Perhaps the most forthright answer is because it's interesting.
In my view the inability to live with contradictory theories is one of the things that makes science what it is, and also that propels science forward. Gravity and quantum mechanics is a grand example, but we're trained on countless little contradictions, such as why channels A and B of my circuit seemed to behave differently yesterday, though they are nominally identical.
Letting a contradiction stand without investigating it would have to be a conscious mutual decision, in and of itself. Making that decision arbitrarily would be akin to making the contradiction a matter of dogma. This is why some folks struggle with cognitive dissonances that they perceive in religions. Otherwise, if the contradiction is discovered to be irreconcilable for a good scientific reason, that discovery will be equivalent to a unification.
So it's a game where there's nothing in between winning and giving up, and no time limit.
What we never know about contradictions is how long it will take to reconcile them. When I discovered the problem with channels A and B, I had no idea at that moment how or when I would solve it. We have to live with the remote possibility that unifying gravity and quantum mechanics will take 100,000 years.
In my view the inability to live with contradictory theories is one of the things that makes science what it is, and also that propels science forward. Gravity and quantum mechanics is a grand example, but we're trained on countless little contradictions, such as why channels A and B of my circuit seemed to behave differently yesterday, though they are nominally identical.
Letting a contradiction stand without investigating it would have to be a conscious mutual decision, in and of itself. Making that decision arbitrarily would be akin to making the contradiction a matter of dogma. This is why some folks struggle with cognitive dissonances that they perceive in religions. Otherwise, if the contradiction is discovered to be irreconcilable for a good scientific reason, that discovery will be equivalent to a unification.
So it's a game where there's nothing in between winning and giving up, and no time limit.
What we never know about contradictions is how long it will take to reconcile them. When I discovered the problem with channels A and B, I had no idea at that moment how or when I would solve it. We have to live with the remote possibility that unifying gravity and quantum mechanics will take 100,000 years.