Uncertainty
It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown, and is particularly relevant for decision-making.
Uncertainty arises in partially observable or stochastic environments, as well as due to ignorance, indolence, or both.
[1] It arises in any number of fields, including insurance, philosophy, physics, statistics, economics, finance, medicine, psychology, sociology, engineering, metrology, meteorology, ecology and information science.
Although the terms are used in various ways among the general public, many specialists in decision theory, statistics and other quantitative fields have defined uncertainty, risk, and their measurement as: The lack of certainty, a state of limited knowledge where it is impossible to exactly describe the existing state, a future outcome, or more than one possible outcome.
Uncertainty is quantified by a probability distribution which depends upon knowledge about the likelihood of what the single, true value of the uncertain quantity is.
Variability is quantified by a distribution of frequencies of multiple instances of the quantity, derived from observed data.
[12] Uncertainty must be taken in a sense radically distinct from the familiar notion of risk, from which it has never been properly separated....
The essential fact is that 'risk' means in some cases a quantity susceptible of measurement, while at other times it is something distinctly not of this character; and there are far-reaching and crucial differences in the bearings of the phenomena depending on which of the two is really present and operating....
Unknown risks have no known expected probability distribution, which can lead to extremely risky company decisions.
You are uncertain, to varying degrees, about everything in the future; much of the past is hidden from you; and there is a lot of the present about which you do not have full information.
Since many people are willing to buy insurance for many reasons, then clearly the EOL alone is not the perceived value of avoiding the risk.
Vagueness is a form of uncertainty where the analyst is unable to clearly differentiate between two different classes, such as 'person of average height' and 'tall person'.
The statement "He returns from the bank" is ambiguous because its interpretation depends on whether the word 'bank' is meant as "the side of a river" or "a financial institution".
Ambiguity typically arises in situations where multiple analysts or observers have different interpretations of the same statements.
In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle puts limits on how much an observer can ever know about the position and velocity of a particle.
A derived work is for example the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Technical Note 1297, "Guidelines for Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results", and the Eurachem/Citac publication "Quantifying Uncertainty in Analytical Measurement".
[citation needed] In this context, uncertainty depends on both the accuracy and precision of the measurement instrument.
"[23] These unknowns, indeterminacy and ignorance, that exist in science are often "transformed" into uncertainty when reported to the public in order to make issues more manageable, since scientific indeterminacy and ignorance are difficult concepts for scientists to convey without losing credibility.
[25] Journalists may downplay uncertainty by eliminating "scientists' carefully chosen tentative wording, and by losing these caveats the information is skewed and presented as more certain and conclusive than it really is".
[25] Also, stories with a single source or without any context of previous research mean that the subject at hand is presented as more definitive and certain than it is in reality.
[26] The nature of these frames is to downplay or eliminate uncertainty, so when economic and scientific promise are focused on early in the issue cycle, as has happened with coverage of plant biotechnology and nanotechnology in the United States, the matter in question seems more definitive and certain.
Aporia and acatalepsy represent key concepts in ancient Greek philosophy regarding uncertainty.
William MacAskill, a philosopher at Oxford University, has also discussed the concept of Moral Uncertainty.
