A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
-Segal’s Law
I think Segal’s Law is brilliant as it gets to the heart of the difficulty of having multiple sources of information. It’s easy to believe a thing if you have just one information source, but a second (or third or fourth) source adds complications because any discrepancy creates uncertainty.
Segal’s Law isn’t strictly true, of course, as averaging the time of two watches is likely closer to the true time than one watch unless it’s perfectly synced to the true time. Rather, the point of Segal’s Law is that if we only have one source of information, we are more confident of what the “truth” is than if we have multiple sources that contain discrepancies.
The essence of Segal’s Law is that more information, paradoxically, tends to create uncertainty. This happens because the world is a complex, messy place with opposing facts and disparate opinions.
Think about how we consume media. If you are only getting one view, say from MSNBC, you may feel confident about what the “truth” is, but if you switch back and forth between MSNBC and Fox, you’ll likely be less certain about what is really true — it’s like having two watches with each telling a different time. (I find that flipping between media sources with differing views creates cognitive dissonance.)
Segal’s Law also comes into play when deciding to buy something and then going down the rabbit hole of user reviews. This happens all the time when I’m buying a book online. I may like the description of the book and the topic and think I’m going to click “buy.” But then I decide to read through user reviews. Usually, there are reviews pointing both directions — some five-star reviews and some one and two-star reviews. So then, I’ll do a Google search for professional reviews. Again, these often don’t line up. So, I’m left in a fog of uncertainty about the quality of the book unless I buy it and read it myself.
Additional fun fact: commercial aircraft usually have three of every critical instrument. Why three? Tiebreaker. If one altimeter says 5000 but two say 7000, you have pretty good evidence of which one is broken. And averaging the three is almost guaranteed to get you a wrong answer.
Uncertainty is not necessarily a bad thing. It can (and should) lead to questions and a search for answers. In the case of news media we often rely on their summary and interpretation of information when we should be evaluating the underlying information ourselves. Critical thinking is important and often in short supply.
You talk about cognitive dissonance as if it is a bad thing, I think we could use more of it is our world today. Too many people get their “truth” from a single source. These different sources then makes consensus impossible.