Quantum mechanics is an excellent example here. It is not "defeatist" to accept that we don't know where the electron in the hydrogen atom actually is. Or to accept that if we really, really wanted to figure out where it is, we can only do so by disturbing it enough that its position is probably no longer a useful thing to know.
These are fundamental features of the world (at least according to our best theories of Nature), and it is only by accepting them and the uncertainties inherent to them that we are able to make progress using those theories. Among the consequences is that thinking about "the position of the electron" is not so useful; we instead need to leave position behind and start thinking using a new thing, "the orbital of the electron". This is a major conceptual change, and internalizing it can be Very Difficult for some people.
But the world does not care. It and its complexity owes nothing to anyone. It is us who must adapt to the world, in all its fuzziness and incompleteness. Nature will break the rigid, but if you bend, you can soar.
Quantum mechanics is an excellent example here. It is not "defeatist" to accept that we don't know where the electron in the hydrogen atom actually is. Or to accept that if we really, really wanted to figure out where it is, we can only do so by disturbing it enough that its position is probably no longer a useful thing to know.
These are fundamental features of the world (at least according to our best theories of Nature), and it is only by accepting them and the uncertainties inherent to them that we are able to make progress using those theories. Among the consequences is that thinking about "the position of the electron" is not so useful; we instead need to leave position behind and start thinking using a new thing, "the orbital of the electron". This is a major conceptual change, and internalizing it can be Very Difficult for some people.
But the world does not care. It and its complexity owes nothing to anyone. It is us who must adapt to the world, in all its fuzziness and incompleteness. Nature will break the rigid, but if you bend, you can soar.