1. Yes, curiosity likely implies interactions with the system (e.g. interviewing someone about their hobbies already is an interaction with the system), although I disagree that it should be the end goal/it's a goal that's sufficient. I think you agree with me that it's not the end goal.
2. I agree my push back on knowledge is hard (even polemical, on purpose). My main point is that knowledge alone doesn't yield value and isn't enough. I agree the right srategy should still entail some form of serendipity. But that's a choice on what's fitter (fitter for what?) which involves a normative lens. The point of my post is that we need more of this normative lens applied to our curiosity.
3. I'm using the shortest definition of curiosity which I find quite precise and meaningful: i.e. the desire to know. That desire, I argue, is all good and nice (please be curious!) but, again, it won't be enough.
I expect the point "knowledge isn't enough" is quite intuitive, not new and something most people would agree with. Yet, what I see in the world is that, too often, our behaviors indicate that it is enough. My piece tries to be polemical for the purpose of hammering something we too easily agree with yet not systematically put into practice.
I've been thinking about this and I actually think curiosity is one of multiple end goals in a complex optimization space, so you do need to value it in and of itself, otherwise you'll get stuck locally.
Also, I think a lot of people who claim to be curious aren't actually all that curious. Thus, I'd say you understate the power of a genuine desire to know. If it is unrestricted, it will actually lead to the things you unequivocate curiosity to.
So, if I understand correctly, you're claiming that curiosity simultaneously is (1) to be valued in and of itself and (2) not enough (because of the existence of other end goals)? It's plausible that I'd agree with (1) which would be an important nuance to my blogpost's claims (thank you!), yet doesn't change (2) which is my core claim. Or am I missing something in what you're saying?
Unrestricted curiosity seems to lead to a lot, yes, as I can imagine a genuine desire to know goes all the way to know/feel what morality is and to how to act as ethically as possible, hence likely triggering the corresponding actions to get there. So, I think I see your point. That said, this seems to be an over-extrapolation because all unrestricted traits could lead to everything (creativity, openness, courage, et). So, either, we should be talking about restrictions being the issue, or treat traits in a restricted manner because it allows using them more cleanly. I'm now a bit more convinced that addressing restrictions is a fruitful angle.
My claim is more that talking about restrictions isn't all that helpful - you need a bunch of traits dialed up hard - at some pareto frontier where they don't drown each other out. So it seems more about which set of traits are to be maxxed out all at once rather than how to restrain anything. I don't think people should be restraining their curiosity, if anything I think a lot of people who claim they're "just very curious" are kinda lazy in their curiousness :D
EDIT: part of my assumptions is also that you need to maxxxxxxx out on traits rather than talk of restricting because otherwise you're not exploring the frontier, so the way to correct for overreliance on any single trait is not by actively dialling it down but by allocating more energy to dialling up another (which might or might not have opportunity cost).
Welcome on substack Max :) I strongly disagree with the title but the actual text seems to make the case that curiosity isn't enough rather than that curiosity is bad or undesirable. With that I can agree!
Thank you, Kevin! The title isn't about not being curious (and I do repeat that people should be curious and that I'm not against learning), but it's against "curiosity as a sufficient narrative". Polemical on purpose, yes.
1. You're modelling curiosity very differently than I would. In my head, to be curious means to interact with the system. Otherwise, how will you find out what happens? But maybe that's just my impatience speaking?
2. You seem to discount knowledge too hard - cultures overemphasizing local knowledge development (ie learning by doing) tend to get stuck in their little bubble and miss major shifts. I think exploration for exploration's sake is an evolutionarily much fitter strategy, as long as no single agent can use up all the resources for it. That's what's changed in recent times. But before that, you wouldn't know which random bits of info could turn out to be handy one day. And that's still often the case.
3. As a result of your anti-definitions, it feels like you've indeed stripped curiosity of all meaning, created a straw man. How would you define the meaning of curiosity your case is going against?
Hey Max! I like the polemical persona on you. It has generated some interesting discussion in the comments and provoked something in me too. You should know that I am one of those people who identifies strongly with curiosity. Some thoughts:
1. I agree with Konrad - I think you strawmanned the concept of curiosity. If you asked me what it means to be curious, I would have included all things you excluded. Issak's remark comes to mind - "turns out all our disagreements are just semantics".
2. I agree with the thrust of your argument - that curiosity does not mean uncertainty reduction. Most of the time, curiosity helps me realise how much I don't understand and have yet to learn. New information often conflicts with my existing model of the world. Bayesian updates are required frequently and difficult to hold simultaneously across inter-related concepts. All of this makes me more uncertain, not less. But, none of this is an argument against curiosity, it's a misunderstanding of what curiosity might deliver.
3. I agree with you and Konrad - many people exercise a performative curiosity to signal intellectualism, which isn't discerning [enough]. It's usually pretty easy to spot if you go beyond the surface level conversation with someone like this. We shouldn't confuse performative curiosity with real curiosity. Real curiosity means asking questions and conducting experiments with a hunch that what you might learn is meaningful or important for you know and maybe even useful for our culture to store for the future. Sometimes we pursue curiosity for fun, and that's okay, but it shouldn't be everything.
4. I agree with the direction of Konrad's argument - the utility of curiosity is probably different for the individual vs the culture. One reason our species is special is our ability to store information and pass it onto the next generation, unlike any other species. In my view, curiosity supercharges this attribute. Early humans that weren't curiosity enough got stuck, like Konrad suggests. Groups that weren't big enough, but were too curious, probably died out. But once we exceeded a threshold size such that the group wouldn't die out, curiosity enabled our culture to learn more, learn faster, accumulate more knowledge over time and empower the next generation to prosper even more. This phenomenon seems different to way an individual exercises curiosity today, in a culture where we are swimming in information. Curiosity probably help individuals determine what is most important or how to differentiate/compete against others.
5. I agree with you - curiosity doesn't translate to action, but I'd argue that's fine and we should have a separate discussion about how to encourage people to be more agentic. In my head, there are 4 quadrants: (1) not-curious/not-agentic, (2) not-curious/agentic, (3) curious/not-agentic, and (4) curious/agentic. I think we can all agree that we should encourage everyone to be type-4 and discourage everyone from being type-1. I'd argue, the next best thing is a type-3 person, because at least our aggregate epistemics would be better. The few of us which are agentic will have to carry a heavy load for the rest of us, but hopefully the market rewards them with trillions in market capitalisation. Type-2 is okay, but maybe we would just have a bunch of people doing stuff that isn't important because we weren't curious enough to find out.
--
I plan to write a blog post about learning/curiosity. I recently mapped out all my values, categorised them as intrinsically or instrumentally valuable, then assigned importance. In the end, happiness and non-suffering were the only two intrinsically valuable values. Everything else was instrumental. But of the instrumental values learning was one of the most important instrumental values for me because among other instrumental values, it most reliably helped me get happiness / non-suffering. I think there's something important here worth investigating...
Thank you for engaging!
1. Yes, curiosity likely implies interactions with the system (e.g. interviewing someone about their hobbies already is an interaction with the system), although I disagree that it should be the end goal/it's a goal that's sufficient. I think you agree with me that it's not the end goal.
2. I agree my push back on knowledge is hard (even polemical, on purpose). My main point is that knowledge alone doesn't yield value and isn't enough. I agree the right srategy should still entail some form of serendipity. But that's a choice on what's fitter (fitter for what?) which involves a normative lens. The point of my post is that we need more of this normative lens applied to our curiosity.
3. I'm using the shortest definition of curiosity which I find quite precise and meaningful: i.e. the desire to know. That desire, I argue, is all good and nice (please be curious!) but, again, it won't be enough.
I expect the point "knowledge isn't enough" is quite intuitive, not new and something most people would agree with. Yet, what I see in the world is that, too often, our behaviors indicate that it is enough. My piece tries to be polemical for the purpose of hammering something we too easily agree with yet not systematically put into practice.
I've been thinking about this and I actually think curiosity is one of multiple end goals in a complex optimization space, so you do need to value it in and of itself, otherwise you'll get stuck locally.
Also, I think a lot of people who claim to be curious aren't actually all that curious. Thus, I'd say you understate the power of a genuine desire to know. If it is unrestricted, it will actually lead to the things you unequivocate curiosity to.
So, if I understand correctly, you're claiming that curiosity simultaneously is (1) to be valued in and of itself and (2) not enough (because of the existence of other end goals)? It's plausible that I'd agree with (1) which would be an important nuance to my blogpost's claims (thank you!), yet doesn't change (2) which is my core claim. Or am I missing something in what you're saying?
Unrestricted curiosity seems to lead to a lot, yes, as I can imagine a genuine desire to know goes all the way to know/feel what morality is and to how to act as ethically as possible, hence likely triggering the corresponding actions to get there. So, I think I see your point. That said, this seems to be an over-extrapolation because all unrestricted traits could lead to everything (creativity, openness, courage, et). So, either, we should be talking about restrictions being the issue, or treat traits in a restricted manner because it allows using them more cleanly. I'm now a bit more convinced that addressing restrictions is a fruitful angle.
My claim is more that talking about restrictions isn't all that helpful - you need a bunch of traits dialed up hard - at some pareto frontier where they don't drown each other out. So it seems more about which set of traits are to be maxxed out all at once rather than how to restrain anything. I don't think people should be restraining their curiosity, if anything I think a lot of people who claim they're "just very curious" are kinda lazy in their curiousness :D
EDIT: part of my assumptions is also that you need to maxxxxxxx out on traits rather than talk of restricting because otherwise you're not exploring the frontier, so the way to correct for overreliance on any single trait is not by actively dialling it down but by allocating more energy to dialling up another (which might or might not have opportunity cost).
Welcome on substack Max :) I strongly disagree with the title but the actual text seems to make the case that curiosity isn't enough rather than that curiosity is bad or undesirable. With that I can agree!
Thank you, Kevin! The title isn't about not being curious (and I do repeat that people should be curious and that I'm not against learning), but it's against "curiosity as a sufficient narrative". Polemical on purpose, yes.
Great start!
1. You're modelling curiosity very differently than I would. In my head, to be curious means to interact with the system. Otherwise, how will you find out what happens? But maybe that's just my impatience speaking?
2. You seem to discount knowledge too hard - cultures overemphasizing local knowledge development (ie learning by doing) tend to get stuck in their little bubble and miss major shifts. I think exploration for exploration's sake is an evolutionarily much fitter strategy, as long as no single agent can use up all the resources for it. That's what's changed in recent times. But before that, you wouldn't know which random bits of info could turn out to be handy one day. And that's still often the case.
3. As a result of your anti-definitions, it feels like you've indeed stripped curiosity of all meaning, created a straw man. How would you define the meaning of curiosity your case is going against?
Hey Max! I like the polemical persona on you. It has generated some interesting discussion in the comments and provoked something in me too. You should know that I am one of those people who identifies strongly with curiosity. Some thoughts:
1. I agree with Konrad - I think you strawmanned the concept of curiosity. If you asked me what it means to be curious, I would have included all things you excluded. Issak's remark comes to mind - "turns out all our disagreements are just semantics".
2. I agree with the thrust of your argument - that curiosity does not mean uncertainty reduction. Most of the time, curiosity helps me realise how much I don't understand and have yet to learn. New information often conflicts with my existing model of the world. Bayesian updates are required frequently and difficult to hold simultaneously across inter-related concepts. All of this makes me more uncertain, not less. But, none of this is an argument against curiosity, it's a misunderstanding of what curiosity might deliver.
3. I agree with you and Konrad - many people exercise a performative curiosity to signal intellectualism, which isn't discerning [enough]. It's usually pretty easy to spot if you go beyond the surface level conversation with someone like this. We shouldn't confuse performative curiosity with real curiosity. Real curiosity means asking questions and conducting experiments with a hunch that what you might learn is meaningful or important for you know and maybe even useful for our culture to store for the future. Sometimes we pursue curiosity for fun, and that's okay, but it shouldn't be everything.
4. I agree with the direction of Konrad's argument - the utility of curiosity is probably different for the individual vs the culture. One reason our species is special is our ability to store information and pass it onto the next generation, unlike any other species. In my view, curiosity supercharges this attribute. Early humans that weren't curiosity enough got stuck, like Konrad suggests. Groups that weren't big enough, but were too curious, probably died out. But once we exceeded a threshold size such that the group wouldn't die out, curiosity enabled our culture to learn more, learn faster, accumulate more knowledge over time and empower the next generation to prosper even more. This phenomenon seems different to way an individual exercises curiosity today, in a culture where we are swimming in information. Curiosity probably help individuals determine what is most important or how to differentiate/compete against others.
5. I agree with you - curiosity doesn't translate to action, but I'd argue that's fine and we should have a separate discussion about how to encourage people to be more agentic. In my head, there are 4 quadrants: (1) not-curious/not-agentic, (2) not-curious/agentic, (3) curious/not-agentic, and (4) curious/agentic. I think we can all agree that we should encourage everyone to be type-4 and discourage everyone from being type-1. I'd argue, the next best thing is a type-3 person, because at least our aggregate epistemics would be better. The few of us which are agentic will have to carry a heavy load for the rest of us, but hopefully the market rewards them with trillions in market capitalisation. Type-2 is okay, but maybe we would just have a bunch of people doing stuff that isn't important because we weren't curious enough to find out.
--
I plan to write a blog post about learning/curiosity. I recently mapped out all my values, categorised them as intrinsically or instrumentally valuable, then assigned importance. In the end, happiness and non-suffering were the only two intrinsically valuable values. Everything else was instrumental. But of the instrumental values learning was one of the most important instrumental values for me because among other instrumental values, it most reliably helped me get happiness / non-suffering. I think there's something important here worth investigating...