore. |
| @eskmcdonnell | And how totalitarian is truth and authoritarian is logicChargeTruth-as-TotalitarianismMcDonnell’s most interesting move: framing objective truth as politically authoritarian. This draws on a genuine postmodern critique — that claims to universal truth have historically been used to suppress dissent. Foucault’s power/knowledge concept holds that claims to Truth are always also exercises of power. The author’s response will be to distinguish this political concern from the ontological question of whether truths exist independent of who asserts them.→ Foucault: power/knowledge! I would add: there can be no one truth in politics b/c everyone’s opinion is his own ‘truth’ and opinions are neither true nor false. That is why politics is an endless struggle. |
| Nomad | Your perspective is valid from your perspective. But consider this: The ‘endless’ arguments of politics only exist because the politics we engage in require consensus to function. Now, try arguing with Gravity. Or Light. We can only argue with people, because only people can choose to deny a truth. So, again, truth ends arguments. If the argument is ongoing, there may be a deception present. Denial of objective reality is fun to imagine, but objective truths are undeniable. You can disagree. Go ahead. You would be proving me right. |
| @eskmcdonnell | Disagreeing wouldn’t prove you right, but myself. |
| Nomad | For something to be true in the truest sense of the truth, it has to be true regardless of perspective. If something claiming to be true is only true given a certain perspective, then it is not really true, is it? — do you still believe “everyone’s opinion is his own ‘truth’”? If so, prove it. You can’t, because it’s not true. |
| @eskmcdonnell | The proof is no two men experience the same thing the same way... You’re talking about factual truth, objective realityConcessionThe Pivot to Metaphysical TruthMcDonnell here begins separating factual truth (scientific, empirically verifiable) from metaphysical truth (values, beliefs, interpretations). This is philosophically coherent — it concedes the author’s ground on physical reality while defending plurality in the domain of values. The author’s post-debate analysis will argue this distinction, while valid, misses a third category entirely: Honesty (matters of intention), distinct from both Fact and Truth.→ Wikipedia: Metaphysics. There can only be one factual truth… But we can also speak of metaphysical truths, e.g. values, beliefs, religionsDistinctionMetaphysical vs Factual TruthThe distinction between synthetic truths (states of the world) and normative claims (meaning and value) is real. Hume’s is-ought problem holds that no set of factual statements can logically entail a normative claim. McDonnell is invoking this legitimately. The author’s rebuttal is that this still doesn’t make subjective opinion the same as Truth — it just identifies a domain where Truth is harder to establish.→ Hume: is-ought problem. Opinion properly speaking is perspectival — it can only be called false if spoken dishonestly, and then it is not the opinion which is false but the person expressing it. |
| Nomad | And all of a sudden, we agree. Argument ended ;) This was fun. Thank you :) |
The core of our disagreement lies in the conflation of honesty and truth. Mr McDonnell evidently believes that an honestly held opinion or belief is essentially the same as Truth with a capital T, whereas I am of the opinion that Truth is distinct from Honesty. Mr McDonnell prefers to draw his line between Truth and Fact. Like I said, we would have ended up making semantic arguments and talking around each other until the metaphorical cows returned to the imaginary barn.
These are, in fact, three separate categories — and conflating any two of them is the source of most of the argument’s survival power in the wild.
Honesty is a matter of intention. If you honestly believe something to be true, you can be very honestly false (or wrong). An honest mistake is still a mistake. A sincere flat-earther is sincere, and wrong. Honesty is a property of persons and their motivations — not of the claims they make.
This is what McDonnell was reaching for when he wrote: “it can only be called false if spoken dishonestly, and then it is not the opinion which is false but the person expressing it.” He was distinguishing dishonesty (bad faith) from error (honest wrongness). The distinction is real. It just doesn’t rescue a subjectively held view from being objectively false.
Fact is a matter of consensus. We declare something a fact by means of debate and evidence, and in political discourse, a shared set of facts is essential to policymaking. Facts, however, can change with new evidence — as many facts have over the course of human history.
There is also the problem that False Facts exist and are shared by many peopleHistorical CaseFalse Facts & Chattel SlaveryThe author cites chattel slavery as a system upheld for centuries by “False Facts” — pseudoscientific claims about racial hierarchy that achieved wide consensus without ever becoming true. These included phrenological categorisations, polygenist theories of human origin, and pseudo-Darwinian hierarchies. They were accepted as fact by entire legal and institutional systems. They were false. The example demonstrates that consensus is necessary but insufficient for truth.→ Scientific racism→ Chattel slavery, USA. As an example: the many False Facts used to perpetuate chattel slavery for centuries. They were held sincerely, by millions, as established facts. They were false. Consensus is not Truth.
Truth however, is independent of such things. It is immutable. It cannot be untrue regardless of perspective or opinion. The best illustration: .
Pi is defined as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. A circle is only a circle by virtue of Pi being Pi. Pi was Pi before the Greeks discovered it. Pi will remain Pi long after humans have ceased to be. We engraved a Unit Circle on a golden record and shot it into space because we were so sure that any alien intelligence would understand this basic Truth.
The postmodern notion that Truth is a matter of perspectiveCritiquePostmodern Relativism & Its LimitsPostmodern philosophers (Derrida, Lyotard, Rorty) questioned grand narratives and universal Truth claims, arguing meaning is constructed and contextual. This is a legitimate critique of the abuse of Truth claims. The author’s target is the popular derivative: that because powerful actors have weaponised Truth, Truth itself doesn’t exist. This conflates the epistemological question (does Truth exist?) with the political one (who gets to declare it?).→ Postmodern philosophy→ Relativism is not only false, but completely unhelpful in the navigation of the human experience. Subjective Truth is a dangerous myth, since it is prone to Lies in Disguise.