{
  "id": "wishful-thinking.substitution",
  "term": "wishful thinking",
  "sense": "substitution",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 15,
  "domain": "model and reality",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "a reading replaced by the wanted value, undetectable downstream because the model's report carries no mark of where it came from.",
  "folk_gloss": "believing something is true because you want it to be",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "read.information",
      "want.desire",
      "value.worth",
      "report.information",
      "model.representation",
      "wish.emotional",
      "cheap.economic"
    ],
    "interaction": "The wanted value is written where a reading should be, at no cost of measurement; every process downstream consumes reports without provenance, so the substitution propagates exactly as if it had been read.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "want written as reading",
      "provenance-free reports",
      "substitution invisible downstream"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The schedule says June because June was needed, and procurement, sincerely, plans from the schedule.",
      "domain": "projects"
    },
    {
      "text": "The invasion plan consumes intelligence that was written from the plan.",
      "domain": "military"
    },
    {
      "text": "The patient hears that the odds are good because good was the word brought to the appointment.",
      "domain": "medicine"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "wishful thinking"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-08-22",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — keeping reality out"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wishful-thinking.substitution"
}