us being evolutionarily primed to explore up to a certain point, then exploit
Well, primed to explore until drives more powerful than curiosity ‘get traction’ (which might have amounted to the same thing in 99% of individuals in the EEA). The difference (which is relevant now that we are no longer in the EEA and have the option of living lives that would have been completely impossible in the EEA) is that in my model, when the more powerful drives (sex, status, sometimes love of one’s children) are frustrated, the individual is capable of staying motivated by curiosity many hours a day even in late adulthood.
Evidence for my model of curiosity is the observation that those adults whose curiosity is strong enough to motivate them to make significant scientific discoveries tend to have been adolescents whose drives for sex, popularity, friendships and athletic accomplishments were frustrated more and longer than those who did not go on to become successful scientists. This is evidence when you add to the model the hypothesis, which I assign high probability, that spending an unusually large amount of one’s time and energy satisfying one’s curiosity during adolescence increases one’s ability to stay motivated by curiosity as adult. (The other human drives probably work the same way.)
I once read a book by an academic which I cannot find again about the personal histories of successful scientists that reported that an unusually high fraction of them suffered some illness or injury during childhood that kept them housebound or took them out of social circulation for at least a year. The same book reported that almost all of the successful scientists studied spent time during childhood or young adulthood in an urban environment, which tend to support the model I am advancing here since living in the big city helps one to realize that it is possible to live without strong personal friendships and without membership in informal or formal status-improvement or status-preservation coalitions, which would tend to give one the courage to ignore the usually very strong human drives for friendship membership in formal and informal coalitions (clubs, associations, organizations, communities, subcultures, etc).
Interesting speculation. That describes my childhood/adolescence, and I’m a scientist.
it is possible to live without strong personal friendships and without membership in informal or formal status-improvement or status-preservation coalitions, which would tend to give one the courage to ignore the usually very strong human drives for friendship membership in formal and informal coalitions (clubs, associations, organizations, communities, subcultures, etc).
And yet, here we are. Most clever, focused people eventually start to think about their own experience—what types of satisfaction they’re built to need or at least appreciate, and how to rationally allocate effort toward securing competence in pursuit of each type of satisfaction a person can feel.
You could describe my childhood the same way as well, though the distance to others did not come from forced separation but rather through an increasing bewilderment with group decision processes. Oh, and from being myself, which is incredibly irritating to just about everyone on this planet :)
Edit: I became an architect. I was very interested in the sciences but apalled by the artlessness of many of the members of this community. Then I discovered that the state of the architect community was not much better, it only seemed so through the virtue of emulation..
Well, primed to explore until drives more powerful than curiosity ‘get traction’ (which might have amounted to the same thing in 99% of individuals in the EEA). The difference (which is relevant now that we are no longer in the EEA and have the option of living lives that would have been completely impossible in the EEA) is that in my model, when the more powerful drives (sex, status, sometimes love of one’s children) are frustrated, the individual is capable of staying motivated by curiosity many hours a day even in late adulthood.
Evidence for my model of curiosity is the observation that those adults whose curiosity is strong enough to motivate them to make significant scientific discoveries tend to have been adolescents whose drives for sex, popularity, friendships and athletic accomplishments were frustrated more and longer than those who did not go on to become successful scientists. This is evidence when you add to the model the hypothesis, which I assign high probability, that spending an unusually large amount of one’s time and energy satisfying one’s curiosity during adolescence increases one’s ability to stay motivated by curiosity as adult. (The other human drives probably work the same way.)
I once read a book by an academic which I cannot find again about the personal histories of successful scientists that reported that an unusually high fraction of them suffered some illness or injury during childhood that kept them housebound or took them out of social circulation for at least a year. The same book reported that almost all of the successful scientists studied spent time during childhood or young adulthood in an urban environment, which tend to support the model I am advancing here since living in the big city helps one to realize that it is possible to live without strong personal friendships and without membership in informal or formal status-improvement or status-preservation coalitions, which would tend to give one the courage to ignore the usually very strong human drives for friendship membership in formal and informal coalitions (clubs, associations, organizations, communities, subcultures, etc).
Interesting speculation. That describes my childhood/adolescence, and I’m a scientist.
And yet, here we are. Most clever, focused people eventually start to think about their own experience—what types of satisfaction they’re built to need or at least appreciate, and how to rationally allocate effort toward securing competence in pursuit of each type of satisfaction a person can feel.
You could describe my childhood the same way as well, though the distance to others did not come from forced separation but rather through an increasing bewilderment with group decision processes. Oh, and from being myself, which is incredibly irritating to just about everyone on this planet :)
Edit: I became an architect. I was very interested in the sciences but apalled by the artlessness of many of the members of this community. Then I discovered that the state of the architect community was not much better, it only seemed so through the virtue of emulation..