Curiosity, that human need

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is useless. Although it is not confirmed, many attribute the sentence to Albert Einstein, and it is a sentence included in the book secret habits of geniuses, Which, although published four years ago, There is still something to talk about.

This happens because, in addition to the subject matter it addresses, its author, Craig Wright, professor of musicology at Harvard and professor emeritus of music at Yale, is backed by nearly 20 years of research into the nature of genius.

He started teaching a course on the subject, and over time, it became one of the most popular courses at the university, debunking myths and providing interesting insights into those considered geniuses such as Mozart, Da Vinci, Marie Curie, Einstein, Picasso, Stephen Hawking…and many more.

Picasso, Einstein, and Charles Darwin. Image: Taken from cronista.com

It is not a matter of genius being given as a gift—although some talents can be hereditary—but, according to the author’s studies, it is primarily the result of certain habits or behaviors that are accessible to everyone, and which, even when they do not collectively lead directly to the Hall of Geniuses, can help to demonstrate creativity in achieving certain goals.

These customs include:

– Strong curiosity about the world

– Getting rid of traditional business models and thinking outside the pre-prepared templates

– Great levels of focus on your task

Curiosity: the drive to develop thinking

“Call it a desire to learn, a passion for knowledge, or a strong curiosity: all of these characteristics lead to the same thing and we all have them, albeit to varying degrees. […] For geniuses, more than for others, the desire to understand is like an itch.

To Professor Wright’s comment, other interesting considerations could be added, such as those reported in the Academic Journal of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Where indicated “Curiosity is a pleasurable emotion that involves the search for new information, knowledge, and experiences. It is fueled by the desire to go beyond or expand our scope, knowledge, and understanding of the world. It is a positive emotion strongly linked to the drive to know or discover new things and solve questions, and is a natural human response.”

Image: Taken from mundoninoslatam.com

The aforementioned article points out that curiosity is a driver for the development of thought because it is a crucial factor in expanding experience which is the essential component of contemplative intellectual development.

At the physiological level, the feeling of curiosity shares neural mechanisms related to stimuli such as hunger or thirst. This is the conclusion reached by a group of researchers led by Johnny King L. Laufrom the School of Psychology and Clinical Linguistics at the University of Reading (UK).

These researchers conducted behavioral experiments with a group of volunteers and applied neuroimaging techniques to investigate the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the feeling of curiosity.

Image: Taken from esan.edu.pe

Curiosity is studied as an intrinsic drive in which the reward is the same as the state of exploration and is a characteristic of our species that has allowed us to evolve, given its intrinsic relationship to learning, UNAM researchers, who in their research cited the text, summarized how many great discoveries had their starting point in those feelings.

According to one Research published in Neuron magazineCuriosity activates the reward and pleasure system in the brain. Dopamine is released, which in turn allows new connections between neurons. Although they say that curiosity, like everything that generates pleasure, can become addictive, thanks to it you learn faster and develop a greater ability to manage stress and uncertainty.

Even though he killed the cat

Although the proverb indicates that “curiosity killed the cat” – excess is always harmful – recent research confirms the importance of that insatiable drive to explore and understand the unknown that is curiosity.

Image: Taken from blogspot.com

Discoveries in evolutionary psychology, for example, suggest that curiosity may have played a key role in human survival and success by encouraging them to explore and learn from new environments quickly.

Such exploratory behavior has been observed not only in humans, but also in other species, suggesting that curiosity could be a more widespread trait in the animal kingdom.

Yes

Technology and artificial intelligence also play a role in exploring human curiosity. Computational models that mimic human decision-making help researchers better understand how we evaluate options and take risks based on our curiosity.

Image: taken from 20minutos.es

In the future, such models could help improve educational systems by designing learning environments that foster natural curiosity and problem-solving abilities.

Human curiosity is an interdisciplinary field of study that continues to provide valuable clues about our species. From physics to psychology, each discovery allows us to better understand what makes us unique in our relentless search for knowledge, which is not limited only to geniuses, but is accessible to everyone to understand more and more of the complexity of our existence and the universe in which we live.