Uncertainty is the fabric of the quantum world. This principle has vast applications in our lives, which is good news! Welcoming uncertainty frees us from the severely constrained existence in which a mechanistic worldview limits us.
In 1927, the German quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg introduced his landmark uncertainty principle, also known as the indeterminacy principle.
By analyzing the existing data at that time, Heisenberg demonstrated that uncertainties, or imprecisions, manifested if one tried to measure the position and momentum of a particle at the same time.
This revealed that certainty has its limits. He provided the example of using a microscope to locate a single electron, which would require bouncing light off the electron. The problem was that even a single photon of light would disturb the electron, changing its momentum and, consequently, its location.
Over the last few decades, ample scientific studies have demonstrated that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle can be seen occurring in the macro world just as it does in the quantum realm.
For example, in 2012, physicists at the University of Colorado demonstrated that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle prevails not only on the subatomic, microscopic level but also at the level of visible matter.In a paper published the following year in the journal Science, the physicists describe how Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle can indeed be demonstrated with objects large enough to be seen with the naked eye.In another experiment, when scientists observed beryllium atoms—which are indeed macro, not quantum—the atoms decayed more slowly the more the scientists observed and measured them. Their decay was inexplicably altered by the act of observation.
This is why embracing uncertainty is so valuable to our everyday existence. Uncertainty is the correlation between change and possibility. To live our lives to our potential and feel fully alive, we need to know that we play a role in what’s to come. Certainty and determinism shutter out our participatory role in creating our future; uncertainty restores it.
Insisting on predetermined outcomes, we narrow our choices and often freeze in fear. The notion of predictability leaves us outside of the creative window as the formula for the future has been scripted. But when we accept that all of life is uncertain, from the microscopic to the macrocosmic level, we can recover our human potential.
Our fears about the future are often focused on what we call outcomes. But an outcome is nothing more than a momentary snapshot that we take in a particular moment. This way of looking at life—living in dread of certain outcomes—isrooted in the static picture of Newton’s universe. From the perspective of a flowing participatory paradigm, no such thing as an outcome exists because reality is always continuing to unfold. If we are part of that flow, we can choose differently as we wish, but we must be in the flow. Embracing uncertainty frees us from fear of outcomes.
I decided to seek help for my anxiety disorder. I held down an executive-level job and always supported my family well, yet I had no peace of mind, let alone joy. I was deluged by my fear of not knowing what the future held.
My need for certainty overwhelmed me. As I was preparing for a presentation at work, I became distressed by the uncertainty that lay ahead of me: How would my talk be received? What questions might be asked of me? Was I sufficiently prepared? My worries had a negative impact on my work, as the very thing I feared—a mediocre performance at my job, accompanied by a gloomy aspect that turned off my coworkers—was precisely what I was creating.
At home, I questioned whether my wife would continue to love me in the future, turning her off as she understandably pulled back from me. In essence, I was addicted to seeking the assurance that certainty might provide.
I’ve come to learn that anxiety disorders are often correlated to our demand for certainty: the greater our dependence on predictability, the more we experience anxiety. What I couldn’t see was that this level of certainty and predictability is not only elusive but also in most cases undesirable. To live in a way precludes spontaneity or creativity, which requires your mind to be present in the moment.
I’m currently a college student and I’ve always done pretty well academically. But on a personal level, I often had a deep dread of making what I refer to as “a serious mistake.” I felt it would be a detrimental error to choose the wrong major and career path.
I was so immobilized by my fear of making a mistake that I dropped out of school altogether instead of risking a wrong decision. In my trepidation about the uncertainty of his future, I assumed that only one correct path existed. My acute analysis of my circumstances caused me to lose touch with my intuition.
Looking back, choosing the “right” major is certainly an important decision, but it pales in comparison with dropping out of school. Learning about the new worldview of uncertainty helped me see my circumsetances through a new set of eyes—from which the fear of making mistakes is alleviated by the assurance of a multitude of possibilities.
Once I could imagine a future that wouldn’t have to be narrow but could widen as I grew, I released my fears and readmitted to school.
Like many people who anticipate making significant changes, we sometimes experienced fear when contemplating the question “Who would I be?” After a drastic change in life, circumstances is it a sure thing that we will experience life differently—and this can provoke further fear. In circumstances when we are trying to get out of bad circumstances, we sometimes surprisingly reject change and instead cling to unhappiness and continue to feel like a victim.
Clinging to an unhappy yet certain state is essential to playing the role of victim. The certainty of the present can lock in our despair but paradoxically keep us from becoming responsible for our own lives. However nonsensical it may sound, we often cling to the dysfunction and unhappiness of the certain present to avoid the uncertainty of the future. To use the cliché, we choose the devil we know.
I had been mired in a loveless and emotionally abusive marriage of twelve years. Despite my pleading to my husband to enter marriage counseling, he continued to denigrate me and refused therapy.
I felt depressed and hopeless, and although I often threatened him with divorce, I felt frozen. As I moved more deeply into learning about this ‘quantum worldview’ together, it became apparent that my attachment to certainty kept me safe from the unknown.
Even if that unknown—who would I be as a divorced woman?—was where relief might lie, a miserable certainty still felt safer to me.
Only when I realized I had an embedded bias against uncertainty, was I able to accept certainty and escape my abusive marriage.
Try to envision the ways you would like to experience your life—with neither the weight of a disastrous, unhappy situation nor the fear of the unknown—and become excited by the possibilities. When you struggle with unsatisfactory or troublesome aspects of your life, ask yourself,
Imagine yourself welcoming and embracing the uncertainty, and you’ll gain a sense of self-empowerment that can free you from the grip that certainty may have on you.
Excerpt From: Mel Schwartz. “The Possibility Principle.
CHAPTER 2. Why We Need to Embrace Uncertainty"
Notes
1.David Lindley, Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 19.
2.T. P. Purdy, R. W. Peterson, and C. A. Regal, “Observation of Radiation Pressure Shot Noise on a Macroscopic Object,” Science 339, no. 6121 (2013): 801–4, doi: 10.1126/science.1231282.
3.Fred Alan Wolf, The Dreaming Universe: A Mind-Expanding Journey into the Realm Where Psyche and Physics Meet (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 239.