There’s this idea in psychology, “super attractors”. The idea is that an artificial object can emulate the mental concept of another object, we can create things that trick our brain into thinking they’re the perfect representation of something.

An example: if you swap an egg in a bird’s nest with a perfectly round ball of the same colour the nesting parent will show preference for nurturing the ball over the other eggs.

The ball represents a perfected version of an egg and that tricks our brain into prioritising it. The “metaphysical ideal” if you paid attention in philosophy class.

This causes problems, as people we are always prioritising based on competing concerns. Like the parent in the nest, we have to make decisions that exclude other opportunities. When we prioritise the fake egg we neglect the real ones. We trade real opportunity for dead ends.