---
slug: decision_paralysis
name: Decision Paralysis
one_liner: "Deliberation that fails to terminate in commitment, so options stay open indefinitely and the null path is taken by default — the non-terminating pole of the deliberate-then-commit axis whose committing pole is decision."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [cognitive, systemic, computational]
origin_domain: cognition_and_psychology
alternate_origin_domains: [decision_theory, management_science, control_systems]
aliases: [analysis_paralysis, perpetual_deliberation, choice_overload, deliberation_nontermination, indecision]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-01 dualization, sub-flavor 1c) — the process-negation dual of `decision` along the deliberate-then-commit (does deliberation terminate?) axis. Discovered in the op-01 full sweep 2026-07-03. Verified absent via search_prime + slug check; multiple independent routes proposed it (perpetual_deliberation, analysis_paralysis_via_interconnection). STATUS: HOLD — pending owner curation (manifest marks STRONG)."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). Did NOT go through Phase-A triage. SI/SF/similarity grades are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT yet written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity check vs `decision`, `analysis_paralysis` (if present as anything), `procrastination`/`inaction`, `deadlock`, `halting`/`nontermination`, and `overchoice`/`choice_overload` to confirm it names a distinct structure rather than a failure-instance of `decision`; at incorporation draw the dual/sibling edge to `decision` and the proposed-parent edge to a deliberation/search-termination genus. one_liner must be synced to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 3
  domain_breadth: 3
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 3
  reasoning: 'The structure — a deliberation process that lacks (or defers) a termination condition, so no commitment is emitted and the default/null path is taken by inaction — is medium-neutral and states cleanly as a non-halting search or an under-specified stopping rule, earning structural abstraction a 4. It recurs beyond human psychology: a planner or optimizer that never converges on an action (control/AI), a committee whose voting rule admits no closure, a distributed protocol that cannot reach agreement and stalls, and an animal frozen between two equally-weighted stimuli (Buridan). Domain breadth is a genuine 3 rather than higher because the sharpest and most-documented instances cluster in cognition, behavioral economics, and organizational decision-making; the physical/biological instances are more analogical. Transfer evidence is 3 — the choice-overload and analysis-paralysis findings are robust in their home fields, but cross-substrate transfer is asserted more than demonstrated, and there is a real risk this is the failure-mode of `decision` rather than an independent prime.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: decision
  similarity: 0.62
structural_framed:
  label: mixed-structural
  aggregate: 0.34
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.2, evaluative_weight: 0.6, institutional_origin: 0.1, human_practice_bound: 0.5, import_vs_recognize: 0.2}
  rationale: 'The core — a deliberation/search process with no effective termination condition, so no output commitment issues and the null path wins by default — is a structural (non-halting / missing stopping-rule) relation and reads low on vocab and institutional origin. But it carries real evaluative weight (paralysis is named as a dysfunction, a failure to do what deliberation is *for*), and its clearest instances are human-practice-bound (agents, committees, choosers), which pulls the aggregate up to mixed-structural. Whether the evaluative loading is essential to the pattern or a framing artifact is exactly the keep/cut question.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Decision Paralysis

## Core Idea

Decision paralysis is the structural condition in which a deliberation process *fails to terminate in a commitment*: the machinery of weighing alternatives runs, but never emits the output — a chosen path — that would end it, so options remain open past the point where keeping them open has any value. It is one pole of a single axis, *does deliberation terminate?*, whose opposite pole is `decision` — the moment deliberation collapses into commitment and forecloses the alternatives. Decision paralysis is the same process with the collapse removed: the transition from open deliberation to locked-in path is indefinitely deferred, and the deliberating agent stays in the pre-commitment state.

The pattern has three load-bearing commitments. First, there is a *deliberation process* with a set of live alternatives — the same substrate `decision` acts on — so "hasn't chosen yet" is a well-defined state. Second, there is a *missing or unreachable termination condition*: either no stopping rule is specified, or the rule's condition (enough certainty, a dominant option, resolved trade-offs) can never be satisfied, so the process has no state that halts it. Third — and this is what makes paralysis a distinct object rather than merely "slow deciding" — *inaction is not neutral*: while deliberation fails to terminate, the world advances and the null/default path is taken *by omission*. Not choosing is itself an outcome, usually the worst-defended one, because it was selected by the clock rather than by the deliberation. The characteristic trade this exposes is between the cost of premature commitment (choosing before the trade-offs are understood) and the cost of non-termination (never choosing, so the default wins and the deliberative effort is wasted). Paralysis is what happens when a process built to avoid the first cost has no mechanism bounding the second.

Read structurally, this recurs wherever a search-for-a-commitment can run without a stopping rule. It is the choice-overload and analysis-paralysis of behavioral economics (more options and more interconnected trade-offs push the termination condition further away); the planner or action-selection loop in control and AI that never converges on an action and so emits nothing; the committee or distributed protocol whose decision rule admits no closure and stalls; and, in its oldest form, Buridan's ass frozen between two equally-weighted goods. In each the fingerprint is the same: a well-formed deliberation, no reachable halt, and a default outcome accruing by default while the process spins.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by op-01 dualization, sub-flavor 1c (process-negation dual), from the input prime `decision`, in the full op-01 sweep on 2026-07-03. Multiple independent routes converged on it in the sweep — proposed both as `perpetual_deliberation` (the never-terminating deliberation framing) and as `analysis_paralysis_via_interconnection` (the trade-off-explosion framing) — a convergence signal the manifest marks STRONG. Verified absent from the corpus via search_prime + slug check.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: `decision` names the *event* of deliberation collapsing into commitment; the negation of that event — deliberation that never collapses — is a genuinely different structural object with its own invariant (a missing/unreachable termination condition) and its own signature consequence (the null path wins by omission, so inaction is a chosen-by-default outcome). That "default-by-omission" mechanic is not present in `decision` and is the strongest reason to treat it as a prime rather than a footnote. The specific risks Kurt should weigh: (1) **Failure-mode-vs-prime.** The sharpest objection is that decision paralysis is simply the *failure mode* of `decision` — the thing that happens when the decision process malfunctions — not an independent structure. If so, it belongs as a Structural Tension inside `decision`, not as its own prime. The dual framing (it is the other pole of a real termination axis) is the counter-argument; the estimate similarity to `decision` (~0.62) sits in the ambiguous band. (2) **Evaluative loading.** "Paralysis" is a value word — it names a dysfunction. The structural_framed read is mixed-structural precisely because the pattern may be inseparable from the judgment that not-deciding is bad. The domain-neutral restatement ("non-terminating deliberation") is available, but Kurt should decide whether the neutral version is still the same prime or a thinner one. (3) **Screen overlap.** Needs a careful similarity check against any existing `procrastination`/`inaction`, `deadlock`, `overchoice`/`choice_overload`, and computational `nontermination`/`halting` primes — the halting/stopping-rule genus may be the better home, with decision paralysis as a specialization rather than a peer of `decision`. Lattice signal: if kept, it and `decision` complete a clean dual pair on the deliberation-termination axis, which is a mild point in favor.

**At incorporation.** Re-run the similarity check against `decision`, `procrastination`/`inaction`, `deadlock`, `overchoice`, and any `halting`/`nontermination` prime before drawing edges; if it survives as a peer, draw the dual/sibling edge to `decision` and a subsumption edge up to the deliberation/search-termination genus (or reclassify as a specialization of that genus if the failure-mode objection wins). Confirm the "null path by omission" mechanic is stated in the eventual Structural Signature, since it is the load-bearing distinction from `decision`. Sync the one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge, and mirror it across v1/v2.
