Occam's Razor and premature closure in dialogue?

Second-order Dialogue and Higher Order Discourse for the Future (Part #8)

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Premature closure: Given the additional dimension implied by any form of meta-communication, of some relevance is the manner in which explicit communication may be subject to premature closure, potentially to be understood as an application of the principle of Occam's Razor. This is a problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements -- thereby potentially excluding the subtle complexity associated with meta-communication (Jonathan Howard, Premature Closure: anchoring bias, Occam's error, availability bias, search satisficing, yin-yang error, diagnosis momentum, triage cueing, and unpacking failure, Cognitive Errors and Diagnostic Mistakes, 2018). The process has been only too evident in relation to the recent pandemic -- as noted above

This suggests exploration of the degree to which discourse of strategic significance may be vulnerable to what might be recognized as a mindset appropriately described as a "cognitive mouse-trap". A questionable sexual metaphor is "premature ejaculation". The concern has been variously discussed in terms of silo thinking, tunnel vision and groupthink (Cui Bono: Groupthink vs Thinking the Unthinkable? 2005).

The pattern is commonly depicted in fictional accounts of the premature closure of police and military investigations of threats -- in the quest of an early conviction in the first case, and the identification of a legitimate target in the second. It can be recognized as the effort to achieve -- rapidly -- a credible explanation at any cost. This is notably cited in management training: There Is Always a Well-Known Solution to Every Human Problem -- Neat, Plausible, and Wrong (17 July 2016)

More generally, the dialogue process may itself be understood in that light, as suggested by an influential title in that regard (Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: negotiating agreement without giving in, 1981). The counter-productive perspective is emphasized by the idiom "going for the kill" in negotiation and achieving buy-in.

Especially problematic in a context in which such tendencies are rife is the highly constrained possibility of referring to the possibility -- but without inviting and evoking condemnation of "irrelevance". This constraint may be exacerbated in media interviews in quest of "an answer".

Meta-ignorance: Premature closure can be understood as enabled by failure to appreciate the extent and nature of the ignorance associated with communication, otherwise recognized in terms of so-called groupthink, as noted above (Nicholas Rescher, Ignorance: On the Wider Implications of Deficient Knowledge, 2009). For David Dunning:

... the scope of people's ignorance is often invisible to them. This meta-ignorance (or ignorance of ignorance) arises because lack of expertise and knowledge often hides in the realm of the â-"e;unknown unknownsâ-" or is disguised by erroneous beliefs and background knowledge that only appear to be sufficient to conclude a right answer. As empirical evidence of meta-ignorance, I describe the Dunningâ--Kruger effect, in which poor performers in many social and intellectual domains seem largely unaware of just how deficient their expertise is. (The Dunningâ--Kruger Effect: on being ignorant of one's own ignorance, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 2011).

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