Uncertainty

Uncertainty is the state of not knowing whether an idea is right. CF doesn't deny uncertainty — it acknowledges uncertainty as a routine feature of intellectual life — but it handles it differently from the mainstream.

CF's approach

1. State the uncertainty as an idea. "I'm uncertain whether X" is itself an IGC, which must be evaluated.
2. Act on the meta-IGC. Given that you don't know X, what should you do right now?
3. Reject plans that depend on X being true or false. Both are currently wrong.
4. Re-evaluate when X becomes known. The IGC changes when context changes.

Why not credences?

CF rejects credences (Bayesian uncertainty quantification) because:

• Credences try to put a number on something that's qualitatively uncertain.
• They encourage indecisive reasoning.
• They fail to capture breakpoints — points where uncertainty crosses into a qualitatively different regime.

Uncertainty as feature, not bug

CF treats uncertainty as informative. The unknown unknowns are where the next errors are. Being honest about uncertainty opens the door to finding them.

"We have lots of uncertainty in life. Using degree judgments instead of binary judgments isn't a solution to uncertainty." — criticalfallibilism.com