Need for cognition, or NFC, is a scientific measure of intellectual curiosity.

‘Learning skills’ grow organically out of specific knowledge of specific domains – that is to say, facts (and I’m including here cultural knowledge, of the plot of Hamlet, for example). The wider your knowledge, the more widely your intelligence can range, and the more purchase it gets on new information.

Not being satisfied is what makes curiosity so satisfying.

The unusually long period for which children are dependent on adults is a clue that humans are designed to learn from others, rather than just through their own explorations.

To understand why, let’s start with three misapprehensions about learning common to supporters of ‘curiosity-driven’ education: 1. ‘Children don’t need teachers to instruct them.’

Curiosity prepares us for epiphanies by making us aware of our own blind spots, interested in our own ignorance. It makes us lucky.

‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’

For individuals, epistemic curiosity can be a font of satisfaction and delight that provides sustenance for the soul.

This attraction to everything novel is what the scientists who study it call diversive curiosity.