“Ambiguous” is another way of saying, just not sure. After puzzle solving, it’s the most abiding element of crime writing. Our protagonists spend about three quarters of the book or short story feeling very unsure. This isn’t only because the author herself is usually caught between the multiple poles of her story, and is undecided about how it should all turn out. It’s also, more importantly, in the nature of any pursuit of the truth, because truth itself is a very slippery thing.
Most assume there is only one truth, and I’m partial to that idea myself. But people tend to disagree about what constitutes That One Truth, and since there is no objective arbiter to pick among the favorites, the question gets hurled into philosophical tracts, legal briefs, rabbinical debates and mystery stories.
It appears there is an inverse correlation between a person’s general awareness of the world and confidence in their beliefs. That is, the more you know, the less sure you are. And vice versa. When you dive into any subject, you soon learn it’s filled with subtlety, nuance and conflicting conclusions. And ambiguity. It’s a lot easier not to bother with all that stuff, make up your mind and stick with it no matter what. But I think the opposite approach is worth the effort.
According to Zeno’s Dichotomy Paradox, reaching any destination is impossible if with every step you halve the distance. Numbers being what they are, the halves are infinite, and thus your goal unreachable. Mathematicians over the years have found ways to disprove Zeno's Paradox, but they shouldn't have bothered. Few were aware of how things work at the quantum level. When your halves start to interact with subatomic particles, they can end up being in a couple places at the same time, which Werner Heisenberg instructed means their location is ambiguous. Nothing in your common experience can fix this, nor can a clever mathematician, not even Albert Einstein. So if you follow Zeno’s methodology, he essentially had it right.
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| Heisenberg |
The upshot is that at the most basic levels of reality, nature’s governing property is uncertainty. So why should a murder mystery be any different?
I spent a lot of my career working in and around public relations. As with most vilified professions, most of what PR people do is pretty mundane and entirely benign. They spend much of their day examining how a person or institution is being described in the media, and where possible, correct misrepresentations. Most people in the press like this, since they are tasked with delivering information to the public that is as close to the truth as they can manage. Assuming the PR person is able to prove their corrections, responsible journalists will be sure to get it right the next time, and will reward reliable sources with greater access and goodwill.
There’s plenty of room for abuse on both sides of this interaction, of course, but overall it works pretty well. Though one thing it taught me is that anything you learn from the media, no matter how honest and sincere everyone’s trying to be, is at best an approximation of the truth.
This frame of mind can engender a fair amount of cynicism, which is likely why hardened journalists, PR flacks and homicide detectives are often portrayed as a pretty jaded bunch. But more often, in my experience, they develop a healthy skepticism about nearly everything. Which I do think is healthy, since there is nothing more suspicious than assertions of absolute truth. Without skepticism, no crimes would be solved, no mysteries ever written.
You’ve probably heard the expression, “Close enough for jazz.” It’s a tired old saw that suggests imprecise tuning is okay if your goal is to perform a lot of improvisation. It’s a bit of a slander, since every self-respecting jazz musician cares deeply about their intonation. I think it works better as a broader lesson for truth seekers. Knowing that you’ll never get all the way there doesn’t mean you don’t try. But once you’ve exhausted yourself and every possibility, and arrived at some working hypothesis, it’s okay to say close enough.
