I spent a few minutes this afternoon trying to figure out if there is ever an instance where a false signal is better than no signal at all. I couldn’t think of any. <\/p>\n
(I asked Ana, and she couldn’t either. In fact, she’s been waiting all week for a call from a prospective employer and she was quite sure that she’d rather continue waiting than be lied to about her getting the job.)<\/p>\n
An hour later I decided that my question was flawed. No signal is a kind of signal and one of three that can be ranked, from most to least desirable: <\/p>\n
1) true signal
\n2) no signal
\n3) false signal<\/p>\n
This sounds pretty abstract but it’s a common preoccupation. For example, New Edition’s song “Mr. Telephone Man”:<\/p>\n
\nMr. Telephone man
\nThere’s something wrong with my line,
\nWhen I dial my baby’s number
\nI get a click everytime\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe narrator is willfully misreading a true signal (click) as a false signal (she can’t really be hanging up on him) and brings in a third party to entertain the possibility that there’s no signal (something is wrong with his line.)<\/p>\n
In missing persons dramas on TV, grieving family members are often presented with a similar choice: they can accept a likely false signal — the discovery of unidentifiable remains — or they can stay in a state of indeterminacy with no sign of their missing loved one. <\/p>\n
This may be a false choice as both options have the same outcome: keeping the case open.<\/p>\n
“I’d rather believe a lie than not know” is a bit of a paradox. If you believe you’re being lied to, you know the truth of the matter is otherwise. Accepting a possible lie is a way to postpone the conclusion. It’s a way to bury the hope that one day the lie will be exposed by the arrival of the truth. What is presented as a way to “get closure,” is in fact quite the opposite. It’s a way to secretly keep the case open.<\/p>\n
So why not just accept the lack of a sign? What’s so bad about no signal? Like the Telephone Man in the New Edition song, the families in missing persons dramas turn to a third party, the police, to establish the truth. Perhaps, it’s just too disappointing to accept that these arbiters of truth are unable to solve the case?<\/p>\n
The worst possible outcome then is for the police to conclude there’s no signal. For order to be maintained, someone<\/em> must know. Thus, the family member who accepts the possible lie is helping the police save face. <\/p>\n
I should revise my list then: a true signal is better than no signal which is better than a false signal which is better than no signal is possible. <\/p>\n
Nothing is worse than the possibility that something is unknowable. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent a few minutes this afternoon trying to figure out if there is ever an instance where a false signal is better than no signal at all. I couldn’t think of any. (I asked Ana, and she couldn’t either. In fact, she’s been waiting all week for a call from a prospective employer and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}