Curiosity - Day 18

“The important thing is not to stop questioning…”

Albert Einstein

Mario Livio is an astrophysicist who has written a book about curiosity.  Why? What Makes Us Curious explores different kinds of curIosity, and how they are not driven by the same thing. 

Are you driven by a curious feeling when something surprises you, or is in opposition to what you thought you knew to be correct? This is called perceptual curiosity. In this type of curiosity you might end up with an unpleasant feeling as you try to make sense of what you thought you already knew. Livio says, “It’s a bit like an itch that we need to scratch.” Our search for answers is a way to relieve that uncertainty.

On the other hand, curiosity can be considered quite pleasurable “when associated with an anticipated reward.”

This type of curiosity is referred to as epistemic curiosity, and is what drives scientific exploration, and life-long learning. 

Within a days time we can experience both kinds of curiosity. Usually we turn to the internet to quickly satisfy our curiosity needs. This type of curiosity has been named specific curiosity because it generally addresses a very particular bit of information. When I wanted to know if my chickens could eat citrus I turned to Google. I quickly learned they should not. 

Interestingly different parts of the brain are activated with different curiosities. In addition different time periods in history have limited or encouraged curiosity. Think back to the Middle Ages where the Church “wanted to convey to the masses the feeling that everything worth knowing was already known. Tragically Galileo was imprisoned for questioning the “known.”

This time period was followed by an explosion of curiosity in both the sciences and the arts. The Renaissance was a time where the constraints of the Church were lifted, and curiosity naturally found its way back to relevance. 

Livio points out that, “As we age we may lose some elements of our ability to be surprised, but that love of knowledge appears to be roughly constant across all ages.”

Good to know!