{
  "id": "uncertainty.epistemic",
  "term": "uncertainty",
  "sense": "epistemic",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 8,
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "When a thing may be in one place or another, or may happen at one time or another, and the pattern is not known.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "space.extent",
      "time.dimension",
      "pattern.regularity",
      "randomness.unpredictable"
    ],
    "interaction": "Space and time provide possible locations and moments, pattern.regularity fails to repeat, and randomness.unpredictable breaks expectation, together making outcomes unresolved.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "unresolved outcome",
      "potential for surprise"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "randomness.unpredictable",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "uncertainty involves unpredictability but is not identical to it"
    },
    {
      "id": "certainty.epistemic",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "certainty is the resolved counterpart of uncertainty"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "uncertainty"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-uncertainty.epistemic"
}