I'm almost certain that what I'll write down is in the 101 textbook of epistemology, but lately I've been fascinated by two different kinds of truths that govern our lives.
There's learnable truth. Eg.: Water is made of 2 hydrogen and one oxygen. The universe is 13.7 billion years old. Dinosaurs roamed freely and ruled this planet once. We evolved from single cell organisms and therefore each and everyone one of us here today is a de facto winner of trillions of chance events: the genes that make us triumphed through countless generations, people who had to meet met, wars that killed millions did not kill our ancestors (or not in time), therefore rendering an incalculable number of alternate scenarios pointless and meaningless , because we are fucking here, breathing, living, loving, working. That sort of stuff. It's incredibly humbling and deep. But at the same time, that's all learnable. You need a brain and a textbook and you get this knowledge instantiated within said wet neuron-meetloaf.
But there are (in my view) deeper or at least just as profound truths. Truths that you can only experience. For example: What it feels like to hold a child for the first time in your arms or to be absolutely shit scared when they are hurt at any point in their lives. What it means to a parent's heart when their kid smiles at them with glowing beautiful eyes and gives them a "running-hug". How it feels to stroke and smell your dying parent's hair the last time as you kiss goodbye to them. What it takes to keep a friendship alive throughout 30, 40, 50 years. These are all truths that are just as foundational, just as wonderful as the others above. For this kind of knowledge however there is no shortcut. No amount of reading, watching, listening will allow you to understand what it is like to care for a child, to lose a parent, to have a 30 year old friendship.
Sadly it seems to me, that there are fewer and fewer people who advocate for both kinds of truths. As if these two kinds of truths were incompatible... Or if it made sense to focus on only one of them..
I think this is nonsense . They are not only not incomparable but both equally necessary for becoming a well rounded human. Embrace them both and give the middle finger to anyone who dares to belittle or diminish the importance of either.
Sometimes the math is too hard, so we create a world with some initial values and let things play.
The insights may then help us build the models or equations. But we couldn't get there just by thinking hard long enough.