A quick note on multi-level deception

[_TKO_]

I wear headphones when I’m doing work. The implicit assumption is that when I wear headphones, it means I am doing work. In order to counteract this, I must sometimes do work without wearing headphones. But furthermore, I should also sometimes wear headphones while not doing work. What additional level of deception does this latter adjustment afford me?

With only the first adjustment, there is no change in the assumption that headphones mean work. That is, whenever I wear headphones, I am still doing work. But it counteracts the assumption that if I am not wearing headphones, then I am not doing work. If the overall goal is to give the impression that I am always doing work, then does the other adjustment have any benefit?

Well, we need to think about signals and meanings. In this case, I wish all signals to lead to a single meaning. But in some additional deceptive cases, I would want to eliminate the meaning of a signal entirely, and this is where the second adjustment becomes necessary. It is important to note that adding this additional level of deception will neutralize the first effect.

For this example, the headphones are the signal and the doing of the work is the meaning. The majority of the time the signal is positive, the meaning is positive as well, that is, I am wearing headphones most of the time I do work. Conversely, the majority of the time the signal is negative, the meaning is negative. By adding the first level of deception, I am trying to associate the negative signal with the positive meaning rather than the negative meaning (and at the same time, implicitly dissociate the negative signal from the negative meaning). In this case, the goal is that whether the signal is positive or negative, the meaning will be positive.

With the second level of deception added to the first, I am also dissociating the positive signal from the positive meaning (remember that the negative signals have already been dissociated). What this means is that that me wearing headphones doesn’t mean that I am doing work, and that me not wearing headphones doesn’t mean that I am doing work.

This two-level deception is applicable when there are two states for the signal and two states for the result. Further multi-level deception is possible with additional states, but its complexity grows significantly with each additional state.