Making Decisions When Outcomes are Irreducible: Shackle's Imagination and Virtual Reality

Abstract

This paper addresses the challenge of navigating irreducible outcomes, where predicting future patterns proves futile despite understanding the underlying rules. It advocates for G.L.S. Shackle's imagination-focused decision approach as a partial solution. Integrating the concept of the extended mind, I argue that modern technological advances such as Virtual Reality (VR) further enhance Shackle's approach, rather than compromising its subjective nature. In light of the challenges in applying reductivist tools to the outcomes of VR, I propose Shackle's framework as a promising framework for integrating such outcomes into decision-making processes. Via this framework, decision-makers capitalize on large` gains and hedge against large losses, despite not fully overcoming irreducibility.