If we turn to the world of physics, attitudes have evolved over time. Starting from classical physics, which argues that everything is certain, take for example a particle’s position or velocity, this school of thought considers uncertainty as simply the lack of information. Since then, however, quantum physics has emerged, claiming that uncertainty is fundamentally built into nature itself since everything is based on a series of probabilities. So, rather than determine a particle’s exact position, quantum physicists will carefully apply the wave equation to predict the likelihood of that specific particle being in any particular position at a certain time. At this point, however, in walks the mathematician with a pencil behind her ear and a hunger for an exact answer. Faced with puzzled quantum physicists, up to their ears in probabilities and foreheads perpetually creased with anxious uncertainty, the mathematician pats them on the back sympathetically, and casually applies the statistical power of mathematics across many repeated experiments. This enables her to predict the outcome of these highly probabilistic and unpredictable quantum events to incredibly high precision. So, there we have it, certainty. Right?

Well, as always with these highly theoretical, and let’s be honest often introverted, domains of STEM, us biologists feel that physicists and mathematicians are too often focused on abiotic numbers, particles, and forces that they forget about the living. Who cares if we have certainty that photons travel at the exact constant speed of light in a vacuum (approx. 299,792 km/s), when us humans cannot even be certain of what we want to eat for dinner?

Perhaps the problem here comes down to the fact that you can have absolute certainty about what emotion of physical sensation you are feeling, but logic and cognitive reasoning makes certainty inherently blurry. Just as every argument has two sides, as soon as you logically question whether something is right or not, ambiguity inevitably creeps in. For example, there is a cookie on the menu and you feel a strong desire to order the cookie. But as soon as you think logically, you know it has lactose in it and that this may not go down so well. Suddenly, what felt so emotionally right might logically not be the correct decision. Just to compound this logical ambiguity further, if something is right, does that necessarily mean every other option is therefore wrong? Or can there be multiple rights? If so, which is more right than the other? And how can you possibly rank the rights if you do not know what those other rights are could be? In the cookie case, what if you cannot see what the other options on the menu are? Perhaps the others contain both lactose AND gluten and, naturally, that’s even worse.

I suppose where I get to is that maybe you can never have certainty if you assess with your brain, but I do believe you can experience certainty based on your emotions or a feeling. That is assuming, of course, that you are able to interpret and understand your own emotions and feelings. Even more problematic, however, is that this also assumes you can trust your emotions, and that they have longevity beyond that one moment in time. For what is the point of certainty if it lasts just a mere second? After all, emotions can undeniably mask or cause one to ignore logical thought, a sort of emotional blindness. You might be certain you want to eat the cookie for a split second, but what if suddenly you remember that the last time you ate a cookie was with your best friend you don’t see anymore. Now the cookie makes you feel sad and even emotionally, it doesn’t feel right. Working out what is more right, the emotions that drove you to ignore your mind in the first place, or the theoretically rational thought itself, is almost impossible. In my view, this is the core debate - if a dissonance exists between the emotional and rational side, it is unlikely, therefore, that the emotion you experience will last long into the future. If you decide to move abroad let’s say, you might have certainty in the emotions and feelings you experience in that place, but if there is an unmet need, no matter how big or small, will this eventually become a problem and hence alter that emotion, even if not in the immediate moment but later on? 

Personally, I experience absolute emotional certainty on a daily basis. Emotions come easily to me, as does interpreting them and acting on them. It’s as though I am on a boat and the wind carries my emotions. Day to day, my sail catches the easterly wind and I attentively steer West, at peace, rather than at odds, with the wind. At the same time, my brain is constantly running on its own tracks and does not hesitate to get involved and speak its mind. I want to head towards land which is East, not West, so perhaps it’s best to steer the other way, against the wind. Trusting what emotions are genuine and have legs, in light of the information being generated in the brain, can be extremely difficult. Is the wind sending me West for a reason I cannot know, such as to avoid a dangerous swell in the East? It seems to me that certainty, therefore, is a complex interaction between emotional and logical/rational reasoning, and hence getting the balancing act right takes time and experience.

This sparks another thought, however. The so-called “gut feeling”, and where this fits into the emotional-logical spectrum of reasoning. Sometimes you just know that something is right or wrong and you cannot quite explain why. Inherently intangible, it is easier to define what a gut feeling is not, rather than what it is. It is not an emotion, since emotions require a conscious experience with an identifiable physical feeling and often illicit a behavioural response (e.g. fight or flight). Likewise, it also cannot be logical reasoning as this follows a systematic process of deriving conclusions from a set of related premises. Nevertheless, the gut is referred to as the “second brain” thanks to a highly integral and sensitive gut-brain axis, so perhaps it is the outcome of a more ambiguous, possibly subconscious, area of the brain. That brain within the brain, where that secret group convene to assess the category of inner thoughts that are most intrinsic and engrained within us. This might include our values, moral code, and perspectives and feelings that have emerged from processing experiences early on in life that neither you nor I are consciously aware exist. In this sense, therefore, you could describe the gut feeling as a subconscious emotion that we were not aware of, and it is this implicit evaluation that happens within us that creates what we call “intuition”.

The simplest way to summarise these three axes of inner reasoning when making a decision is as follows:

• Logical/rational reasoning = If I follow the numbers, risks, and evidence, the best decision is X. 

• Emotional reasoning = When I picture each option, I feel excited/anxious about decision Y.

• Gut-feeling reasoning = Based on my past experiences, my immediate intuition is pulling me towards/away from decision Z.

Going back to the question of certainty, it would make sense that the degree of certainty you feel when making a decision emanates from the level of alignment between these three axes of reasoning. If all three point towards decision X, you will likely feel a high degree of certainty (excusing the point about alternative rights not yet considered), whereas divergent conclusions between the three will make any decision feel relatively uncertain. I can only imagine, however, that the weighting of each type of reasoning varies from person to person. For me, for example, not acting in line with my gut and emotions feels almost impossible, whereas betraying logical reasoning is less difficult since I acknowledge that we can never have full, perfect information and hence logical reasoning is only as powerful as its evidential inputs. 

We also cannot forget about the phenomenon known as “confabulation”, whereby we convince ourselves of something based on fabricated, misinterpreted or distorted information, sometimes due to a memory error. When this happens, we genuinely believe our stories or arguments are 100% accurate, but are based on incorrect information or by choosing to convince ourselves one thing over another. A sort of irrational rationalisation. In this case, any logical reasoning that forms from this is also inaccurate and cannot be trusted.  

Still, granted, emotions and gut feelings are not perfect. They rely upon a biased sample of previous experiences and unexplained subconscious factors. For example, according to Carl Rogers’ Locus of Valuation concept in psychology, if someone grows up with conditional approval, their brain learns that tracking other people’s moods is essential for maintaining feelings of safety, belonging, and parental love, which are the primary biological divers in early life.  As a result, the nervous system recognises which behaviours lead to rejection (e.g. speaking up) and which lead to safety (e.g. compliance), cultivating what he called an “external locus of valuation”. However, what this means is that new situations will trigger gut feelings based on this biased sample of experiences that are tainted with the need to gain external approval and validation. So is it really wise to trust these gut feelings when they are so influenced by the past?

Nevertheless, for me it remains the case that I feel far more uncomfortable ignoring the emotional and gut feeling axes of reasoning than I do logical reasoning. Whilst I know many people, who have been taught to ignore or stifle emotions, instead assigning greater value to knowledge, logic, and the realm of the explainable.