Curious

Diversive curiosity is where the hunt for knowledge begins; in the desire for new information, sensations, experiences and challenges. But it’s only a beginning.

Critics of fact-based learning will sometimes ask, ‘Why does it matter if a child knows the date of the Battle of Hastings?’ It matters because facts stored in long-term memory are not islands unto themselves; they join up with other facts to form associative networks of understanding.

To teach someone to be an engineer or a lawyer or a programmer is not the same as teaching them to be a curious learner – and yet the people who make the best engineers, lawyers and programmers tend to be the most curious learners.

As adults, however, we have a tendency to err too far towards exploitation – we become content to fall back on the stock of knowledge and mental habits we built up when we were young, rather than adding to or revising it. We get lazy.

a person’s curiosity is more state than trait. That is, our curiosity is highly responsive to the situation or environment we’re in.

the principle of constantly expanding your experience, both personally and vicariously, does matter tremendously in any idea-producing job.’ Building the database is the surest route to producing ideas that will some day become part of someone else’s database.

Gathering that knowledge meant venturing out into the unknown, to spot new sources of water or edible plants. But doing so meant risking one’s survival; you might become vulnerable to predators, or get lost. The individuals more likely to survive would have been those adept at striking a balance between knowledge-gathering and self-preservation.

Creativity starts in combination.

epistemic curiosity is a path you want to keep travelling down, even when the road is bumpy.

‘I was suddenly seeing that the world is incredibly interesting. If you’re paying attention, everything in the world – from the nature of gravity, to a pigeon’s head, to a blade of grass – is extraordinary.’