Influencing the Other Person’s Reality…

Do you ever wish you could control how reality works?

That you could just wave your hand and make the world bend to your will?

Well, it turns out you can – sort of.

All it takes is a little bit of understanding about how people perceive the world around them.

If you know how people’s brains work, then you can pretty much control what they think and how they feel.

You can structure their reality for them – and even for yourself.

It sounds like magic, but it’s really just psychology.

And once you know the secrets, which are used in political speeches all the time, there’s no limit to what you can do.

So … Do you wish you could control how reality works?

I don’t even have to ask, do I?

Okay, that’s why you’re here so let’s take the first steps to learn to do just that.

What is Reality and How Do you Structure it with Persuasion?

Reality consists as much with the structure that’s defined…

…as it does with the assumptions we make about that structure.

Wow.

Read that again, would you?

Just stop everything for a minute and read that again.

I want you to really think about what this paragraph says and what it implies.

Reality consists as much with the structure that’s defined as it does with the assumptions we make about that structure.

I’m not usually one to toot my own horn, but this time I really have to give myself a pat on the back.

What I said in that definition was pure brilliance, if I do say so myself.

Reaching around and giving myself a well-deserved pat, feels great!

This one sentence holds the key to improving your persuasion skills.

If you can internalize and apply this sentence to your behaviors and language, you will see a dramatic improvement in your ability to persuade others and your skills will skyrocket forwards.

So our actions are always based on what we believe to be reality.

However, what we perceive as reality is defined by the assumptions we make. These assumptions shape our perceptions and how we see the world around us.

So you can change someone’s reality by shaping their assumptions.

By influencing what a person assumes, you can control how they perceive the world around them.

In other words, you can influence someone’s reality simply by altering their assumptions.

Leading Thoughts to Their Conclusions

That statement is even more true when it comes to words and what they imply or presuppose.

I want to give you now a two part major persuasion truism.

This has formed the basis of my work for many, many years, or it forms a root, shall we say, one of the roots of my work, for many, many years clear back before I could even articulate it.

Here is a truism to almost end all truisms:

People might believe what they are told, but they will always believe their own conclusions.

You may be able to convince someone of something, but they will always truly believe it if they come to that conclusion on their own.

And part two of that is, and they will form those conclusions as much from what you don’t say, as what you do.

I want you to memorize this and live by it.

I’m going to write it again so that you can remember it.

This is important, so please don’t forget it.

People might believe what they are told, but they will always believe their own conclusions and they will form those conclusions as much from what you don’t say, as what you do.

Wow, I want you to really internalize this message.

Write it down, print it out, carry it with you everywhere.

Rehearse it over and over again until it becomes a part of who you are.

Incorporate it into your persuasion skills.

What is a Presupposition and How Does It Shape Thought?

I would appreciate if you could give me the definition of the word presupposition.

I would like you to take a minute to think about what the definition of the word is and then read on when you’ve come up with an answer.

Just think about it for a minute.

Something is presupposed.

What does that mean?

How do you identify presuppositions?

All right, have you come up with an answer? Well, I certainly hope so.

The dictionary defines it like this. “To suppose or assume beforehand, take for granted in advance.”

Hmmm. That’s pretty interesting, don’t you think?

To suppose or assume beforehand.

In other words, before you know, you’re assuming or you’re going to take something for granted before you know it to be so in advance.

Doesn’t this remind you of a political speech, which is often short of definite descriptions and full of nominalizations… leaving you to use your own cognitive processes to fill in the blanks when the speaker presupposes a shared knowledge?

Politicians tend to employ persuasive presuppositions a lot.

This means that when you apply any critical discourse analysis to a political speech and make a pragmatic study of it, you will discover that they are full of presupposition triggers.

In order to comprehend political speeches, you are required to make multiple assumptions.

The fundamental role of these assumptions is to make you believe the presuppositions triggered are your own ideas.

The second definition, “of a thing, condition or state of affairs to require or imply as an antecedent condition, an effect presupposes a cause”.

I love both of these. In essence, to make sense of something, a person will also assume its implied cause.

Even when this has not been explicitly stated, this is still something that the individual does in order to better comprehend the situation.

Mundane Examples of Presuppositions

So presuppositions are assumptions that are made prior to making an argument or statement, and are typically taken for granted or accepted as true in the context of the conversation.

Here are some very mundane examples of typical presuppositions, so you can see how the underlying assumptions are made, without direct conscious interjection:

“I’m sure you’re busy, but can you help me with this project?”

This statement presumes that the person being addressed is busy.

“Since you’re a doctor, you must be smart.”

This statement presumes that all doctors are smart.

“I didn’t see you at the party last night. Were you there?”

This statement presumes that the person being addressed was invited to the party.

“I can’t believe it’s already Friday. The week just flew by!”

This statement presumes that the listener is aware of what day it is and that it is currently Friday.

“Have you finished your homework yet?”

This statement presumes that the person being addressed has homework to do.

So you can see from these simplistic, everyday examples how the assumption simply arises from the context of the statement and is automatically accepted and processed.

Now imagine if you could induce such assumptions in more meaningful and persuasive contexts.

If you set up the right presupposition triggers, your listener will fill in the blanks for themselves, all of the assumptions shared that you want them to grasp.

They will believe this presupposed information to have originated in their own minds, so will then accept and believe it as part of the ongoing discourse.

Persuasively Using Presuppositions to Structure Reality

What if we could assume a mental position or thought that the person has to take for granted in order to fully understand what we are saying?

In other words, the core concept has to be taken for granted just to make sense of what you’re telling them.

You don’t have to name it in your linguistic material for them to get the idea.

They just assume it for themselves in order to make sense of what is said.

That is powerful.

I would define presupposition as, that which must be accepted as true in order to make sense of the sentence.

In other words, it is an assumption that the speaker or writer makes about the world which is necessary for the sentence to be meaningful.

So think about that definition for a moment.

In other words, if it is that which must be accepted as true, it has to be accepted because you didn’t say it.

In other words, it’s assumed, or presupposed.

This means that you take it on faith and don’t question it.

My definition again: that which must be accepted as true in order to make sense of the sentence.

If you say something, it doesn’t have to be assumed that you said it.

You’ve actually said it.

Making Other People Start to Think Your Thoughts For Themselves

So start to wrap your mind around the idea that you’re going to learn to start to talk in ways that presuppose what you want someone to think.

In other words, you will learn how to prime someone’s thoughts in a certain direction by the way that you speak to them using linguistically marked presuppositions.

Pragmatic presupposition accommodation is a powerful tool that can help you get what you want out of any conversation.

They have to assume the core of what you want them to think just in order to make sense of what you’re saying.

If they didn’t assume your triggered presupposition, then your words would be meaningless gibberish to them.

In other words, they need to share your basic assumptions in order to find common ground to understand you.

See how we’re getting closer to being able to influence people’s thoughts through verbal communication without having to tell them what to think or giving them definite descriptions, using only linguistically marked presuppositions.

This allows us to more subtly control what people believe and how they behave.

The idea is, we want to get massively to the point where we don’t have to say the ideas.

And where does this take us?

Take a look back at our truism:

People might believe what they are told, but they will always believe their own conclusions.

And those conclusions can be induced through use of presupposition triggers.

If you can use presuppositions to get people to assume certain things without you having to say them, they are going to believe these to be true.

This is because the conclusions come from themselves, from inside their own minds and thought processes.

By getting people to fill in the gaps with their own assumptions, you can lead them to believe whatever you want them to.

We’ll have a lot more to say about presuppositions in future articles, so be sure to check back regularly for new updates.

Presuppositions are an important part of communication and understanding and a key tool in persuasion, so it’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest information.