Three Responses to Inconsistency

 Inconsistency may prompt a technocratic, moral or commercial response.

Suppose a man is found to have inconsistent identity or characteristics -- let's say one computer believes him to be married, while another believes him to be single.

One possible explanation for this is that the inconsistency refers to two different men -- perhaps father and son with the same name at the same address. A technocratic resolution is based on a simple EITHER/OR.  Either there are two men with two different identities, or there is one man and at least some of the computer data relating to him are incorrect or out-of-date. The inconsistency is resolved and removed by fixing the identifier and/or correcting the data.

In contrast to this, a moral response to this contradiction might be to imagine some lax moral behaviour on the part of the man himself, or elsewhere in the system (social or technical). A married man who sometimes claims to be unmarried (or permits people to believe him unmarried) might be on morally dangerous ground. A simple-minded moralist might be tempted to make instant moral judgements, based on the first signs of inconsistency. A fair and proper assessment of character would require more careful consideration and discretion, but this could still lead to some form of moral judgement.

A commercial (and morally cynical) response to detecting this inconsistency could be to highlight the man as a possible consumer of certain products and services -- from flowers and chocolates to legal representation.

The point here is that inconsistency sometimes reveals something interesting and important -- and there may be valid alternatives to the technocratic preference for correcting and smoothing the data. Professional auditors are taught that apparently trivial inconsistencies may yield clues to serious fraud. Psychologists (including some marketing experts) suggest that one's deepest desires may often be marked by apparent ambivalence or oscillation.  An approach to data management or personal identity that suppresses or erases inconsistency for the sake of convenience and seamless communication is systematically incapable of recognizing many of the subtleties of human behaviour.

Inconsistency can also reveal possible clashes of worldview between business partners or other stakeholders. One firm identifies a man as having two children, another firm identifies him as having no children. When we investigate this inconsistency, we find that he does indeed have two children, but they are grown-up and no longer live with him. Two different organizations have two different reasons for asking what is apparently the same question. But the difference in content reveals a deeper difference in meaning. 

 

 

Originally posted at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rxv/demcha/contradiction.htm