sowhatifit'sdark -
The links you provided and your examples are interesting me, thanks. I don't have enough time now, but I'll get back to you on this.
Just to add to the backlog, I thought about the issue more in depth and wrote the following.
4 approaches to problematic uncertainty
1) meta-cognitive/cognitive
Two related processes to uncertainty are worry and rumination. A lot of psychological studies show that excessive use of these processes can lead to severe anxiety and/or severe depression. At a meta-cognitive level if you have ideas about these processes such as
They are uncontrollable
They are necessary for me to perform well
If I don’t do them terrible things will happen
If I do do them terrible things will happen
You are more likely to develop problems from these processes, AND, I would guess,these processes would become more central coping strategies, when confronted with uncertainty.
So one approach on the meta-cognitive level is to change these beliefs about worry and rumination. Also one must be able to feel, recognize when ‘thinking’ and ‘reasoning’ about issues one is uncertain about has slid into rumination and worry.
We also on this level need to look at the beliefs we have about the ability to solve the problem ‘rationally’ or by thinking, at the importance of finding the solution, of the importance of find certainty
immediately, of the effectiveness of other ways of finding certainty or perhaps allowing certainty, and so on.
Our minds also have only so much attentional resources. If we are panicked and focused on getting the solution we often cannot ALSO focus on the issue metacognitively – by this I mean, for example, examining ourselves to see if we are ruminating and worrying, checking to see if the beliefs we have about the ‘threats’ involved in the issue, or in not solving the issue, are real, and so on.
Meditation, for example, can improve our attentional resources. Some traditions do this by distancing the observer from the ‘objects’ inner and outer. Some do this by immersion and expansion of the observer who experiences both the objects – thoughts, sensations- and the space in which these occur as if these all were the observer/container/participator. (I tend more towards the latter approach.)
If you increase the attention resources, you increase the chance that you are not
locked on the object of uncertainty only and can check assumptions, feelings, etc. simultaneously and also makes choices about the strategy you are using to deal with the issue.
With this attention we can also look at how we cope with uncertainty: do we punish ourselves – think we are stupid, inadequate for example - for not being able to find the solution – perhaps that others can or seem to be able to.
Note: this approach focuses on cognitive processes as they unfold.
2) Emotional/past event focused approaches.
If we are having a hard time with uncertainty then the chances are the uncertainty state is associated with earlier events or relationship dynamics where uncertainty was an component AND there were other unpleasant qualities.
So the whole
see if the feelings remind you of something else – from your childhood – or a relationship you've had. (actually some of this can be found in meditation, especially, I have found, with the second method mentioned above) The older events can then be processed in the present. Feelings that could not be expressed can be expressed now, support from others can be taken in, thoughts that got imprinted in the event/dynamic – ‘I am stupid, I am disgusting' – can be chewed on and replaced – in fact cognitive and meta-cognitive tools can be brought to bear on the issue.
Catharsis may be a component.
Real life confrontations – letters, for example – can also be useful if the person is still alive.
Also an inventory to see how the dynamics and self-image issues related to the event affect and have effected relationships, choices, performance throughout the life.
There are many psychotherapeutic approaches here. Often coupled with issues like this are phobias of certain emotions where the gradual acceptance of these emotions can also de-charge the person when confronted with certain stimuli – given the context: events that make the person wonder about the philosophical issue, thoughts about the issue, failures to understand other people’s explanations, ie. anything that stimulates the harsh end of coping strategies to uncertainty: worry and rumination. Given that the topic is philosophical uncertainty, it would be good to see what events/relationships related directly to the person’s mind and mental abilities. Possibilities include things that made the person feel stupid, inadequate, but also events and relationships (people) who gave the person the impression that thinking was everything, that thinking was bad, that you have to be sure of things, that uncertainty is bad, that you shouldn’t think for yourself, that you should only think for yourself, that you cannot trust your perceptions and so on. Sometimes a single relationship, for example, a parent, can given off contradictory messages about thinking.
Situations where the child's mind was overloaded - certainly any of the traumas we generally think of, but not at all limited to these. For example situations where confusing things were said to the child, perhaps over and over or very complicated things that were stressed in ways that made them seem very important, but no time was allowed for real cognition to take place. Or no questions were allowed. Or none of the emotions set off by the 'information' were allowed to be expressed.
The important thing here is to go back to original sources of the current extra emotional charge and express and accept these emotions (and others repressed at the time) rather than continuing to bring them to bear on the in the present philosophical or decision issue.
At the very least old charge will interfere with the ability to reason effectively and seem to reinforce negative self-appraisals and impossibility of finding solutions that contribute to rumination and worry.
It might also be found that the compulsion to find the answer, especially in the approaches now taken, will lessen.
3) Finding new approaches:
(I think an argument can be made that this is a part of the meta-cognitive approach. The individual decides that thinking and verbal approaches are being overemphasized and other approaches unnecessarily de-emphasized)
Butler, Wells, and Dewisk-1995. A study was done of people who watched a film about a gruesome workplace accident. It was a disturbing film. Three groups watched the film. One group was told to calm themselves down after the film. One group was told to imagine the images in the film. And the last group was told to worry in verbal terms about the events in the film.
This last group was vastly more likely than the other two to suffer intrusive images from the film over the next few days. (I think this is interesting because many might assume that re-seeing the film in one’s head might be worse. We are being traumatized again. But actually reseeding the film allows us, the body, to complete its reactions to the stimuli.)
Further testing to understand the mechanisms of worry incubation effects on intrusive images indicated that worry
Blocks emotional processing! and produces ‘tagging’.
Tagging refers to the fact that worry is a complicated process with many different cognitive and emotional facets. These wide range of facets get tagged with the stress from the film. We now associate more things with the gruesome images. More things remind us of them, even ‘things’ in our minds.
To me this emphasizes the importance of
1) determining the nature of our thinking about what makes us uncertain: is it worry or rumination.
2) Allowing emotional reactions to be coupled directly to the original stimulus rather than new things – see above in approach number 2.
3) Considering that rational, verbal approaches to dealing with uncertainty may not be the best ones since they are most likely to bleed into worry.
Other approaches to philosophical issues might include anything experiential that could contribute information about the issue. Meditation, interpersonal interactions – not involving rational discussion of the issue – cross cultural experiences, time in nature, time with animals, or any of the various rituals we have created – both in secular and religious contexts for altering consciousness or changing our experience of the world – hypnosis, ecstatic practices, shamanism, image work, focusing, dreamwork, lucid dreaming, all sorts of activities in nature and so on. (this list shows my biases, there are untold other approaches)
The shift is away from trying to rationally deduce the answers or rely on our mind’s limited ability to simulate and ‘test’ hypotheses ‘inside’ us, toward experiencing ourselves and the world in new, broader, different ways. That this will give us vast amounts of new information and perhaps make the simulations in our minds more effective so that later, when we reapproach the issue, even if we do not solve it, we experience a sense of change (even progress) give the richer resources we have. (rather than hitting the same walls and stimulating worry and negative self-appraisals)
We might also find that the issue itself has shifted or dissolved. We might also find that we are engaged in life and that some of the charge we had about solving the issue was actually desire to more fully participate in life and we thought we needed to find the right way in our heads first.
4) Participating in Life more fully
Is there something else we would really rather be doing than dealing with the issue of uncertainty but we are afraid to try it?
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory, but requires introspection and a willingness to explore oneself.
Rational discussion and thinking can of course resolve uncertainty (as can emotional discussion). But if it starts to seem problematic perhaps one of these other approaches needs to be looked at as at least complements.
