Dear Gottfried,

You ask the following: How do you see the factor of Uncertainty in your research?

Much could be said redarding your interesting and challenging question.

What follow is a short answer to your question.

1) In the end, to perform research amounts, to a great extent, to looking for the unkown. By definition, when one looks for the unkown, one intends to decrease our uncertainty regarding a given state of affairs. Needless to say, the more we know about the unknown the more we become aware that there will always be an unknown to be known.

2) Charle Sanders Pierce one remarked that science come out, say, of the irritation of doubt. So, when we perform research we intend to augment our certainty and knowledge about a certain state of affair in any domain of knowledge, such as physics, mathematics, psychology, and so forth. Thus, all research should be guided by, say, irritating questions, that is, questions whose response advances knowledge and hence leads us to a better knowledge of the unknown.

3) Ludwig Wittgenstein once astutely remarked that when there is no place for doubt and uncertainty, certainy does make any sense either. In other words, according to Wittgenstein, it is nonsensical and a pure waste of time, for example, to run an experiment designed to test what is true by definition and hence cannot be falsified in Popperian terms. Therefore, such an experiment is nonsensical because it does not really intend to give an answer to a question, or, say, a "legitimate" doubt.

These brief considerations show that uncertainty and research are intertwined. In the last analysis, any "true" research aims at diminishing one's degree of uncertainty regarding a given state of affairs, be it physical, mathematical, psychological, biological, and so forth. As you say, this uncertainty may be the prime human motivator for research and many behaviors.

I hope that I has been able to grasp your question and that this helps.

Best regards.

Orlando

Dear Orlando,

thank you for your astute remarks - which nevertheless stray aside of what I wanted to ask: Un-Certainty orientation following RM Sorrentino is the attraction felt for uncertain situations in order to be mastered by (mostly symbolic, 4-D thought).

How would this established prime motivational dimension influence your research - as e.g. ASD-carriers seem to be v. rigid (though rather Certaitny-oriented - mood falls with the unexpected etc. .

Lit: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/385873.Richard_M_Sorrentino

We look for the unknown and known unknowns (Bayes)

As you say doubt may be irritating - esp .to the Certainty-oriented.

In my view Sorrentino is at least as important as LW in Über Gewißheit , who certainly didn't grasp the UO/CO-orientation-dimension ... being hyper-UO!

Did I make it graspable for you ? I hope so - else I will try again.

Obrigado,

Go