ConflictManager docs updated

documentation/src/main/asciidoc/user_guide/clustering.adoc

@@ -973,6 +973,14 @@ allowing users to process a stream of cache entries whose stored replicas have c
 utilising implementations of the <<merge-policies, EntryMergePolicy>> interface it is possible for said conflicts to
 be resolved automatically.
 
+[[detecting_conflicts]]
+===== Detecting Conflicts
+Conflicts are detected by retrieving each of the stored values for a given key. The conflict manager retrieves the value stored
+from each of the key's write owners defined by the current consistent hash. The .equals method of the stored values is
+then used to determine whether all values are equal. If all values are equal then no conflicts exist for the key, otherwise
+a conflict has occurred. Note that null values are returned if no entry exists on a given node, therefore we deem a conflict
+to have occurred if both a null and non-null value exists for a given key.
+
 [[merge-policies]]
 ===== Merge Policies
 In the event of conflicts arising between one or more replicas of a given CacheEntry, it is necessary for a conflict