The answer seems simple to me.

If "meaning is not prior to language" is the case, then that must be the case prior to you saying it, or typing it up on a screen.

There are lots of debates about the causes of WW1 and who was responsible. I was surprised to find that there are apparently thousands of books on this topic. That suggests to me not only that there is no no consensus but that the evidence is ambiguous. Also causal claims seem unprovable to a some degree including looking at problems of causal regress. There is chaos theory tom contend with also.

Even with a well documented recent event like 9/11 the question of what "caused" it is controversial including value judgements (American foreign policy? Islamic extremism?) — Andrew4Handel

One could point to the Big Bang as the cause of WW1 and 9/11. Everything is interconnected. The causal relationships can be complicated and extend over long periods (even eternity). It is we who divide things up into causes and effects, this year and last year, this generation and the next generation, etc. as a result of our relative perspective of change in the universe and the projection of our own goals emphasizing one event over others in our attempt to assign "blame".

All thinking involves action, and I think our actions are structured along the lines of how we think.

To say these are not the same may be true, but it also may be the case that it is false. It all comes out to which provides a better explanation pragmatically. — Cavacava

Thinking is an action, yes, but running is a different action. So is writing, speaking, etc. - actions that require more than just your brain acting.

Have you never seen young babies discovering their bodies? They investigate their arms, hands, and legs, and you can observe them trying to control their movements. You didn't come into this world automatically knowing how to use your body, to walk, throw a ball, writing or speaking, etc.

If you can automatically do things just by thinking about it, then what is practice? What does that word mean to you?

You added this before I saw it (I think :D ) No, I thought we agreed that thought and action are inexorably enmeshed didn't we, now you want to bifurcate them? — Cavacava

I never agreed that they were the same. When did you think I did? I have always been arguing that thinking is a different action than say running, throwing a ball, or writing.

It is easy to imagine yourself doing something you never did before. It is much harder to actually do it. Are you disagreeing with this? If it weren't true, you'd be able to dribble and shoot a basketball just like Kyrie Irving just by watching him dribble and shoot, and then imagining yourself doing it just like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfNwncxJzGE
Now, actually try to dribble and shoot a basketball just like that.

Again, thinking it isn't the same as doing it. You know you can think it, but can you do it? Imagining yourself doing something isn't the same as doing it. If it were then the actions take place simply by thinking about it. But that isn't the way it is. For you to manipulate anything out in the world requires more thought - thoughts about manipulating your body to cause the manipulation of other things - like pencils and balls. I could just think about moving the pencil, but that doesn't make the pencil move. Are you saying that you have the power of telekinesis?

Exactly. Yet that is how you answered the question because you fail to admit that you don't know that you can do something until you actually do it - at least once. Putting the letters in the correct order on some imaginary paper in your mind isn't the same thing as actually writing it on real paper with your hands.

Which is my point. You know how to think it, but how to do it requires coordination with the body.

Then that would be saying that knowing how to spell the word makes it appear on the paper, which is absurd.

I already pointed out that we can know the letters that are part of the word, and the order in which they appear, but to know how to write it, requires more knowledge. Practice makes perfect.

Knowing how to write "cat" doesn't make the word appear on the paper. You also have to know how to move your hands and hold a pencil and then tell your hand to move in such a way in order to do it.

Then you're not really getting at the meat of the OP. Do you disagree that you owe your knowing how to write, "cat" to the countless times you've done it before this moment in your life?

Knowing how to write "cat" doesn't make the word appear on the paper. You also have to know how to move your hands and hold a pencil.

Yeah, like when you're in grade school learning how to write your letters and put them together in words. Adults tend to take their knowledge for granted. There was a point in your life that this situation applies, and this is an important part of the process - of learning - of applying your knowledge over time, testing it where at this point in your life, you've done it so many times, you take it for granted how you do it.

The question isn't rhetorical, so there wasn't really a point being made. How about answering the question?

Talking is different than writing. Moving your mouth and tongue isn't the same as moving your hands. There are people that can speak better than they write and vice versa.

Knowing how to write, "dog" doesn't mean you know how to write, "cat". It requires different movements and if you never made those movements before, then you don't know you can do it until you do it.

There is knowing and there is knowing that you know. You can know how to write the word, "cat". But then how do you know you know how to write the word, "cat"? - by actually writing it. You can know the letters that are part of the word, "cat", and the order that they must be written, but to write the word, you have to know how to hold a pencil and how to move your hand in such a way, which requires fine motor skills, to spell the word on paper and you don't know that you can actually do that until you do it.

There is knowing and there is confirming your knowledge by using it. Things change, like the spelling and use of words, and when that happens, your knowledge is no longer accurate. This is why we constantly check our knowledge by using it and then updating our knowledge when things don't go as predicted when applying our knowledge.

How is it that we can turn knowledge and awareness back on itself - of knowing that we know, and being aware of being aware?

Good point. Maybe knowledge isn't all it's cracked up to be then. Perhaps it is the process of acquiring knowledge, not the knowledge itself, that provides happiness - which means that suffering is required for happiness to exist and vice versa - another dualistic false dichotomy. It's all process.

It is if people are thinking of it as a metaphor for humans making decisions. — Terrapin Station

Huh?

That's fine to say, but it doesn't make a metaphor not a metaphor. — Terrapin Station

That's fine to say, but it doesn't mean that a metaphor isn't saying something useful, and therefore truthful.

Oh. Well, it depends on the decision. It's not as if they're all the same. For whim decisions, it's simply like mentally throwing dice or hitting the button on the random number generator at random.org . For other decisions it's much more of a process. — Terrapin Station

I don't understand "mentally throwing dice" or "hitting the button on the random generator at random.org" Are you saying that you are visualizing rolling dice or hitting some button on a website when making a decision? Why don't you explain the process of one of these other decisions that you make.

All definitions are. Definitions are not found under rocks. People make them up. — Terrapin Station

I never said definitions are found under rocks. They are found in dictionaries.

Sure we can make up whatever definition of whatever string of symbols we want, but then in order to communicate, you'd need to use the definition that most people understand, which is the one in the dictionary.

How do you learn anything without making mistakes - without suffering the consequences of your actions? It seems to me that to be eternally happy means that every wish comes true, and that you never make mistakes to suffer from. It seems to me that happiness is derived from true knowledge which means we know everything and there is nothing else to learn, or make mistakes. Asking if there could ever be happiness without suffering is asking if we could ever know everything.

Only animals that have consciousness, that can have options in mind and then choose one. Whether that's only humans or not, I don't think we know for sure. I assume that a number of animals with complex brains not too far off from human brains can make decisions though. — Terrapin Station

Then it isn't anthropomorphic to describe other non-human systems as making decisions.

That's kind of like asking why metaphors are useful in general. Aren't you familiar with metaphors in general? — Terrapin Station

Ok, then why are metaphors useful? Isn't it because there is an element of truth in them?

Are you asking for a blueprint of just what goes on in the brain? Because we don't know that very well yet. — Terrapin Station

No. I'm simply asking you what it's like for you to make a decision. Give me the process, step-by-step.

No definition I have found mentions that it requires conscious options. — Harry Hindu

What does that have to do with anything? Are you thinking that I'm doing a dictionary survey for you? — Terrapin Station

For one, it's a made-up definition. Second, it's a more complicated definition. Like I said, you open a can of worms when using the term, "conscious" - something that hasn't been clearly defined either. Why don't you simply try answering the question of how you make a decision so we can move this discussion forward.

Sorry to have to disillusion you, but it wasn't my behaviour which caused any of this, it was your interpretation of my behaviour which caused this. Your mind created this prediction, not my behaviour. — Metaphysician Undercover

How could I predict your behavior without having first observed it? You first behaved some way for me to interpret and then use that interpretation to make future predictions of your behavior. If I had never observed your behavior, I wouldn't be able to make a very good prediction. I'd just be making an educated guess of your behavior based on my experience with other people.

Another person would have interpreted my behaviour in a completely different way, producing a completely different prediction, and that's why I think it's all a creation of your own mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. It seems like you're finally coming around. Predictions of some outcome has a causal influence on your actions. Different predictions can produce different actions. How do you explain how the same behavior can produce different interpretations, which in turn produce different predictions of the outcome?

By God I mean a conscious agency; included in this definition is the idea of a creator. I don't want to discuss any other attribute of God. Perhaps this definition will diminish the value of my argument but I still want your views on it. — TheMadFool

If we're using this definition, humans and some other organisms would fall into the category of "God".

Imagine yourself entering a room and finding it clean, well arranged and tidy. You're then asked to infer something from this information. What will be your thoughts? I wouldn't be wrong in saying the first thing to cross your mind would be someone has been in this room, cleaned and put it in order. This is the most likely inference and anyone who disagrees is probably mad or a fool or both (like me). This is a rational inference. Humans (generally) like to order things and so the ordered state of the room serves as good evidence of the existence of a person (a conscious agency).

No problems? Ok.

The argument from design for the existence of god is simply another instance of the above argument. There's order in the universe. Conscious agencies are known to create order. So, the all so evident order in our universe implies the existence of a conscious angency - God. Why is this version of the same argument difficult for atheists to swallow?

Comments please. — TheMadFool

Actually no. Observations have shown that organization out of chaos is the result of the application of energy, not conscious agency. Conscious agency would be considered one form of applying energy.

There isn't order in the universe. Humans try to make it orderly in order to make sense of it. We are the ones that try to put everything in it's own little box. The universe isn't like that.

I find it interesting that the experience of interacting with MU and John has created this prediction in my mind that their same nonsense will be repeated in any future interaction with them. This prediction of the outcome (a waste of my time) of interacting with them causes me to not want to interact with them at any point in the future. In other words, the memory of their past behavior causes me to predict the same behavior which then causes me to change my behavior towards them. So how is it again, that memories of past experiences don't have causal influence on our present behaviors in similar situations?

Correct. A computer making a "decision" is only metaphorical--it's a way that we think about it, anthropomorphizing it, to make it easier for us to conceptualize. — Terrapin Station

So, only humans make decisions? Are we anthropomorphizing other organisms that seem to behave in ways that imply that they make decisions to? Why is it useful to use the term "decision" as a metaphor for what the computer is doing when processing IF-THEN-ELSE statements? What is the exact process of making a decision? How does it proceed in time?

Decisions require conscious options. We pick one of the options we're conscious of. — Terrapin Station

No definition I have found mentions that it requires conscious options. Besides, introducing the word, "conscious" just opens a big can of worms and complicates things considerably.

Merriam-Webster says:
decide:
1
a : to make a final choice or judgment about
b : to select as a course of action
c : to infer on the basis of evidence

I'm not going to bother answering irrelevant questions based on misunderstanding. When you learn to read carefully we might be able to begin a discussion. — John

The way I take this is: "I'm going to say whatever I want and to hell with anyone who doesn't understand what I say and asks questions because they don't understand what I said." Thanks for nothing, dude.

That wasn't the question, MU. Try again. — Harry Hindu

The question was "How do you learn anything, MU?". The answer was "The act of thinking is how I learn things". Where's the problem? — Metaphysician Undercover

For one, try answering that question that followed right after that one.

What is it that makes you learn to do things and not others? — Harry Hindu

Second, thinking and learning don't necessarily correlate. You can think of imaginary things, or just colors. What are you learning there? Don't you learn by experience - like the experience of doing certain things and observing the results?

Sure, I'm thinking about things when I think. But all these thoughts, and things which I am thinking, are inside my mind, and just part of my act of thinking. Why would you think that something outside my mind, such as "consequences", has any causal power over my act of thinking? That makes no sense to me, because only thoughts enter into my act of thinking. So thoughts about consequences may enter into my act of thinking, as part of the act of thinking, but the consequences themselves don't enter into the act of thinking and therefore do not have any causal power within the act of thinking. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I have already stated, the consequences in your head are predictions of the consequences, not the consequences themselves. Who would ever say that ALL the consequences in your head exist out in the world? It seems to me that if determinism, then only one consequence exists outside your head, which may or may not be one that is predicted in your head, which explains why your sometimes fail to predict the consequences, which ironically are the ones you learn the most from.

So would you also say that computers don't make decisions? What is a decision?

Harry Hindu
Have you never faced a dilemma? Most dilemmas are loss-oriented in the sense the options provided are all undesirable. There are common English expressions that describe such situations e.g. ''Hobson's choice'', ''Catch 22''. These dilemmas are characterized by mental paralysis, the rational mind in particular, and a decision cannot be made. So, here's a situation you're surely familiar with that captures the essence of what I want to say - failure of rationality under certain circumstances. — TheMadFool

There's a big difference between using rationality to discover the truths of the universe and using rationality to decide which option to choose from that will result in the best outcome for myself and/or the most people. It is a fact that we, as human beings, have conflicting goals - both with each other and within ourselves. Evolutionary Psychology has proposed reasons for this - that our brains evolved different modules to solve different problems of survival. We have our ancient, instinctive module of the brain, and our thoughtful, social module of the brain as examples. This and the widespread diversity of human beings and their cultures that come into conflict for all sorts of reasons can be pointed to as the reason why we have moral dilemmas.

As I have mentioned before, every moral dilemma comes down to one question: Who has more rights to achieve their goals? - an individual, or the majority of individuals, and if the former then which individual, and if the later then what about minorities?

As for what we desire, we were never guaranteed that the truths we discover would be desirable to us as individuals, to human beings, not even to life itself. "Desirable" is simply a term associated with some thing or idea that is key to achieving one's goals. Organisms are the only thing that seem to have goals with their seemingly "striving" for survival. But if one takes a different perspective, organisms are simply doing what they do, and as they were designed by the process of natural selection which has no forethought containing any "designs" before the "designs" appear in reality. If so, then where is the planned designs relative to the actual design in nature? The universe has no goals, therefore no desires.

It is also quite possible that your biases do come to play when making a decision. You have subconscious desires that come into play when making decisions. Try objectively observing your own decision-making process as you are making a decision like this and try to get at the real reason why you make a particular choice that initially seems like you don't have a reason to choose one or the other. Is it the first thing that pops into your head once you decide to make a decision?

There seems to be a point in time where you are aware of your options, then a point where you are aware that these options have nothing that stands out for you to choose one over the other. Then, at some point, you must make a decision to make a decision, no?

Now that I think about it, it seems that in these particular instances where we are faced with options that don't stand out from one or the other, other options come to mind, or else we'd be stuck in indecision. When faced with the options of two albums to listen to when neither one stands out as the one to choose, eventually there comes a point where other options come to mind, like choosing a third album, or doing something else entirely (which could be nothing). It seems natural that other options come to mind in a instance of indecision, or at least the mind tries its best to find a reason to choose one or the other.

When there comes a point where you have two or more options in which you don't have any reason to choose one or the other, but you want to do one of them as opposes to doing nothing. Doing nothing is an option that comes to mind in this particular situation.

Then how do you learn anything, MU? What is it that makes you learn to do things and not others? — Harry Hindu

The act of thinking is how I learn things. — Metaphysician Undercover

That wasn't the question, MU. Try again.

All of your actions have consequences. Isn't the consequences, the end result of your action, and how that matches your present goal, what you are choosing? If not, then what do you hope to accomplish when you make a decision? — Harry Hindu

There is something missing in your logical process Harry. You seem to think that consequences magical cause people to make the decisions which they do. But that's not the case, it's the act of thinking which produces the decisions, not the consequences of prior actions. That this is true is very obvious from observing people with mental illness, or who have different types of mental deficiencies. Clearly, it is the thinking which causes the decision, not actual consequences of past actions, nor possible consequences of future actions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, thinking about the consequences, or the outcome, of your actions tends to have an effect on the kind of decision you make. In order to think, you have to be thinking about something, MU. Your obtuseness is getting old, MU.

First, I wouldn't say that anyone is choosing to do something rather than nothing unless they're specifically have that idea in mind. — Terrapin Station

Ridiculous. If you make decisions to do anything, one of the options available in making that decision, is to do nothing. Sometimes you end up doing nothing if you take to long to make a decision. Doing nothing also has it's consequences.

Uh... I have no idea what point you are trying to make here. I asked some simple questions in my last post in an effort to understand your position, or argument, or whatever point that you were trying to make. When you answer those questions we can continue our discussion.

But it is. You are choosing to do something rather than nothing, which are based on reasons or biases.

Harry Hindu
Yes, the ass has survived but at the cost of its rationality. You may say that the rational course of action for the ass is to eat because, well, it would die otherwise. But the act of choosing between the two equally attractive options is not rational for the simple reason that there's no valid rational factor to tip the balance in favor of either pile of hay. So, in this case, the act of choosing is completely irrational. Sometimes it's rational to be irrational. — TheMadFool

Again, it's not irrational to make a choice when not making a choice causes you to die. In this situation, it doesn't matter if the donkey chose the hay or water. It only matters that the donkey choose one now, or die. That's a pretty rational, and easy, choice to make.

Whenever I feel strongly about a particular act, I will proceed despite the negative consequences. So for instance, if something like moving a heavy object, which requires physical labour, and imminent pain, is required, I will proceed despite knowing about the negative consequences. It is very often that we proceed despite knowing about imminent negative consequences. This is a power of the will, it manifests as a virtue called "courage". — Metaphysician Undercover

MU, I'm getting in the habit of responding to your posts by simply referring you to a post that I already wrote in this thread. This argument is easily handled by pointing you to where I talked about how consequences have to be harsh, or pleasurable, enough to make you change your behavior. Again, the goal itself is a consequence. What are the consequences that you want to follow your action - that the heavy object gets moved? That is the goal and if it hurts a little, then so be it, moving the heavy object is more important than experiencing a little pain. However, if you had a bad back then the consequences of the pain may prevent you from moving a heavy object. Letting the heavy object stay there, or getting someone else to move it, would be more preferable than throwing your back out. We all make decisions based on the predicted outcome of our actions and how it matches our goal in the moment.

That I consider something within my thoughts, doesn't mean that this particular thing "caused" my conclusion. When I think, I consider many different things before coming to a conclusion. None of them can be said to cause my conclusion.

Your claim that knowledge of a consequence causes me to behave in a particular way is categorically false. That is because the things I consider within my mind, are passive thoughts, ideas and beliefs. Being passive, none of them have any causal power. I move these thoughts around within my mind, they do not move me around, because they are passive and I am active. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then how do you learn anything, MU? What is it that makes you learn to do things and not others? All of your actions have consequences. Isn't the consequences, the end result of your action, and how that matches your present goal, what you are choosing? If not, then what do you hope to accomplish when you make a decision?

Which is why I was asking if we are talking about the same thing when taking about "determinism" and "free will". You are making a circular argument in defining "free will" as something that is "free" and "self-originating". What is "free"? - just self-originating? If the will were self-originating, that would mean that it was the first cause. Is that your argument? It seems to me that even the first cause itself would have some features or qualities about it that define it, that make it what it is, and that would itself be a restraint on it's "freedoms". Human beings are designed a certain way, to do certain things. Our design is a limit on our "freedoms". Our will is really no different than the central executive inside a computer that makes the decisions based on it's programming and the information currently occupying it's working memory.

None of what you said hurts my argument that consequences of past actions, and the consequences observed happening to others as a result of their behavior, are incorporated into the decision-making process. Not all the time, but much of the time. After all, the consequences are just information that is part of the decision-making process that sometimes gets left out because of limited space in memory, or there wasn't enough time to make a decision where you thought about the consequences. The idea of the consequences can change people's behaviors in the future. Praising and blaming others for their actions has no teeth in making them change their behavior. It seems that praising and blaming without the consequences is redundant because most of the time the person knows they are the reason the action took place. They know what they did wrong, and they know that it was they that did it. In the case where one doesn't know what they did wrong, or don't know that the bad outcome was a result of their actions, what does praising or blaming do - just inform them that they are the cause of the bad outcome. That's it? How is that useful in either a world with free will or one without?

↪Terrapin Station
in these examples the choice you make could be a result of a particular bias you have. Maybe you've taken one route but not the other so you want to experience the route you haven't taken yet. Or maybe you might say you know this route so you choose this one instead of one you don't know. Maybe you like one album more than the other as it makes you feel better or influence your mood in a way that you intend. — Harry Hindu

But then they wouldn't be whim choices. I'm talking about whim choices. The mental equivalent of rolling dice. — Terrapin Station

But you are making a decision. You are making a decision to make a decision. You can either do nothing, or choose one of the other two options. Time is probably a factor, so you need to make a decision now, or it will be taken out of your hands. Because you have no reason to choose one or the other, you resort to choosing one instead of choosing neither, because you do have a reason to choose to do something rather than nothing, or rather than choosing to stand there not able to choose between the two options when there isn't a reason to choose one over the other. When someone tells you to hurry up and make a choice - a choice in which the outcome isn't known - you better choose one, or you get neither.

in these examples the choice you make could be a result of a particular bias you have. Maybe you've taken one route but not the other so you want to experience the route you haven't taken yet. Or maybe you might say you know this route so you choose this one instead of one you don't know. Maybe you like one album more than the other as it makes you feel better or influence your mood in a way that you intend.

Now, if you havent been on either route, or havent listened to either album, then it would be safe to say that you don't know the outcome of your decision. You don't know what will happen when you listen to this album or that album or take this route or that route. In this case, you wouldn't have a reason to choose one or the other. One might say that you don't actually make a choice at all. You just go with the first thing that pops into your head. It only seems like you had a choice because there were two options you were aware of. If you went with the 2nd thing that pops into your head, then that must mean that there was something about the first that you didn't like, in which case the decision was no longer a whim decision.

Often when people act on impulse they're not really making a decision. Sometimes acting in rage, say, feels like not only not making a decision but like you have zero control over your actions. — Terrapin Station

I can agree with this to a point. Emotions tend to hijack the decision-making process. One could say that when you aren't thinking about the outcome of your actions, you aren't making a decision, or thinking, at all. It's more like a motor response to some stimuli, or a conditioned response.

People can also make whim decisions. I do that often because I enjoy it. Making a whim decision often doesn't have a goal beyond itself. — Terrapin Station

Can you provide an example of one of your whim decisions? How did it appear in your mind and in what order?

Now we get to the point where I ask why we make decisions in the first place and what does the process of making a decision entail. Don't we make decisions to achieve some goal and couldn't we then say that the achieving or not achieving the goal itself are consequences to our decisions? In other words, making decisions incorporates a significant amount of predicting the outcome of our decisions and that the predicted outcome is what drives us to perform a certain action, or make a certain decision.

It is precisely those decisions we make without incorporating the outcomes of our decisions into the decision-making process that leads to us harming others with our decisions, or one could say that leads to bad consequences, or outcomes. There is a correlation between the amount of time we take to make a decision (mulling over the outcome of the decision and how the outcome compares to our intended goal), and the chance the predicted outcome has of coming about. The less you think about the outcome of your decision, the higher the chance that your goal won't be achieved in the way in which you intended, or won't be achieved at all.

This is a conversation that I'm sure you could understand:
Actor: "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to hurt you. I didn't think that would happen"

Victim: "It seems to me that you didn't think at all. You just did it without thinking about the consequences."

What problem is rationality failing to provide a solution to? I already used reason to solve the problem. I showed that it wasn't a paradox because the thought experiment doesn't take into account that it takes days to die of thirst and hunger. The donkey could have consumed its fill of hay and water many times over before it actually died of thirst or hunger. It doesn't matter which one the donkey chooses first because he can consume both before he dies of either thirst or hunger.

If you are saying that which one it chooses to consume first is random, or irrational, then again I say to you that it isn't. We all have biases that come to play when making decisions. Which one it consumes first will be the one it favors more, or that will produce the best results in the shortest amount of time. Drinking the water first may be favorable because you die sooner from lack of water than you would of a lack of food. Another thing is that many foods contain water, so eating food with water in them kills two birds with one stone. Is that enough rationality and reason for you to solve this "paradox"?