---
slug: meta_decision
name: Meta-Decision
one_liner: "A second-order decision whose object is not an option but a way-of-deciding: choosing among decision PROCEDURES and allocating deliberation effort, where the cost of deliberating is itself part of what is decided — when to stop thinking and just choose."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, cognitive, computational]
origin_domain: decision_theory
alternate_origin_domains: [artificial_intelligence, cognitive_science, management, personal_productivity]
aliases: [rational_metareasoning, meta_level_rationality, deciding_how_to_decide, decision_procedure_selection, value_of_computation]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-02 self-application, route R / reflexive) — the SECOND-ORDER prime obtained by applying `decision` to itself: deciding not which option to take but which decision PROCEDURE to run and how much deliberation to spend, where the cost of deliberating is part of what is decided. Discovered in the op-02 sweep 2026-07-03. WEAK hold (be candid) — verified absent from corpus and carries an established name (rational metareasoning; Russell & Wefald 1991), but the deliberation-cost trade-off may already be carried by `bounded_rationality`, making this a restatement risk. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `bounded_rationality` FIRST (the main overlap risk), then `decision` (the input / parent), `satisficing`, `opportunity_cost`, `premature_optimization`; confirm meta_decision adds something `bounded_rationality` + `decision` do not already JOINTLY cover, and is not merely a self-application label. If it survives, draw a subsumption edge decision→meta_decision; write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1/v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — a decision whose object is a decision PROCEDURE rather than an outcome, with the cost of deliberation folded into the decision itself so that the choice includes when to stop deliberating — is a genuinely substrate-neutral second-order form. It recurs wherever a deciding process can allocate its own effort: value-of-computation and anytime-algorithm control in AI metareasoning, strategy-selection and resource-rational analysis in cognitive science, choosing which decision process to run in management, and the satisfice-vs-optimize call in personal productivity. These are structurally-unlike siblings sharing only the abstract form, so domain_breadth scores 4 (a notch below evolvability''s 5 because the siblings cluster more tightly around cognition/computation than around unrelated physical substrates). Structural abstraction is 4 because the core is a clean statement about a level-2 target (the procedure and the deliberation budget) distinct from the level-1 target (the option), requiring no particular substance; it stays short of 5 because "deliberation cost" and "decision quality" import a mildly evaluative, cost-aware residue. Transfer evidence is solid (canonically named in AI as rational metareasoning and paralleled in cognitive science''s resource-rational program). Scored cautiously — see the candid keep/cut risk in Notes.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: decision
  similarity: 0.60
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.40
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.7, evaluative_weight: 0.4, institutional_origin: 0.2, human_practice_bound: 0.3, import_vs_recognize: 0.4}
  rationale: 'Reads structural-to-mixed. The core claim — a decision whose object is a decision procedure, with the cost of deliberation folded in — is recognized rather than imported, and travels cleanly into AI metareasoning, cognitive strategy-selection, and management without carrying any one field''s vocabulary. The frame residue is moderate: "deliberation cost," "decision quality," and the satisfice/optimize framing import an evaluative, resource-aware cast (keeping evaluative_weight and human_practice_bound off the floor), but the underlying second-order structure — a distinction between choosing an option and choosing-plus-budgeting the way-of-choosing — is substrate-neutral. Framing comparable to its parent `decision` and slightly heavier than the surrounding structural candidates because the deliberation-cost trade-off is intrinsically evaluative.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Meta-Decision

## Core Idea

Meta-decision is a *second-order* decision: its object is not an option drawn from a set but a *way of deciding*. Base-level `decision` commits to one option from a set under uncertainty — it sorts among the alternatives the situation presents. Meta-decision sorts among *decision procedures* — deliberate vs. satisfice, optimize vs. use a heuristic, gather more evidence vs. choose now — and it allocates *deliberation effort*: it decides how much thinking to spend before committing. It is reached from `decision` by applying deciding to itself: deciding how to decide.

The load-bearing anatomy is a structure the base decision holds fixed. First, there is a *regress*: deciding how to decide can itself be decided (how to decide how to decide...), and the regress must be terminated by something other than another meta-decision. Second — and this is the feature present at the meta level but absent at the base — the *cost of deliberating is itself part of what is decided*. Base decision treats the deliberation process as a free background: it names the options and their uncertain payoffs but not the price of thinking about them. Lift the decision up one level and that price becomes a term in the problem: the meta-decision trades deliberation cost against decision quality and, in the limit, decides *when to stop thinking and just choose*. The regress is terminated not by infinite ascent but by the *value of computation* — you deliberate about the deliberation only up to the point where further meta-thinking costs more than it is expected to improve the choice. The base loop has no vocabulary for "the deliberating is expensive and that expense is on the table," because within a single decision the deliberation is a fixed background, not a variable; at the meta level it is exactly the variable.

Read structurally, the same second-order shape appears wherever a deciding process can allocate its own effort, and the siblings are genuinely unlike. In *AI metareasoning*, it is the value-of-computation control of anytime algorithms and search — deciding which computation to run next and when to halt, weighing compute against expected decision improvement (Russell & Wefald's "do the right thing"). In *cognitive science*, it is strategy selection and resource-rational analysis — choosing which cognitive procedure to deploy given the cost of thought. In *management*, it is deciding which decision *process* to use (consensus vs. authority, analysis vs. gut) before deciding the substantive question. In *personal productivity*, it is the satisfice-vs-optimize call — knowing which decisions deserve deliberation and which deserve a fast default. Across these, the shared abstract form is a decision whose object is a decision procedure and whose budget is deliberation itself; the everyday "which option" decision is the level-1 case, and the structurally-unlike siblings show the genus is the bare second-order structure.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 02 (self-application), route R (reflexive), as the second-order prime obtained by applying `decision` to itself — deciding how to decide, and allocating deliberation effort where the cost of deliberating is part of what is decided. Surfaced in the op-02 self-application sweep on 2026-07-03. Established construct: rational metareasoning / meta-level rationality (Russell & Wefald 1991, "Do the Right Thing"); metareasoning and value-of-computation in AI; strategy-selection and resource-rational analysis in cognitive science; deciding-which-decision-process in management; the satisfice-vs-optimize call in personal productivity. Verified absent from the corpus. Manifest: WEAK hold — the weakest of the op-02 strong-cluster holds.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut) — candid.** This is the WEAKEST of the op-02 strong-cluster holds, and the owner should treat it accordingly. The case FOR: it has a *canonical name* (rational metareasoning) rather than a proposer coinage, and it has a real level-2 structure the base prime lacks — the deliberation-cost regress terminated by the value of computation, and the deliberation-cost-vs-decision-quality trade-off that base `decision` holds fixed as a free background. The case AGAINST is sharp and should be weighed first: (1) **the deliberation-cost trade-off may already be carried by `bounded_rationality`** — if it is, meta_decision collapses to a restatement or a near-alias rather than a distinct prime; (2) **the "deciding how to decide" framing risks being a mere self-application LABEL** — a slogan attached to structure the corpus already holds, rather than genuinely new structure; (3) partial overlap with `satisficing` (one procedure a meta-decision might select), `opportunity_cost` (the currency in which deliberation cost is paid), and `premature_optimization` (a failure mode of over-deliberation). The sharp keep/cut question: **does meta_decision add anything `bounded_rationality` + `decision` do not already JOINTLY cover?** The proposer's tentative answer is that the *procedure-selection + deliberation-budgeting + value-of-computation regress-terminator* is a level-2 object distinct from bounded rationality's descriptive claim that agents deliberate under limits — but the proposer flags this as genuinely uncertain and recommends screening against `bounded_rationality` FIRST.

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `bounded_rationality` FIRST (the main overlap risk), then `decision` (input / parent), `satisficing`, `opportunity_cost`, and `premature_optimization` to confirm no collapse. If — and only if — meta_decision survives the bounded_rationality screen as a distinct prime, draw a subsumption edge `decision` → `meta_decision`, and add missing-edge notes flagging the `bounded_rationality` mechanism/overlap relationship, the `satisficing` procedure-instance relationship, and the `premature_optimization` failure-mode relationship explicitly. If it does not survive, record the merge/alias decision against `bounded_rationality`. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
