But an attribution of motive and what the motive actually is are not necessarily the same thing, right? I mean, take tonight--I went to my boyfriend's brother's house for my boyfriend's (rather belated) birthday dinner. Now, you may think I went for the food, and certainly I did eat, but I went to spend time with my boyfriend while he can. Are you right? No. Is my eating (ie a benefit that aligns with your supposition of my motive) proof that you're right? No. Can I provide evidence that you're wrong? Yes. Do I have to?

No. You're the one speculating; you're the one who must provide evidence.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Well, disregard my expertise if you like; fine with me.

In your example, you appear to be assuming that your eating would be the only evidence for your motive. But the interpretation has to fit with all your past, current and future acts; and it has to be the best possible fit.

Hello. Are you being deliberatly obtuse? Do you have me on ignore? You are measuring a smoke trail. The smoke starts from the middle where they generally like to put the engines these days. i.e. your measurements are wrong.

Once more. Bonus material:

Edited to add another annoying gif.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

I'm afraid you haven't understood the point. There is no truth beyond, or underlying, an attribution of motive. This quite simply is what motives are.

No, you haven't understood Jay's point, which is that there is always some chance, even if only a very small one, that the attribution will be incorrect. Therefore, the attribution is necessarily separate from the actual motive, which can never be known with complete certainty.

A quite predictable putdown of my discipline, with your usual trump card of accountability.

Why do you consider this to be a "putdown" of philosophy? Would you be casting aspersions on engineering if you were to observe that being an engineer does not qualify one to perform brain surgery or argue a criminal case?

I know that you find expertise important, hence I mention it.

Direct question, Brumsen: Would you be willing to fly on an airliner that had been designed by a team of philosophers who claimed that their superior analytical skills qualified them to design aircraft? Would you be willing to be operated on by a team of philosophers who similarly claimed that they were qualified to perform surgery? If not, then why do you feel that expertise is unimportant in a forensic engineering investigation?

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

I am enjoying this philosophical discussion between Jay and Brumsen.

Well, disregard my expertise if you like; fine with me.

We are not disregarding your expertise, but asking you to apply it by clarifying and expanding on your claims.

In your example, you appear to be assuming that your eating would be the only evidence for your motive. But the interpretation has to fit with all your past, current and future acts; and it has to be the best possible fit.

This is a good point. There is a wide context of action that is relevant to motive. The way Jay described "internalized" and "external expression" of motives made them sound like reified discrete entities of some sort that existed apart from the wide context of action. I am not sure that was, um, intended, though. That is just one way we talk about motives.

Going back to an prior statement of yours:

There is no truth beyond, or underlying, an attribution of motive. This quite simply is what motives are.

Let's say a jury must decide if a defendant is guilty of premeditated murder. As I understand you, each juror reviews the defendant's actions prior to, during, and after the murder and attributes a plausible story to them. This attributed story constitutes the defendant's motive.

If I have that right, why should the defendant be held accountable and have to serve time for a motive that is essentially a property of the jury?

From the fact that an attribution of motive can be incorrect it does not at all follow that a correct attribution is somehow a report of something internal. Your "therefore" thus doesn't hold.

As I understood the discussion, the point was about whether or not there is an absolute truth to the matter whether someone acted from a particular motive. I denied this, and Jay said that scientists understand very well the point which I denied to be true, philosophers have trouble with it.
So why would natural scientists have expertise relevant to the question under discussion? I claim it as falling within the expertise of philosophers.
Your rhetorical question is irrelevant.

No and no. I didn't mean to say that expertise is wholly unimportant, but I deny that expertise means that everybody else has to keep their mouth shut.

I am glad somebody does.

By the way, I am not sure this is the place to conduct that discussion. Interested folks are advised to read e.g. The intentional stance by Daniel Dennett.

This is not usually how a juror's work is understood, but you're right that on the account that I have been pushing here, it should be understood that way.

But I really do not understand your last point. There are correct and incorrect attributions of motive, or at the very least: better and worse ones. So to say that attributing a motive is an act of interpretation, not a report of some internal state, is certainly not to say that anything goes.

The interpretation has to fit the defendant's actions. So why say that the motive is essentially a property of the jury, not the defendant?

From the fact that an attribution of motive can be incorrect it does not at all follow that a correct attribution is somehow a report of something internal. Your "therefore" thus doesn't hold.

I'll wait for Jay to clarify whether or not this is what he meant, but if it is, I agree with him.

As I understood the discussion, the point was about whether or not there is an absolute truth to the matter whether someone acted from a particular motive. I denied this, and Jay said that scientists understand very well the point which I denied to be true, philosophers have trouble with it.
So why would natural scientists have expertise relevant to the question under discussion? I claim it as falling within the expertise of philosophers.
Your rhetorical question is irrelevant.

Having known several philosophy students (both undergraduate and graduate), I again have to agree with Jay on this one--philosophers do have trouble with the concept of absolute truth. I have actually seen these people sit around and construct "ironclad" proofs of propositions that are clearly absurd, by means of logical and rhetorical hair-splitting (not unlike the approach you have taken on this forum). I have also, on at least one occasion, been interrupted during a scientific debate with such helpful observations as "you can't prove anything because you can't prove the universe exists."

No and no. I didn't mean to say that expertise is wholly unimportant, but I deny that expertise means that everybody else has to keep their mouth shut.

The problem is, many people here have repeatedly attempted to explain to you why those with the relevant expertise have no problem accepting that the "official" story of the September 11 attacks is substantially accurate, and why many of the purported anomalies in that story either are not anomalous, or have innocent explanations. You and your cohorts, however, persistently ignore these efforts, and by means of rhetorical gymnastics, tortured reasoning, and just plain handwaving, attempt to explain them away (for example, by claiming that no other physicists besides Jones are speaking out because they are afraid of losing research money). Your reason for so doing is clearly that you are desperate to find evidence of a conspiracy in order to further your admitted political agenda. Further, you have nothing to lose by continued conspiracy mongering--even if you can't prove anything, you still get to attack the US Government. So it's a win-win situation for you and other 9/11 conspiracists.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Thank you jt-3d for your opinion. ~Ian

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Goddard's Journal

Maybe this conversation about motive has become too esoteric? If I might attempt to simplify Jay's position and return to the murder example...


Brumsen, Jay's point is that it is useless to speculate motives for crimes for which there is no evidence. It's really as simple as that. I have motives for robbing a bank or rigging a car accident to bump-off my wife and collect insurance money. Frankly, I like money and I like what it can do for me. It would be very easy to make an excellent case against me based on motive alone, much easier if you examine my spending patterns and see that I like expensive electronic toys and fancy kitchen do-dads (yeah... I like to cook... what about it???) . The problem is I have done neither. I haven't robbed a bank and I haven't set out to murder my wife. I have no intention of doing either. Speculation about my motive in either case, absent evidence of an actual crime, is fruitless.

In the case of 9/11 CTs you need actual evidence of foul play on the part of the U.S. gov't before any skeptics will take speculation about motive seriously. Again, we can invent many realistic motives for bad things anyone might have done, but absent actual evidence they have done it such speculation is meaningless. Criminal investigators will tell you essentially the same thing. When a crime is committed there are lots of people with a motive to do it, but you have to construct some actual evidence against them before you can move a case forward and actually charge someone. The CBers work backwards from this basic premise. They demonstrate that I have a motive to get money illegally and would have me arrested for robbing a bank or killing my wife whether or not there is any evidence I did either. In fact, a lack of actual robbed banks or a live spouse only makes me more guilty and others suspect. The bank employees are covering up out of fear or because I bought them off. My wife is a clone or a very good look-alike and her family, friends, and co-workers are silenced through fear and intimidation or are craven lackies whom I have bought off..... CBers persist in these lines of thought contrary to all evidence about how people actually behave in these situations.

The 9/11 CTs are even more problematic. They not only have no evidence that their preferred suspects committed the crime, but have to refute mountains of evidence that point directly to another group of suspects, who incidentally have not only a huge motive but also have a history of similar criminal activity.

Okay, so as is my custom I think I'm going to make a short point and go off on a tear. But, perhaps this summation will help: Any serious accusations of guilt based on motive alone are specious. One must construct a reasonable line of evidence first, then tie that evidence to proposed motives, then make an accusation. CBers work backwards from preferred suspects they accuse and then for whom they invent motives and openly reject any evidence that does not confirm their a-priori preferred suspects. This is a problem and why you are running into so much flak on a board dedicated to science, reason, and skeptical analysis. Your manner of analysis simply is quite backwards from how a proper investigation of factual events works.

I want to follow my last post up a with another related thought. The CTers also like to invent means by which a crime might have been committed by a suspect, also without any evidence that the suspect committed the act or that the proposed means actually occured. In the case of me and the bank robbery or doing-away with my wife they might propose that I somehow circumvented the bank's security system and snuck away with money, the bank might not even know they've been robbed yet! Or they will go through a litany of means by which I might have killed my wife... cut break lines, rigged traffic signals, paid another driver to run her off the road or deliberately collide with her. On and on and on. All without a shred of evidence that any of these things happened.

With these "tools" of analysis at hand they feel free to accuse anyone they wish because not only can they invent a motive for their preferred suspects they can also invent plausible or highly convoluted means by which the crime could have been committed. All without any evidence of a crime or evidence against a preferred suspect. And when others correctly knock the legs out from under these theories by pointing out things like... oh my wife is alive... well, then the've got that great fallback position of widening the conspiracy to include more people.

Well, since you have an admitted expertise in logical arguments, I'm sure you realize that your first statement is a logical fallacy.

Also, you changed "manipulations" to "alterations", which has a completely different meaning, so you have "altered" ("manipulated"?) your argument, and then taken it on a tangent. I will not speculate on your motive(s) for these actions.

Finally, by now you should have read the numerous posts from others - including those with expertise and experience in this speciic area - detailing a Most Probable Cause for the VHS to digital to VHS manipulations... an MPC, btw, which seems consistent with the evidence and the technology, and which does not hint at "nefarious motives."

I repeat, "So?"

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

This is not usually how a juror's work is understood,

That is true. I was just looking for an example that involves obvious and significant consequences for the individual or group claimed to have a particular motive.

So why say that the motive is essentially a property of the jury, not the defendant?

I was addressing your statement: "There is no truth beyond, or underlying, an attribution of motive. This quite simply is what motives are."

I took that to mean that motives are attributions. The attribution is given by the jury. Hence, I took it that motive is a property of the jury. Did I misunderstand you?

Ah, no. I was perhaps not clear enough.
A motive is not identical with an attribution. Rather, talk of motives is shorthand for the story that best fits past, present and future actions; it is not talk about internal states.
So, in that sense, there is nothing over and above the act of interpretation in attributing motive. But given that the actions are the defendant's, so is the motive.

OK. So your argument here runs something like this:

Some philosophers (or philosophy students...) make and defend silly claims.
Some philosophers hold that there is no absolute truth about whether someone had a particular motive or not.
Therefore, that there is no absolute truth about whether someone had a motive or not is a silly claim (and for this claim about motives you can basically substitute any claim that is made by a philosopher!)

and then the argument goes on like this, I guess:

If somebody from discipline X makes a silly claim about Y, then claims about Y are best left to scientists, regardless of whatever else can be said about whose expertise Y is.

Hmmm... how is this not a putdown?

I do have a life, you know... so my time is valuable. I am not "conspiracy mongering" simply because it struck me as a nice pastime.

Is it? The discussion about motive started thus:

So he challenged me to produce evidence that the Pentagon's motive in withholding the tape was to bait the 9/11 truth movement. And then we got into a discussion of what such evidence would be like.

Now we know that the tape has been withheld for a number of years. So it's not as if the bank has not been robbed at all, or your spouse is still alive and well.
Rather, the question is whether that act of withholding is a case of wrongdoing. And that can only be settled by somehow establishing the operative motive for withholding the video tape.

So your point here, although it may apply to other parts of conspiracy discussions, is rather beside the point that Jay was making here, as far as I can tell.

Now, assuming that your point applies to the broader 9/11 CT situation: I agree in broad lines. However, I don't think it is always reasonable to proceed as linearly as you propose here.
CT'ers start with what they believe to be evidence of wrongdoing. Then, they speculate about motives. Having found plenty of them, they believe that it is necessary to look long and hard at whether the evidence for wrongdoing stands up or not. It is a kind of feedback loop - not working backwards.

OK. So your argument here runs something like this:

Some philosophers (or philosophy students...) make and defend silly claims.
Some philosophers hold that there is no absolute truth about whether someone had a particular motive or not.
Therefore, that there is no absolute truth about whether someone had a motive or not is a silly claim (and for this claim about motives you can basically substitute any claim that is made by a philosopher!)

and then the argument goes on like this, I guess:

If somebody from discipline X makes a silly claim about Y, then claims about Y are best left to scientists, regardless of whatever else can be said about whose expertise Y is.

No, my point was not that philosophers might have silly ideas; rather, that they tend to deal in non-absolute truths (thus the ability to "prove" that something that is clearly true is actually false). Same for the point about not being able to prove anything (i.e. there is no "absolute" truth).

I do have a life, you know... so my time is valuable. I am not "conspiracy mongering" simply because it struck me as a nice pastime.

Then why do you persist in ignoring the very strong evidence that has repeatedly been presented that there is no good reason to suspect US Government involvement in the September 11 attacks?

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Absolutely 100% wrong, actually. As I've said before, forensic engineering may not be my specialty, but the English language most assuredly is.

"Motive" is exactly shorthand for internal states, in that it is a reason something has been/will be/could be done. When a prosecuting attorney speaks of "motive," he does not, contrary to your apparent opinion, mean "this story that I have made up in an attempt to fit the facts." He means "this reason that this person had to commit this crime." As we've told you at least three times now, no crime actually has to be committed for a person to have motive to do so. I have motive to cut off my boyfriend's leg right now, although obviously if I did, we'd break up and my efforts to keep him with me by cutting his leg off would be for naught. But as I said literally months ago, I also have motive for killing my mother for my inheritance. Rich has motive for killing his wife. But neither my mother nor Rich's wife is dead. (Right, Rich?)

What's more, even if your definition were correct, you would be using it incorrectly. You see, the story that "best fits the evidence" is that a bunch of guys flew a plane into the Pentagon.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Ian,

You seem to have missed my previous post:
I've had to grayscale the frames, otherwise the picture would end up uselessy grainy. What is your opinion of the object I've circled?

I've had to grayscale the frames, otherwise the picture would end up uselessy grainy. What is your opinion of the object I've circled?

Although from looking at the Solidworks model that Stratus linked I agree with your interpretation, it does seem remotely possible from your two video frames that the shape we take to be the vertical stabilizer might actually be part of the tree line that is simply washed out by the light from the fireball. It might help if you also included the previous frame.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Well... no. Ever heard of philosophy of language? Read Dennett.

But what we were speaking of is the late release of the videotape. What's the story that best fits the evidence there?

But what we were speaking of is the late release of the videotape. What's the story that best fits the evidence there?

As I and others have mentioned, a desire to avoid possibly compromising the Moussaoui trial.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

And as I and others have said, that doesn't seem convincing at all.

Ah, so to refine let us say my wife has died in a car crash. Would it be useful to speculate upon my motives for wanting her dead without any evidence that I am the one that actually caused her to be dead?

In the case of the Pentagon survelliance video is it useful to speculate upon some nefarious government motives without any evidence that the data was actually withheld for nefarious purposes. In my scenario this is a bit like saying: "Rich's wife died in a car accident, what motives might he have had for killing her." It is circular logic of the worst sort. If she is dead I must have a reason for killing her, if I have a motive then I did it. We know one thing only, that she died in a car wreck. We can piece together the evidence to determine the causes of the accident and determine whether someone had a hand in making it happen, but applying a nefarious motive wholecloth is not a logic path to take. Should tampered with parts be found or the other driver admits to being paid to commit vehicular homicide... well... then we speculate about who had motive and we can inspect who the evidence points towards.

The gov't withheld a piece of data they... must have had a reason for doing so. This is acceptable logic. Where CTers fall off the rails is in creating motives that have no supporting evidence. Where is the evidence that the motive was nefarious and not procedural? Is it procedure to hold evidence in a criminal trial until after the trial is over? Yes. Is it common for gov't agencies to withhold information or release misinformation to confuse and embarrass CTers.... ehhhh... how could we possibly determine this? Without evidence that this is the case all we have is entirely empty conjecture.




Oh, I don't disagree that a process can not always be so linear. Sometimes circumstances are highly suspicious and you look for evidence of wrong-doing based on that. But here, I think, is where you are running into fundamental disagreement on this board. At some point the evidence must play a role. It may be the case that a suspicion or highly questionable circumstances lead to a search for evidence. Other times evidence leads to a search for individuals with motive. In either case we can not logically make an accusation or have a conviction without actual evidence to support our suspicions.

Again, I think we have a fundamental disagreement about how CTers actually work. CTers start out with a preference for certain suspects. They speculate about motives, invent means, and choose only the evidence which narrowly supports their preferred theory. They tend to willfully ignore all evidence contrary to their preferred belief, and will go to great and often dishonest lengths to ignore the mountains of evidence pointing towards more coventional explanations.

In the case of September 11, 2001 the CTers want the gov't to be the bad guys. So, they construct a plethora of "bad-guy" motives for why the gov't might want to have perpetrated the attacks. They then create a series of theories that could explain how the gov't did it. And then they fall flat on their faces examining their own shoelaces for evidence. Because they don't really care about the actual why's and how's, they want their chosen boogie-man to be the bad guy so building a case based on facts doesn't concern them. In fact, the facts are counter-productive because they tend to rule out many or in this case all of their theories about how things actually happened that day. So all we are left to argue about is motive... which brings us back to the crux of the argument. How can we argue about possible motives when we have zero evidence of a crime on the part of the accused?



A small side-bar about trying to apply philosophy to scientific thought. A favorite author once described an imagined conversation between Plato and Benjamin Franklin (insert favorite scientist here) talking about the nature of a chair and what a chair "is" that went something like this:

Plato: Sir, all of your measuring, and testing, and prodding, and poking is useless. You could make every measurement and test of the chair sitting before us until the end of time and you would never be able to tell me what the chair "is". You can tell me it is brown or that it is made of wood, that it is .5 meters tall, and that it can hold 300 kg, but you will never define what it "is", you will never discover the "truth" about what it means or even that it actually exists.

Franklin: Ah, good Sir. You are of course correct! I can not tell you what the chair "is" or what it means to "be" a chair. But I can certainly tell you what the chair is not and in that way I have provided more information and introduced a better understanding of the nature of a chair than you.

Regarding motive for withholding Pentagon video, a few days ago on the Alex Jones Show, Chris Farrell of Judicial Watch said the government may release more video of Flight 77. Farrell speculated that they might want to withhold it until the presidential election when it can be used to refute critics of the administration. Come to think of it, given the sorry performance of the current administration, the Republicans best argument for keeping the White House may be that their man Bush didn't fire a missile into the Pentagon. ~Ian

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Goddard's Journal

Convincing to whom? Why should anyone need to convince you? There was a reason for delaying the release of this video. That reason is true no matter who believes it or finds it convincing. Just as I am wearing shirt of a certain color right now. That the shirt is the color that it is is true regardless of whether you or anyone else believes that it is a particular color. Do you accept that premise?

Now we have a judicial system that tends to keep a great deal of evidence from the public until after a verdict is reached. This is to keep the public from coming to conclusions before all the evidence is heard and depriving an accused of a fair trial. Do you dispute this?

We know for a fact that the DoJ did not release the tape until after the Massaoui trial. Do you dispute this?

The stated reason for witholding the tape was that it could be used as evidence in the Massaoui trial. You do not find this to be a convincing reason, but do you have any evidence that there is another reason in play? Or more to the point do you have evidence or special expertise that leads you or "others" to have reason to believe that this video might not have been used in the Massoui trial or that this is not a sound legal precedence for witholding evidence from the general public.

Again, the "real" reason is true regardless of whether you believe it or not. Just as that my shirt is blue regardless of the number of people who believe it is red, purple, black, or white. So, given that there is precedent and normal procedure for how this tape was handled and released what evidence is there to the contrary other than specious motive creation and a belief that otherwise has to be true?

I'm going to keep riding this evidence pony until the sun renders the planet inhospitable to life.

And as I and others have said, that doesn't seem convincing at all.

Frankly, whether it seems convincing to you is irrelevant; you are hardly an authority on the American legal system. This goes to the heart of many of the problems with conspiracist logic--"I don't understand it, therefore it's suspicious."

Rather than simply proclaiming that you are not convinced, why don't you contact some American lawyers and ask them if this is reasonable? Or would it help if I were to look up some cases where death sentences have been overturned for similar reasons?

Finally, please explain exactly what you find implausible about my hypothetical scenario involving a Moussaoui death sentence appeal.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

I'd also like a definition of "manipulated" in regards to the video. I believe manipulation to be a word used to imply, without actually levelling an accusation, that information was destroyed or added to give an appearance that the tape portrays something other than what actually happened. Am I going out on a limb here? Or is this not what is being implied?

I would not define manipulation as transcribing the images from one media to another and have already given reasons for why this would most likely happen. Again, I can virtually guarantee that if you are seeing this video on television or on the internet it has been put into a digital format. If the contention is that the original format was some sort of magnetic tape like VHS or Beta (and is there actual evidence that this is, in fact, the case?) then we know it had already been transcribed once by the news media to put it into the digital format. The question then becomes what is wrong with that, and what would be wrong with anyone changing the media from analog to digital or digital to analog and back again? If there is no other evidence of tampering to change the images what is the problem?

Again, I think that what is being implied, in a very slippery way, is that there must have been tampering with the images. What I have yet to see is actual evidence that there was tampering.

"Motive" is exactly shorthand for internal states, in that it is a reason something has been/will be/could be done.

We talk about motives as if they were internal states. We have a tendency to assume that all words refer to distinct objects because so many of them do: shoes, wallets, tennis rackets, and so on. We continue to use the word-->object model when discussing abstractions because we are so well-versed in it.

When a prosecuting attorney speaks of "motive," he does not, contrary to your apparent opinion, mean "this story that I have made up in an attempt to fit the facts."

That is correct, but he doesn't also mean "internal states", whatever those are. After all, he is not there to prosecute neural fireworks, but to prosecute a person's actions.

Classifying a motive as a distinct entity is a form of category mistake. Consider the story of a child who wants to see the government. His father takes him to the Capitol building to see the Congress and the Senate in session, he takes him to the Supreme Court, and then he takes him to the White House. At the end of the day, the child asks, "When are you going to take me to see the government?" The child thinks the government is something that stands separate from all that he was shown.

When we talk about a person's motives, we talk about their physical, concrete actions and the contexts they occur in. There is no one thing you can single out that is "the motive" just as there is no one building or person that is "the government."

If the Pentagon delayed the release of the video because they wanted to bait conspiracy theorists, there would have been a sequence of concrete actions that constituted the process of baiting conspiracy theorists. Even though I may agree with Brumsen on the ontological status of motives, I fully agree with Jay that motives can be objective and discoverable.

Not refined enough. While in the case of your wife's car accident we first need evidence of a causal chain between your actions and the accident, in the case of the Pentagon tape we already know that the late release was caused by Pentagon actions (or the absence of actions). So we need to speculate about the motive, since that is the only thing that can establish whether that act was a case of wrongdoing or not.

No convincing story has been told about why this tape was (potential) evidence in Moussaoui's trial.

True, I am no expert here. But what I am assuming is that in order to justify withholding something because it might be a piece of evidence in a trial, it would fall upon DOJ to explain how it might be a piece of evidence. Otherwise the whole FOIA would be entirely teethless; any potential evidence of wrongdoing might then be withheld on the basis that it might be evidence in a trial picked at random.
Moreover, I am assuming that the explanation that the video was shot at 9/11 is not sufficient for witthholding it as potential evidence for a trial in which the defendent stands accused of having been able to prevent occurrences at that same date. It needs to be more to the point than that.

Oh dear, there we go again. In the case of your shirt's color, yes; in the case of somebody's motive, no.

Would you call Plato a philosopher of science? I wouldn't. Are you meaning to say that philosophy of science is a ridiculous enterprise? I should hope not.
And if not... neither do you have much reason to say that philosophy of psychology is a ridiculous enterprise.