[ars]

I guess you would hold that [wheat] flour comes from humans?

I don't, but we don't have to have the same opinions, as long as our respective opinions are self consistent.

So if you hold that humans make flour there is nothing more to say. But if you don't, you're going to have to explain the distinction to me.

[roel_v]

The problem is in your petulant interpretation of the word 'make'. As I mentioned, it's just a definition matter from here on. For some words the distinction between 'make' and 'process' is much less clear; I don't have an opinion on what the consensus is on whether flour is 'made' by humans or not, if the discussion had started out with this example, I wouldn't even have bothered replying.

Language is fluid and loosely-defined. It's not because the dominant interpretation is that honey comes from bees, that there needs to be a 1:1 relationship between other source materials and their end product so that the same word 'make' can be applied to those processes. Your demand for an explanation into the difference is therefore meaningless; there is an inherent vagueness in the word. Not everything is so defined that it can be explained in the way you apparently want is.

For example, I mentioned that honey is only mechanically processed from the hive into the pot. Does that mean that all processes where only filtering occurs do not constitute 'making'? No. Does it mean the inverse? No. In the flour example, one could make the case (I'm not doing so, I'm just explaining the mechanism) that the conversion from wheat into flour is purely mechanical and therefore does not constitute 'making'. But I don't find it a convincing argument. It just shows that each circumstance needs to be examined from several angles, and that (as I mentioned several times) there is no single definition.

(I had a paragraph here on the 'opinions' part of your argument but it was too vitriolic - objectively, I can't tell from your post if you meant it as I interpreted it; so I'm going to suffice with saying that this is not about 'opinions'. It's a about definitions, which are not opinions).

[burgerbrain]

"I guess you would hold that humans make [wheat] flour?"

Yes, that generally is held to be the job of millers...

[ars]

I reworded it to say comes from humans.

Which actually clears things up:

  Honey comes from flowers.
  Honey is made by bees.

  Flour is made by millers.
  Flour comes from wheat.

Seems reasonable to me.