“Pascal’s wager in personal choice, Occam’s razor in scientific investigation, D

“Pascal’s wager in personal choice, Occam’s razor in scientific investigation, Dollar Cost Averaging in investment, Bayesian choice in computer science, and the law of the excluded middle in logic and mathematics all recommend precisely the same principle: When we are absent sufficient information or sufficient time, or sufficient resources, pragmatic decisions are still possible.”

-Curt Doolittle

Brett Sterling just posted this. And when I re-read it, it made me realize, that I’d forgotten to finish the explanation why.

By choosing (purchasing) the lowest cost option we do not maximize gains or success or precision, but we minimize losses or failures, or under-over estimation.

Why? Because the universe is cheap. It hasn’t the choice to take an option on higher, later, rewards to conserve energy. It conserves energy by taking the lowest cost solution that causes persistence.

Why is this important? Because philosophy (morality, personal choice) pursues the good, and the optimum, but generally ignores costs.

Adding costs to philosophy is analogous to removing immortality from the gods of our myths.