CS Lewis

http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html

I do, however, take issue with calling it curiosity. Curiosity is defined as a desire to learn something or know something. Even if you do want to know, the feeling you get from this hinges on not knowing-- if not, there's no harm in actually finding the answer, and there is harm in not finding it.

Asking questions like this is fine, but, to me, calling it curiosity isn't. This isn't because it's childish. It's because it's unreasonable. Curiosity and reason are supposed to work together.

"Why do I feel like my hand touches something even though, on an atomic level, I'm sure it's still separated by space?"

and

"What if none of this was real?"

have led my friends and family to assume I've gone crazy.

The worst part? For a long time I believed them, and I'm sure part of me still does..

But with relation to the article, it occurs to me that these questions began in my mind around age 5 or 6. I think this is pretty common, too, but kids are told to focus on "important" things.

That's why I regret how much I have pursued my curiousity about Human/artificial AI, evolutionary biology, the nature of religion, etc.

Sometimes, it's better to be a bit innocent and ignorant (also respectful and nice, otherwise the world can get into trouble with violent religious zealots) -- no one gets psychically hurt that way.

In essence, we can't see the quantum interaction of particles and their superpositions, we can only see the average produced by a large number of these actions and reactions. This gives a small, but nonetheless interesting, hole from which randomness can leak into the apparent deterministic systems we see.

I recently walked a similar road when thinking about human behavior as a product of genetics and outside inputs. For me, the angst was the view that "free will" might be fictional, and I had built a lot of my personal ethics onto that pillar. But it was curiosity that led me out of that nihilistic moment when I thought about the loophole above.

Can you elaborate?

www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html

All of those images are generated with very simple deterministic rules but they are still sublime.

I dare say if you really think you found solid, objective answers for, uhm, anything, I encourage you to look even closer and/or consider the bigger picture... at least for me, it always ends up being a huge mystery again :)

Hint: the core of the problem (and core of many, if not most, philosopical problems) is "What is the definition of consciousness?"

But man do people hate it when you're curious about their religion, politics or personal beliefs. Such a minefield ... don't "why" there unless you're ready to handle some very annoyed people.

A lot of people have a shallow or false curiosity on these subjects. Their intent is not to understand, but simply to discover a question that is difficult to answer in only a few sentences, and then declare victory. The net result is that nobody learns anything of value, nobody is enriched, but somebody feels annoyed that their friend didn't respect them enough to really listen.

True curiosity requires a willingness to explore both depth and breadth. This is more likely to require years than minutes.

  I wonder why, I wonder why
  I wonder why I wonder
  I wonder *why* I wonder why
  I wonder why I wonder -- RF