Feynman presents uncertainty as something that can be lived with rather than something that must always be resolved. In the wider passage, he distinguishes between different degrees of confidence and rejects the need for absolute answers when the available evidence does not justify them. His attitude reflects an acceptance that some questions may remain unanswered or may not yet be clearly understood.

The quotation also addresses questions of purpose and humanity’s place in the universe. Feynman says that the absence of a known purpose does not cause him fear, even when the universe appears mysterious. This position does not claim that life has no meaning; rather, it resists asserting a definite purpose without sufficient grounds. The remark therefore combines intellectual humility with an existential outlook in which uncertainty is treated as a condition of human knowledge rather than a problem that necessarily requires a final answer.

Full quotation

“You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don’t have to know an answer, I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.”