RESEARCH DIRECTORATEPX–FN–019
REVISION 1 / PUBLIC EDITION
PARALLAX / Field note
On absent evidence
Why a missing observation must remain distinct from an observation of nothing.
01 / Three distinct states
The observation ledger distinguishes an observed absence, an unavailable observation, and a disputed observation. Converting any of these into an empty field destroys information about the instrument’s relationship to the world. A blank is not a neutral representation.
02 / Recording practice
A witness must report when it could have observed, when it actually observed, and which transformations preceded publication. Where that chain cannot be established, the record remains unavailable. An operator may annotate the gap but may not silently promote the annotation into an observation.
03 / Consequence
In a multi-witness system, shared gaps can reveal a dependency that no individual instrument reports. PARALLAX uses these gaps to select further measurements. They are not used to fabricate a consensus account. The archive prefers an honest empty interval to an unusually confident explanation.