{
  "id": "decision.cognitive",
  "term": "decision",
  "sense": "cognitive",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 10,
  "arena": "decision",
  "domain": "cognitive",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "selecting one option from among differing alternatives over time",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "choice.decision",
      "difference.relation",
      "select.choice",
      "time.dimension"
    ],
    "interaction": "choice and difference establish multiple distinct options, which selection resolves over time, producing a decision",
    "novel_properties": [
      "outcome selection",
      "temporal resolution",
      "option exclusivity"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Mars rover Opportunity selected a path around a sand trap in 2005 using onboard algorithms.",
      "domain": "computing"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2008, Iceland’s government chose to let Kaupthing Bank fail instead of bailing it out.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "A neuron fires when membrane potential crosses −55 mV, selecting output among silent, burst, or steady states.",
      "domain": "biology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "choice.decision",
      "note": "is-a",
      "type": "is-a"
    },
    {
      "id": "action.deed",
      "note": "enables",
      "type": "enables"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "executive.role"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "decision",
    "decisions"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "definition",
      "note": "Added missing constitutive concepts 'select.choice' and 'time.dimension' to components and adjusted definition to align precisely with component contributions without redundancy or circularity."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-decision.cognitive"
}