Curiosity

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Curiosity

For The Jets' song, see Curiosity (song)
Curiosity (song)

"Curiosity" was the first single released by The Jets from their critically and commercially successful debut album The Jets . This was a successful single on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, peaking at #8....
.

Curiosity is an emotion

Emotion

An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior.Emotions are subjective experiences, or experienced from an individual point of view....
that causes natural inquisitive behaviour such as exploration

Exploration

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling a terrain for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown people, including space , for Petroleum, gas, coal, ores, caves, water , or information....
, investigation, and learning

Learning

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, Value s, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information....
, evident by observation in human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
and many animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
species. The term can also be used to denote the behavior itself being caused by the emotion of curiosity.

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Quotations

Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.

Lovelle Drachman

Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes, indeed.

Albus Dumbledore

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.

Steven Wright

Curiousity is one of Satan's favorite paths, to lead man to sin.

Tinel

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

Albert Einstein

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Albert Einstein

Encyclopedia

Curiosity is an emotion

Emotion

Exploration

Learning

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, Value s, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information....
, evident by observation in human

Human

Animal

Causes

Although curiosity is an innate capability of many living beings, it cannot be subsumed under category of instinct

Instinct

Instinct is the inherent disposition of a life organism toward a particular behavior. The fixed action patterns are unlearned and inherited. The stimuli can can be variable due to imprinting in a sensitive period or also genetically fixed....
because it lacks the quality of fixed action pattern

Fixed action pattern

In ethology, a fixed action pattern is an instinctive behavioral sequence that is indivisible and runs to completion. Fixed action patterns are invariant and are produced by a biological neural network known as the innate releasing mechanism in response to an external sensory system stimulus known as a sign stimulus or relea...
; it is rather one of innate basic emotions because it can be expressed in many flexible ways while instinct is always expressed in a fixed way. Curiosity is common to human

Human

Old age

Old age consists of ages nearing or surpassing the average life span of human beings, and thus the end of the human biological life cycle. Euphemisms and terms for old people include seniors ? chiefly an American usage ? or elderly....
, and is easy to observe in many other animal

Animal

Ape

An ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates. In less scientific language, it has various meanings, although it often excludes humans....
s, cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the Domestication cat or house cat to distinguish it from other Felinae and Felidae, is a small predationy carnivore species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes, scorpions, and other unwanted household pests....
s, fish

Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
, reptile

Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s, and insect

Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s; as well as many others. Many aspects of exploration are shared among all beings, as all known terrestrial beings share similar aspects: limited size and a need to seek out food

Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
sources.

Strong curiosity is the main motivation of many scientists. In fact, in its development as wonder

Wonder

Wonder may refer to:* Wonder * Wonder Woman, DC comics' Amazonian superheroine or Wonder Woman based on the comic* The Seven Wonders of the World...
or admiration, it is generally curiosity that makes a human being want to become an expert in a field of knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation....
. Though humans are sometimes considered particularly very curious, they sometimes seem to miss the obvious when compared to other animals. What seems to happen is that human curiosity about curiosity itself (i.e. meta-curiosity or meta-interest

Interest (emotion)

Interest is a feeling or emotion that causes attention to focus on an object or an event or a process. In contemporary psychology of interest it is used as a general concept which encompasses other more specific emotion terms, such as curiosity and to a certain degree surprise , in a similar way the general term anger encompasses other terms...
), combined with the ability to think in an abstract way, lead to mimesis

Mimesis

Mimesis is a Critical theory and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include: imitation, Representation , mimicry, imitatio, nonsensuous similarity, the act of Resemblance, the act of expression, and the Impression management....
, fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of Plot , Theme , and/or Setting . Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of technological and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three ....
and imagination

Imagination

Imagination is the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses, and the action or process of forming such images or concepts....
- eventually leading to an especially human way of thinking ("human reason

Reason

Reason may refer to Mind#Mental faculties that consciously create explanations in order to judge, decide, solve problems, generalize, and give examples, among other activities....
"), which is abstract and self aware, or conscious.Some people have the feeling of curiosity to know what is after death.

Morbid curiosity

A morbid curiosity is an example of addictive curiosity the object of which are death

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a life organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby....
and horrible violence

Violence

Violence is the expression of physical force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects ....
or any other event that may hurt you physically or emotionally (see also: snuff film

Snuff film

A snuff film or snuff movie is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment....
), the addictive emotion being explainable by meta-emotions exercising pressure on the spontaneous curiosity itself. In a milder form, however, this can be understood as a cathartic

Catharsis

Catharsis is a Ancient Greek word meaning "purification", "cleansing" or "clarification." It is derived from the infinitive verb of Transliteration as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean."...
form of behavior or as something instinctive within humans. According to Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, in his Poetics we even "enjoy contemplating the most precise images of things whose sight is painful to us." (This aspect of our nature is often referred to as the 'Car Crash Syndrome' or 'Trainwreck Syndrome', derived from the notorious supposed inability of passersby to ignore such accidents.)

Curiosity

Causes

Morbid curiosity

See also