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Author Topic: What is the purpose of curiosity?  (Read 363 times)

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Offline Nomaken

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What is the purpose of curiosity?
« on: May 28, 2006, 01:05:45 AM »
I can only think of a few good reasons to be curious but they dont seem to be good enough reasons for a strong curiosity to exist.
And as always, these are simply my worthless opinions.
Reverence is fine, Sanctity is silly.
We're all fucked, it helps to remember that.

Offline Sanityisoverrated

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #1 on: May 28, 2006, 02:52:10 AM »
Oh, haha. I see what you did there.
'When the world is run according to my standards, everyone will be a happier person and the general standard of health will exceed the average' - Charlie Chaplin

Offline Nomaken

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2006, 01:54:32 PM »
I think i've narrowed down 3 qualities which make up the difference between animals and humans.  Plenty of animals have these characteristics or abilities but not nearly to the degree humans have it.

They are Curiosity, Memory, and Pattern Recognition.

There are curious animals but humans curiosity seems to beat animals by several powers.  While an animal might just check out something limited to their particular interests: possible predators and prey, and only check it out once or twice, humans curiosity seems to span to every topic, and can last a life time.
Animal memory is better than we give it credit for.  They can learn plenty of things that last a life time, and what they remember can be disarmingly complex, but most of that is implicit memory.  They know what they want, and their body remembers how to move to get it, but they couldn't call up that memory like we can(mostly a guess).  An example of implicit memory is if someone suddenly chucks a ball at you and you lift your arms to catch it, and then they motion to throw the ball at you and you lift your arms premptively even if they don't actually throw it.
Humans have an abundance of explicit memory, that is memory of ideas and events that they can call up on demand.  And I think this is a relatively new thing in evolution, because we have both explicit and implicit memory, and people we normally say have excellent memories have incredible explicit memory.
The last is pattern recognition.  This applies both to recognizing patterns in our environment for the purposes of learning, and for the purposes of knowing how to react to those patterns.  Animals have plenty of pattern recognition abilities; they have plenty of problem solving ability.  It is often surprising how "smart" animals can be when it comes to problem solving.  But due to humans curiosity, we are motivated to find patterns in everything.
Our learning ability could come from these 3 things.  But what I think is really the key to get the engine started on what makes humanity go so far is curiosity.  We are so curious we will make up problems for us to solve: games.
All the other qualities we have are pretty much common to all animals.

A couple of other things.  I believe that schizophrenia comes from a screwed up or overpowered pattern recognition engine, among other things.  The paranoia comes from a series of instincts that help the organism survive.  When these two things come together, it helps delusions form.

And one more:  I got the idea of curiosity being part of the key when watching of all things Terminator 2.  I mean i have a dozen robot trying to be human movies, and it took a minor little touch in terminator 2 for me to start thinking it was really important.  After the terminators switch gets reset, and he starts asking questions like, "Why do you cry?"  It hit me.  One quality of what we consider to be sentient beings is definitely curiosity, it is a quality that is abundant in children, it was even in one of my robot movies: Iron Giant, as a big major point of the plot.  And it is a quality that seems to be totally missing from current AI programs.  Chat AI's and other AI's all are reactionary, they wait for you to stimulate them and then they try to select an appropriate response.  Humans on the other hand specifically seek out stimulation. 
And as always, these are simply my worthless opinions.
Reverence is fine, Sanctity is silly.
We're all fucked, it helps to remember that.

Offline El

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2006, 09:42:50 AM »
Curiosity is one of two non-surgical ways to help control the pet population.  (The other is masturbation.)
it is well known that PMS Elle is evil.
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Offline McGiver

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2006, 12:29:34 PM »
i am curious about the electrical socket and my keys.
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Offline El

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2006, 01:26:37 PM »
i am curious about the electrical socket and my keys.

Don't put your keys in the electricial socket!

Your fingers work just as well.

 8)
it is well known that PMS Elle is evil.
I think you'd fit in a 12" or at least a 16" firework mortar
You win this thread because that's most unsettling to even think about.

Offline McGiver

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2006, 04:05:00 PM »
are you curious about george?
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Offline Nomaken

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2006, 06:27:42 PM »
They might be jokes, but they are case in point of humans weird curiosities.  Humans build such complicated and indirect reward systems that really weird shit becomes the object of curiosity.
And as always, these are simply my worthless opinions.
Reverence is fine, Sanctity is silly.
We're all fucked, it helps to remember that.

Offline "couldbecousin"

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #8 on: May 19, 2013, 08:37:15 AM »
  In my experience, curiosity is an antidote to despair.  :apondering:
"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they are."
--- Ripley, Alien Resurrection


"We are grateful for the time we have been given."
--- Edward Walker, The Village

People forget.
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Offline 'andersom'

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Re: What is the purpose of curiosity?
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2013, 08:41:27 AM »
curiosity brought us coffee, tea and chocolate.  :viking:
I can do upside down chocolate moo things!