Can you overthink thinking itself? Russell & Wefald's 90s metareasoning work says the recursion never bottoms out

BraydonDymm · x · 2026-10-28

Responding to "if you can overthink the worst, why not the best?", the post cites Russell & Wefald's early-90s metareasoning work: deciding how much to deliberate is itself a decision requiring deliberation — and the recursion never bottoms out. A classic framing that maps directly onto today's LLM overthinking debate.

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