The semantics of the uncertainty literature

Uncertainty is an important topic for the management of technology. A clear and comprehensive framework of uncertainty is needed. The problem is not just a matter of consistency. Researchers in different disciplines often mean very different things when they speak of uncertainty. One way of systematically reviewing and analyzing the meanings of the word uncertainty is to comprehensively survey usage of uncertainty concepts across the disciplines of science and engineering. The strong semantic hypothesis leads us to argue that a consistently different usage of the word must indicate meaningful differences in definition. In this paper we use a tech mining approach to analyze the uncertainty literature. We evaluate multiple distinct meanings of the word uncertainty, and track these meanings to the nature of uncertainty as encountered across a range of scientific disciplines. The results can be used to extend existing frameworks of uncertainty. Moreover, the results may be used in the management of technology to bridge the gap between disparate understandings of uncertainty within multidisciplinary teams.