“Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. At the moment one is enlightened, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. After enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and rivers are again rivers.”
When you learn about relativity, do you throw away your watch because time is relative anyway? No, because relativity must give the same results as Newtonian physics in the conditions where (and to the precision that) Newtonian mechanics has already been verified. If you have a theory that says strange things about what happens in strange conditions, it may be true. If you have a theory that says strange things about what happens in normal conditions, you know the theory must be false, however elegant the mathematics.
The take-home message is that it all has to reduce to normality. No, quantum mechanics really doesn’t have implications for everyday life. No, thought experiments involving copying of people really aren’t useful guides for what to expect in our world where we can’t copy people. No, AI really isn’t going to conquer the world. No, donating your income to charity really isn’t the best way to make a positive difference. No, dust specks really aren’t worse than torture, thought experiments about group sizes of 3^^^3 notwithstanding. No, treading on ants really isn’t a sin.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t learn about intellectual topics. By all means do, if that’s what you want! But you seem to be suggesting you feel obliged to deal with some of these topics even if it’s not necessarily what you want. And I’m saying you don’t need to feel that way. You don’t actually need to learn tensor calculus to know that relativity doesn’t keep your watch from working normally. If what you want to do for a career is design GPS satellites, or if you just plain think tensor calculus is interesting, by all means go ahead and learn it. But if you want to ignore it and go do something else instead, then do that.
“Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. At the moment one is enlightened, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. After enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and rivers are again rivers.”
When you learn about relativity, do you throw away your watch because time is relative anyway? No, because relativity must give the same results as Newtonian physics in the conditions where (and to the precision that) Newtonian mechanics has already been verified. If you have a theory that says strange things about what happens in strange conditions, it may be true. If you have a theory that says strange things about what happens in normal conditions, you know the theory must be false, however elegant the mathematics.
The take-home message is that it all has to reduce to normality. No, quantum mechanics really doesn’t have implications for everyday life. No, thought experiments involving copying of people really aren’t useful guides for what to expect in our world where we can’t copy people. No, AI really isn’t going to conquer the world. No, donating your income to charity really isn’t the best way to make a positive difference. No, dust specks really aren’t worse than torture, thought experiments about group sizes of 3^^^3 notwithstanding. No, treading on ants really isn’t a sin.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t learn about intellectual topics. By all means do, if that’s what you want! But you seem to be suggesting you feel obliged to deal with some of these topics even if it’s not necessarily what you want. And I’m saying you don’t need to feel that way. You don’t actually need to learn tensor calculus to know that relativity doesn’t keep your watch from working normally. If what you want to do for a career is design GPS satellites, or if you just plain think tensor calculus is interesting, by all means go ahead and learn it. But if you want to ignore it and go do something else instead, then do that.