‘Fabricated’ doesn’t seem quite the right adjective, as it implies deliberate deception, whereas your examples suggest it’s usually unintentional. Indeed I initially assumed your post was about some kind of rhetorical trick rather than a mistake. So, how about something more along the lines of ‘incoherent’? (Or see related terms below.)
In any case, I’m a bit wary of the introduction of new terms for apparently-new concepts, because they are often already quite well-known and built into English via established phrases, which to save brain space should be used as well or instead. (E.g. ‘desperado’ and ‘chasing losses’ for the otherwise perhaps surprising ‘discovery’ of risk-seeking behaviour in a loss situation.)
That said, I haven’t thought of any existing phrases which precisely capture fabricated options; but FWIW here are some related ones:
You can’t have your cake and eat it too (which you touched on)
Hand-waving
Utopian / Fantasy world / Dream world / La-la land
Wishful thinking / Pipe dream / Chasing rainbows / When pigs fly / Pie-in-the-sky / Castles in the air.
Utopia(n) is actually an #EXAMPLE—cf the meme about communism leading to Utopia via an unspecified intermediate step. Which IIRC Scott Alexander said seemed to be Marx’s position—Utopia just follows automatically, no further elaboration or detail required.
Also, a couple of nitpicks:
The Twin Earth example was originally (AFAIK) from Saul Kripke in his book Naming and Necessity
‘The actual price of the goods and services’ should read ‘The actual cost...’
Great post.
‘Fabricated’ doesn’t seem quite the right adjective, as it implies deliberate deception, whereas your examples suggest it’s usually unintentional. Indeed I initially assumed your post was about some kind of rhetorical trick rather than a mistake. So, how about something more along the lines of ‘incoherent’? (Or see related terms below.)
In any case, I’m a bit wary of the introduction of new terms for apparently-new concepts, because they are often already quite well-known and built into English via established phrases, which to save brain space should be used as well or instead. (E.g. ‘desperado’ and ‘chasing losses’ for the otherwise perhaps surprising ‘discovery’ of risk-seeking behaviour in a loss situation.)
That said, I haven’t thought of any existing phrases which precisely capture fabricated options; but FWIW here are some related ones:
You can’t have your cake and eat it too (which you touched on)
Hand-waving
Utopian / Fantasy world / Dream world / La-la land
Wishful thinking / Pipe dream / Chasing rainbows / When pigs fly / Pie-in-the-sky / Castles in the air.
Utopia(n) is actually an #EXAMPLE—cf the meme about communism leading to Utopia via an unspecified intermediate step. Which IIRC Scott Alexander said seemed to be Marx’s position—Utopia just follows automatically, no further elaboration or detail required.
Also, a couple of nitpicks:
The Twin Earth example was originally (AFAIK) from Saul Kripke in his book Naming and Necessity
‘The actual price of the goods and services’ should read ‘The actual cost...’