I read an article in New Scientist by Florence Gaub and Liya Yu entitled “Nothing’s certain”. The authors explore two different ways that we handle uncertainty. Their specific take is a “political neuroscience” one. Now, let me just say I have a paradoxical relationship with the “neuro” tag. Firstly, it attracts me. I’m interested in the brain, scored my best exam result ever in the neuroanatomy exam at Medical School. I’m interested in pyschology and in the “mind-body connection” (although that, too, is a phrase which can both attract and repel me). Secondly, “neuro-” has become a bit of a fashion, with everything from “neuroscience”, to “neuromarketing” and this “political neuroscience”. I just don’t think neurology can explain everything about human behaviour. Alongside that, the correlations between neurological observations and behaviour are just that….correlations. We still haven’t explained how the physical brain can have subjective experience, and whether or not subjective experience creates the changes in the brain, or vice versa.
However, what they had to say really interested me. They say “Political neuroscience shows that the brains of people with conservative views favour security and avoid open-ended solutions with no clear closure. They tend to have increased volume in their amygdala, the region responsible for threat signalling” And, “Liberal brains have a higher tolerance for uncertainty and conflict, as they have more grey matter volume in a brain area implicated in the processing of ambiguity called the anterior cingulate cortex.”
They point out that when uncertainty is high, the former “conservative” people are attracted to whoever offers the idea of certainty (think Hitler and his 1000 year Reich), and are fearful of novelty, whether that be technologies, foreign people or cultures.
They conclude that we need to learn that “cooperation across identity and interest groups” can be beneficial, and that we can overcome our big global challenges “only by overcoming our brains’ vulnerabilities together”.
I’m not sure that MRI scans of peoples’ brains reveal their political preferences, and I’m a bit uncomfortable with how this thesis basically implies that “Liberals” need to help “Conservatives” get over their fear and anxiety, but apparently “Liberals” don’t have anything to learn from “Conservatives”.
I say that despite seeing myself as firmly in the “Liberal” camp, not least because I was trained as a General Practitioner, a speciality sometimes described as doctors who specialise in managing uncertainty. Uncertainty was my daily professional experience, one unique, novel, unpredictable patient at a time.
However it does seem that the “Right” are on the rise across the world, and this might well be connected to an increase in the amount of uncertainty which people are facing in modern times…..uncertainty about climate change, about technology, about both national and personal security.
So, if I want to make a positive contribution, perhaps I need to understand and address the anxieties and fears of those people with a larger amygdala….
In other words, how can I help people to deal with uncertainty more comfortably? How can I help them to enjoy novelty, to delight in diversity and difference, and how can I help to create a more secure society for us to live in together?
In addition to that, what do I have to learn from those who may be more sensitive to uncertainty than I am?
Let me start with the last point first. We humans need sufficient certainty. We couldn’t go on without it. When I buy a train ticket, it doesn’t cross my mind that the train I’m about to step on won’t make it to its destination (despite the fact that between Stirling and Glasgow I’ve had several experiences of trains being delayed, cancelled, or even terminating a few stops before my intended one). The point is that I’ve had enough experiences of reliable trains to actually get on a train and expect it to take me to where it says it’s going to go.
When I first went to university in Edinburgh, my mum, who clearly had a well developed amygdala, used to send me newspaper cuttings about crimes in different parts of the city, with the accompanying advice to avoid those areas. When she sent a story about a boy who was stabbed in Princes Street, I had to ask her to stop sending these cuttings, because there was no way I was going to be able to spend at least the next six years of my life in Edinburgh without walking along Princes Street!
When we wake up in the morning, most of us don’t wonder if this will be our last day. But one day, it will be. No, we have to have enough confidence, enough of a sense of certainty, that we will make it through to bedtime. Otherwise, how could we even get up?
My point is, that we need certainty. Or, do we? Is it more that we need confidence? Confidence that, no matter what the day brings, we will get through it, we’ll handle it? I suspect confidence and certainty aren’t the same thing, but the greater the certainty, probably the more confident we feel. And, probably, vice versa, because the more confidence we develop through our practice and experience, the more we will experience certainty in our day to day lives.
I think this is the key lesson those with a larger amygdala have to teach us……although certainty, like perfection, is an impossible goal, it is still important to have it as one of our goals if we are to survive and thrive.
We can do that as a society by attending to the circumstances of life which lead to security…..abolishing poverty, driving down inequality, creating decent houses and work for everyone, creating and protecting clean air, clean water, and nutritious food, as well as providing freely available, good quality education and health care to all.
We can do it individually by attending to the rhythms, rituals and habits of our lives. We pass a lot of each day on autopilot, finding ourselves trundling along the railway tracks of our own well established habits. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me you wake up about the same time each day (or, certainly, each Monday to Friday), follow the same sequence of toilet, toothbrushing, showering, maybe shaving (well, I do), and having a “regular” breakfast. If you are employed, you’ll probably make your way to your workplace, without any great awareness of your surroundings (unless something unexpected occurs on the way). You’ll have your work routines, with the well established break times, and finish time, before heading back home, retracing your steps. The French have a phrase for this – “Metro, Boulot, Dodo” (metro for the commute, boulot for work, and dodo for sleep) – which captures this sense of a routine, hamster wheel, existence.
It’s not a bad thing to have habits and routines. They can provide a certain security, a certain sense of certainty, an unchallenging, comfortable, structure. But you can see that, pushed too far, they can create a mode of living where life itself seems to pass us by.
That brings me to the first question I posed to myself….how can I help others to deal with uncertainty more comfortably? My lifetime work experience would lead me to suggest doing whatever gets us to focus on the here and now. I saw hundreds of patients with paralyzing anxiety and/or mind numbing fear. What they all had in common was that their inner world, the world of their thoughts and feelings, was trapped in a kind of loop, or whirlpool, with one anxious thought feeding the next one. Whilst they were absorbed, even overwhelmed, with this inner world, they were consequently disconnected from other people and from the rest of the world. So, we’d begin by pulling their attention to what was happening around them, in this moment, in this particular place. We had built a hospital around a beautiful garden and I’d take patients out into it to walk along the winding paths, noticing the different plants, blossoms, flowers, birds and other animals along the way. We’d sit on one of the benches and just notice….notice what we could see, what we could hear, what we could smell, what textures we could touch.
There’s a French phrase I’ve loved since I first encountered it – “L’émerveillement du quotidien” – which translates, roughly, as the wonder of the every day. The truth is that every day is unique. Every moment is lived for the first and last time. And each day is filled with encounters which we’ve never had before….a particular moment with a Robin, a moment when the light catches the dew on the newly woven, intricate spiders web……
Paying attention to what is around us, paying loving attention to what is around us, opens us up to a world filled with wonder, with diversity and novelty, and gives us a lived experience of change, of surprises, of unexpected delights.
Well, that’s a beginning. It’s a way to calm down that amygdala and strengthen the anterior cingulate cortex, perhaps.
What’s your own take on uncertainty? How high is your tolerance to it? And what do you do to balance consistency and novelty?
Heroes Not Zombies 