The meaning of meaning

Our focus in this book is practical. Unfortunately, in order to be practical, one must occasionally dabble in philosophy. An opening chapter on uncertainty is one of those occasions. Formulating a clear, consistent and workable point of view at the beginning prevents confusion and ambiguity from cumulating and erupting at inopportune moments. We will never straighten out the meaning of uncertainty if we don't know what ‘meaning’ means. Let's just step through some examples, starting with something unproblematic:

1. (I) It will rain in Cincinnati on Jan. 1 2050.

Of course we have to specify what we mean by ‘Cincinnati on Jan. 1 2050’, and exactly how much precipitation is needed to qualify as ‘rain’. Having done that, we can be uncertain about whether the precipitation count in what we agree to call Cincinnati on Jan. 1 2050 is sufficient for ‘rain’. Less straightforward is

1. (II) The number of atoms in the universe is 1080.

Even though we will never be able in practice to count the atoms in the universe, we can imagine in principle that they could be counted, even though we cannot say offhand how that might be done. In this sense we can be uncertain about (II). More precisely, we are uncertain about how exactly (II) would be resolved, and uncertain about what the resolution would be; but we are certain that it can in principle be resolved.