Ambiguity - II

As I have stated before, we live in a world full of ambiguous situations. However, we seem to be hardwired to avoid ambiguity. This ofcourse made sense in our remote past. If I am a hunter-gatherer, then I better be sure that the shadow I see in the bush I am about to pass is not some lion or other dangerous beast that could attack and kill me. If I am an early farmer, I better be sure about when to plant so that I don't go hungry later on.

So when we encounter ambiguous situations in the modern world, we are unsure how to react. By definition, ambiguous situations are novel ones; If we had encountered a similar situation previously, we would have some idea how to react. The human body has two basic responses to a given situation: fight or flight. Both types require a fairly high level of certainty. Ambiguous situations do not lend themselves to the required level. As a result, our bodies are under almost constant stress. This ultimately leads to high levels of chronic stress related problems in the populace.

Unfortunately, the level of ambiguity in society is not going down. Rather the opposite is happening. Scientific and technical discoveries are on an exponential trajectory. These often lead to a high level of social changes occurring in society. Take the whole social media phenomenon at whose apex Facebook is currently sitting. This has introduced a whole new method of interaction. But the rules are not clear. For example, what is a poke? What happens if I "poke" somebody. Is it polite? Rude? Does it send some kind of message that I don't want to send? If I see somebody's information, am I being curious or am I stalking? Should I bombard my friends with constant status updates? All these are important questions with as yet no clear answers. There is no doubt that as a society we will evolve some standardized response to these types of question in this type of situation. But then we will encounter some new type of situation and again we will have the same problem.

Our situation is like being on a treadmill that keeps going faster and faster and so we have to run harder and harder in order to stay upright. This is ultimately exhausting and many people give up what seems to be a hopeless struggle. Is there then no solution? Are we doomed to keep struggling in the face of new, ambiguous situations that will crop up with monotonous and ever increasing regularity? Personally I am hopeful. I like to think that we will come up with some heuristics to help guide us through this ambiguous maze that modernity has constructed around us.