Fredkin's paradox: what it is and what it tells us about decision making

How many times has it happened to you that you have not decided which brand of milk to buy in the supermarket? Do you have to choose between 50 different flavors of ice cream and you don't know which one? Do you want a new car and you do not opt ​​for one model or another?

Life is full of decisions, some more important and others more trivial. Regardless of whether they are more or less transcendental, sometimes it is difficult for us to choose, especially if it does not seem clear to us which is the "correct" option and which is not.

These indecisions have a lot to do with Fredkin's paradox, a curious phenomenon in which all human beings have been trapped on more than one occasion. Let's dive into it.

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What is Fredkin's paradox?

In his treatise "On Heaven", Aristotle (384 BC c.-322 BC C.) poses a hypothetical situation. In it there is a man, as thirsty as he is hungry, located at the same distance from a table full of food and another full of drinks. What will he do first: will he quench his thirst or quench his hunger? The conclusion of the philosopher was forceful:

the man would remain still when he did not finish deciding between the two options and he would end up dying of both thirst and hunger.

Perhaps this example is a bit extreme, but it comes in handy to introduce the paradox that we are going to talk about today. Let's continue with another one, this time a more everyday one: You go to the supermarket to buy toilet paper. You stand on the shelf where there are several brands and you stay there, looking at which one to choose: which is better: double-layer paper or extra smooth? Both are worth the same, have the same number of rolls of paper and are of the same brand. Which to choose!? Even though they are essentially the same, you are left transfixed.

If it has happened to you too, then you have experienced Fredkin's paradox firsthand. Named in honor of Dr. Edward Fredkin, philosopher and professor of digital physics, the paradox posits that the more similar two or more options are, the more difficult it is to choose between them, despite the fact that being so similar the consequences of taking one or the other will be the same.

Continuing with the same as with the hypothetical case raised by Aristotle more than 2000 years ago, Fredkin's paradox highlights that the Apparently simple and unimportant decisions can become real headaches and paralyze us by not knowing which one to make. choose. While we are debating which is the best option, we are wasting time, energy and opportunities.

We can see this with another example of a supermarket. A decision such as choosing between Serrano ham and cheese to make a sandwich implies having to decide between two different things. They are two very different sausages, and they entail different consequences (p. For example, eating cheese causes gas and ham does not). Despite this, choosing between ham or cheese is a decision that is made in seconds, very quick to make.

On the other hand, if we had to choose between two types of ham or two types of cheese, the decision would be much slower. We would begin to compare what differentiates one cheese or ham from the other, paying attention to the price, nutritional values, net weight, color, brand, freshness… We would go round and round before taking a verdict. Here, the decision takes longer to make. When we have to decide on something, we spend more time having to deliberate on less important decisions.

Not all decisions are the same. Sometimes we spend more time making a decision than we should. Fredkin's paradox shows that, when we are faced with a situation in which it is not obvious to us which decision is correct and which is not, we get paralyzed and take more than the necessary time to go one way or another. Having to make these decisions, banal and vitally unimportant, take away our time to make much more important and transcendental decisions in our lives.

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The curse of having to choose

Fredkin's paradox is more likely to occur depending on whether the following are present two variables:

• Number of options to choose
• The cost of not deciding

We can see this with a case that occurred in a chocolate shop where more than 100 different types of chocolate were sold. Even though customers came from far away, most of them left the store buying very little chocolate. The owner of the business could not understand how, having so many options for sale and so many customers coming, he barely sold anything. With so many different chocolates, it could hardly satisfy anyone. What was happening?

Since he wanted to know why people weren't buying more chocolate, he enlisted the help of a psychologist to find out. The psychologist discovered that the main reason why customers did not buy as much was that, having to decide between so many chocolate options, they were left totally bewildered not knowing which choose. What would be better: peach flavored white chocolate or orange truffle dark? cheesecake chocolate or with macadamia nuts? Too much variety!

Upon discovering the reason, the psychologist suggested doing an experiment on the seller. Instead of offering so many chocolates, he suggested that she set up a little stall in a small part of the establishment where customers could only choose between 5 different flavors. Even though this drastic reduction of options meant that there was less chance of finding our favorite chocolate, people soon started buying more.

This particular case can be explained, in part, by Fredkin's paradox. With not so many options to choose from, people now have to process less information and, therefore, they take less time to choose a chocolate and buy it, in addition to taking less time to choose.

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The consequences of not deciding

As we said, having to decide between two or more similar options entails costs in the form of lost time, energy and, also, opportunities. This is demonstrated to us by Dan Ariely, American-Israeli professor of psychology and behavioral economics in his book “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” (2008), in whose book he describes what happened to a friend of his, who had decided to buy a camera.

Before buying it, Dan's friend began to compare all the makes, models, prices, opinions and other aspects that he could. After a while, he got to the point of having to decide whether to buy one model or another, both practically identical. To make sure his decision was the "right" one, Dan's friend spent extra time going over every detail until he finally decided to buy one of the cameras. It was then that Dan Ariely asked him how many photo opportunities he had missed in these three months that he had been comparing the damn cameras.

Falling into Fredkin's paradox not only takes away time, it deprives us of opportunities, experiences, and memories. Being so long without deciding is worse than taking the "worst" option, because it is always better to have something than to have nothing and, while deciding, it is still, trapped in that uncertainty that prevents us from moving forward, to have nothing. Until we decide, we cannot know if we have done well or badly. If we do not decide, directly we have nothing.

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What is the use of knowing this?

Now that we know what Fredkin's paradox is, you may be wondering, "What good is this to me?" Well, a lot, really. Keeping it in mind will help us save ourselves from wasting time, energy and experiences while we are deciding between two things that are the same. The learning that we can extract from it is that we need to stop worrying about small decisions, and let choosing between them be a more momentous resolution than it really is.

You must stop for a moment and think about the impact that the results will have on your life and how unimportant or, rather, insignificant the decision will be in the long term. Is it really worth wasting 10 minutes choosing between one ice cream or another? Between soft and double-ply toilet paper? Enter a car with cup holders or one without? Even if you are deliberating about something really important (eg. g., which job to take), you should not get lost in the details (eg. g., vacation days). Spend your time thinking about things that have a bigger impact (eg. g., the type of work you will do)

So now you know, the next time you go to the supermarket think about Fredkin's paradox and stop wasting time on trivial decisions. It doesn't matter which toilet paper you choose, if both serve the same purpose.