Neophilia is defined as a love of novelty and new things. A neophiliac or
neophileNeophile or Neophiliac is a term used by counterculture cult writer Robert Anton Wilson to describe a particular type of personality. A neophile or neophiliac can be defined as a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty...
is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty.
The Neophiliacs: Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties was a 1970 book by
Christopher BookerChristopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author.-Biography:Booker was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, Shrewsbury School, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read History...
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The word has particular significance in Internet and hacker culture.
The New Hacker's Dictionary gave the following definition to neophilia -
- The trait of being excited and pleased by novelty.
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Neophilia is defined as a love of novelty and new things. A neophiliac or
neophileNeophile or Neophiliac is a term used by counterculture cult writer Robert Anton Wilson to describe a particular type of personality. A neophile or neophiliac can be defined as a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty...
is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty.
The Neophiliacs: Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties was a 1970 book by
Christopher BookerChristopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author.-Biography:Booker was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, Shrewsbury School, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read History...
.
The word has particular significance in Internet and hacker culture.
The New Hacker's Dictionary gave the following definition to neophilia -
- The trait of being excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF
Science fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures, including the pro-technology ‘Whole Earth’ wing of the ecology movementThe global ecology movement is based upon environmental protection, and is one of several new social movements that emerged at the end of the 1960s. As a values-driven social movement, it should be distinguished from the pre-existing science of ecology....
, space activists, many members of MensaMensa is the largest, oldest and best known high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98
th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised intelligence test...
, and the DiscordianDiscordianism is a modern religion centered on the idea that chaos is all that there is, and that disorder and order, the former considered a concept distinct from chaos, are both illusions that are imposed on chaos...
/neo-pagan underground (see geekThe word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc." Formerly, the term referred to a carnival performer often billed as a wild...
). All these groups overlap heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. The opposite tendency is neophobiaNeophobia is the fear of new things or experiences. It is also called cainotophobia.In psychology, neophobia is defined as the persistent and abnormal fear of anything new. In its milder form, it can manifest as the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine...
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Recent research uncovered a possible link between certain predisposition to some kind of neophilia and increased levels of the enzyme
monoamine oxidaseMonoamine oxidases are enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of monoamines. They are found bound to the outer membrane of mitochondria in most cell types in the body. The enzyme was discovered by Mary Hare in the liver, and received the name of tyramine oxidase...
A.