Saved by Sindhu Shivaprasad and
Uncertainty Isn’t a Human Flaw, It’s a Feature of the World
You really, really, really don’t know when a given event is, or isn’t, for the best. If this falls into the category of “too soon”, by all means file it away for later. But it’s true all the same: you can’t know what effect present-day events will have in the long run, and it’s to ignore your status as a limited human being to imagine you ever coul
... See moreLack of certainty is anything but weakness. Instead, it constitutes—and has always constituted—the very strength of rational thinking, understood as curiosity, rebellion, and change. It is precisely by not taking its answers as definitive that science can continue to improve them.
Carlo Rovelli • Anaximander: And the Birth of Science
Perhaps the greatest “phase transition” in our thinking that such an approach could engender is the maturation in our willingness to live with relatively high levels of uncertainty in the domains of complex phenomena—and thus give up on ideas like complete “cures,” the elimination of “risk,” the design of perfect “stability,” and achieving total “s
... See moreJessica C. Flack • Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, 1984–2019 (Compass)
absolute certainty about all aspects of life would be tyranny. So, at a time in our history where we have huge decisions to make—about the climate, about technology, capitalism, democracy—we need our freedom, of thought and action, more than ever. In an age of uncertainty, we have to ask ourselves what we need to be, and what we need to do—and to c
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