Compensating for problems generated by uncertainty

Uncertainty is one of the basic psychological conditions obstructing decision-making at individual, organizational, governmental and intergovernmental levels. It is not the same as ignorance. While the human organism copes with uncertainty on an instinctual level, it has much greater difficulty in dealing with it in deliberative processes. The mathematical and statistical approaches to problem-solving involving probability theory are too recondite to find application in personal or official life. Human dialogue up to the level of intergovernmental deliberation and debate, faced with uncertainties, leads to 'leap into the dark' decisions or decisions to postpone decision-making, and little use is made of feedback and other heuristic techniques, or of systems approaches to accelerate pragmatic, action-oriented proposals, resolutions and implementations in the world agenda.