Signals have the following interesting property: the same signal can be interpreted as fitting different patterns.
Once a pattern is (supposedly) established, various things are interpreted one way that might have been interpreted a different way if another pattern had been (supposedly) established.
(A good example of this in politics is “defining your candidate.” The basic idea is: define your own candidate, i.e., create patterns that future events will be interpreted through by voters, before your opponent does it for you.)
This has ramifications for not just scientific theories but everyday theories we have about ourselves and the world.
It’s probably useful to be aware that the current pattern we think we have established may not be correct, and briefly think through other possible patterns and how the new signal would be interpreted if they were what we thought was the case.
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