NCoppedge comments on Is Sunk Cost Fallacy a Fallacy? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: gwern 04 February 2012 04:33AM

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Comment author: NCoppedge 13 February 2012 07:00:18PM 0 points [-]

I would like to argue that it is less important to determine IF it is a fallacy, than what kind it is.

One view is that this is a "deliberation" fallacy, along the lines of a failed thought experiment; e.g. 'something went wrong because conditions weren't met.' Another view is that this fallacy, which relates if I am correct to "resource shortages" or "debt crises" is in fact a more serious 'systems error' such as a method fallacy involving recursivity or logic gates.

To some extent at this point I am prone to take the view that the extent of the problem is proportionistic, leading to a kind of quantitative rather than qualitative perspective, which makes me think in my own reasoning that it is not true logic, and therefore not a true logical problem.

For example, it can be argued modal-realistically that in some contingent or arbitrarily divergent context or world, debt might be a functional or conducive phenomenon that is incorporated in a functional framework.

I would be interested to know if this kind of reasoning is or is not actually helpful in determining about a debt crisis. Perhaps as might be expected, the solution lies in some kind of "technologism," and not a traditional philosophical debate per se.