I recently saw a programme on TV about a man who adopted 2 brown bear cubs in the forests of Romania (the mother had disappeared). The curiosity these young cubs displayed for their environment was very interesting and entertaining. Nothing made them happier than to explore everything they came across.
Why are young animals and humans so full of curiosity when they are young?
The Xzistor Concept dictates that animals do not think – at least not like humans do. So their curiosity is born off a compulsion to explore. We have encountered this in our demo video on Robot Entertainment and specifically what ‘playing’ means.
It makes absolute sense to send a young animals off to ‘play’ and ‘explore’ if you want them to learn how to survive in their new environment. If they were to sit passively and stare at their navels, they wouldn’t learn anything about their environment – they wouldn’t learn where to find food and they wouldn’t learn where to find water. They therefore won’t survive.
So this means the curiosity we see in young animals (and I think to a large degree in young humans) is driven by compulsion. This means it involves very little thinking or reasoning and ….effectively will fall under the reflex functionality area of the Xzistor Concept brain model.
So it start off a mindless ‘urge’ to touch, crab, hold onto, bite, shake, mock fight, throw objects and to devise silly games – for the mere reason to calibrate hand (paw) eye coordination and to improve balance, running, obstacle avoidance, climbing, hunting and fighting skills.
And this is a certain type of curiosity that does not require too much thinking.
We know humans (and animals to some extent) remain curious later in live…but humans develop another type of curiosity that is related to the satisfaction of making the unknown known – solving problems, questions and open issues in their minds. This we discussed in the demo video on Robot Entertainment.
So in humans, curiosity has an interesting life-cycle where it start as a pretty mindless initial behaviour to explore, interact, engage, challenge the environment and then gradually develop into this appreciation for making the unknown known. And we learn the value of this as we find our lives are made easier by ‘knowing stuff’.
Can I borrow money from the bank. Yes, you can?
Can they operate on your eyes to fix nearsightedness? Yes they can.
Is the grocery store open till 8pm? Yes.
Can one change careers midway? Yes you can?
We stay curious because the more information we gather, the more information will be available for us to base decisions on…and this will make our lives better.
Often curiosity goes further than us just being fascinated by puzzling aspects, enigmas or brainteasers and seek information about it.
Can a single vaccine for all Corona viruses be found?
Is their other life in the universe?
Are humans inherently evil?
Is the universe expanding?
Etc. etc.
I sometimes think there should be different words for these two brain states, the one mindless and the other deeply contemplative and probing.
Instinctive infantile ‘curiosity‘ and grownup ‘interest in a topic based on a an appreciation for how more knowledge can lead to better decisions and a better live‘ are vastly different mechanisms in the brain.
The one use very little of the thinking part of the brain (in fact it is simply focused on providing material to the brain to use in future thinking) and the other involves ‘arming’ the brain with information to allow thinking, contextualising and learning – connecting the dots to solve a current problem or to be better prepared to solve future problems.
Have you heard someone say something like this before: ‘I find this travel blog about Greece very interesting – they explain travel between the islands, visas, best hotels and things to watch out for. I plan to visit Greece next year.’
Curiosity plays an important part in the Innovation algorithm in the brain…which causes the human mind to derive ’emotional’ satisfaction from solving problems…and devising ways to improve its situation. Our curiosity leads to more discoveries – and this lead to new technologies, industries and massive impacts (good and bad) on all living creatures on Earth as well as the environment.
While animal curiosity always remains instinctive and bounded, human curiosity seem to know no bounds and will keep on penetrating into unknown worlds and devising new inventions and technologies. This phenomenal intellectual capability – along with the immense power that comes with it, might have a happy ending – or it might eventually prove too much for its emotionally lagging mind as it tries to catch up with its own unstoppable desire to innovate and the power that comes with it.