uncertainty
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'Who You Are' vs 'Who You Think You Are'
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If the future is full of uncertainty, how do we make forward-looking decisions?
Uncertainty is not a rare crisis but the normal condition of life: the world changes, and we change with it. For students, this means you often must choose schools, majors, and paths without full information—while knowing that your future self may want different things.
definition
PROBLEM
We often mistake a “predictable future” for common sense. Wanting to feel safe, families are pushed to treat majors and career choices as bets on a “stable ROI”: pick the track that seems safest, maximize test scores, focus on admissions and salary, and hope the plan holds.
Education’s task is not to eliminate uncertainty, but to train students to choose well within it. Uncertainty itself is not the enemy; our relationship to it is the real issue.
In PPE100, we use If I Knew Then—turning-point reflections from the Harvard Business School Class of 1963—to study how real people made major life decisions with incomplete information. Students analyze these stories to extract decision methods, patterns of regret, and principles for acting when outcomes are unclear.
We then pivot to AI as a defining source of modern uncertainty: a tool that is reshaping research, study, and work while introducing real risks. Drawing on Geoffrey Hinton’s concerns and other debates, students practice building a more resilient framework for judgment and action—learning to ask: What do we know? What don’t we know? What is the worst case, and how can we prepare?
Finally, we bring the question back to the self. Our future selves are also uncertain: the skills we will value, the lives we will want, the people we will care for. PPE100 invites students to confront a simple but demanding question: If both the future and your future self are uncertain, how can you make the best possible choice now—and stay ready to revise it with courage and integrity?
