On The Curious Nature Of Incuriosity

I’ve known quite a few people over the years who are largely incurious about pretty much all of the most interesting things available to humans to ponder deeply. They live a fairly contented life, where family, work, friendships, running a household and some leisure time take up virtually all of their time and mental energy. But deep and profound questions and considerations about God, reality, existence, the universe, life, philosophy, morality, consciousness, free will, etc are met with, at best, a brief but transient spark of curiosity, and, at worst, blithe disinterest.

I’ve always found this strange, on at least two counts:

1) Those deep and profound considerations are really the elixir of life’s purpose, joys and wonders, not mere adjuncts to the story

2) It’s near-certain that, with the right balance, your family life, work life, friendships, home life and leisure time are greatly enhanced, not compromised, by an interest in the deep and profound considerations of the world

Consequently, then, if being curious seems to be much more beneficial than being incurious, why do so many people prefer incuriosity over curiosity? One obvious possibility is that being curious requires a lot of effort that being incurious does not, so most people choose not to bother. Another possibility is that curiosity takes you on a journey that engenders more internal mental anguish than simply leaving well alone. Yet another possibility is that curiosity leads to more knowledge and more opinions, and therefore the likelihood of more epistemological conflict with others.

All three of those possibilities seem mutually plausible – they tap in to the human tendency to act according to the law of parsimony (the law of least effort). In order to think competently about something, you need to have learned lots of facts, and also how to reason well, and when faced with that, parsimony can probably seem quite seductive.

But incuriosity is to our detriment. I’ve often pondered whether people can be taught or encouraged to be more curious. I’m pretty sure that once people begin to learn and discover more, their curiosity compounds like interest. I should imagine it’s unlikely that you can comfortably know lots and not want to know lots more. Consequently, perhaps the most influential curiosity is the nascent curiosity – helping create the spark from which all fires can burn. Or perhaps, we have to get excited about thinking big before we can even start thinking small. It may be, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, that if we want people to build ships, we don’t get them gathering wood, collecting tools, and assigning tasks – we, instead, teach them to “yearn for the vast, endless sea.”.