I completely disagree with your portrayal of curiosity and curiosity-stoppers. Our curiosity generally has to do with our familiarity (or lack of it!) when encountering a phenomenon.
If I saw you cast a bizarre light that hovered over your book on the train, “Science!” would surely NOT diminish my curiosity, b/c I’d never seen anything like it ever. When I see David Blain (sp?) perform, I am amazed (and curious) about how he does “street magic.” Do I think it’s magic? Of course not. In fact, I presume that there is a rational scientific explanation to it. But, that does not make me less curious. In fact, I’m curious to know the explanation.
Conversely, when I walk into someone else’s house and they flip on a light, I do not stop to be sure that their lights work the same as mine (even though I have no experience with their lights), because the phenomenon is not new to me. I’ve been a good Bayesian and simply applied my experience with thousands of light switches to this new light switch.
Curiosity is a function of (1) our familiarity with the phenomenon, and (2) the intensity (or magnitude) of the phenomenon (is that a little flame coming from your fingertips or a 100′ flare?). It has little to do with Science! or Magic! as curiosity-stoppers.
I completely disagree with your portrayal of curiosity and curiosity-stoppers. Our curiosity generally has to do with our familiarity (or lack of it!) when encountering a phenomenon.
If I saw you cast a bizarre light that hovered over your book on the train, “Science!” would surely NOT diminish my curiosity, b/c I’d never seen anything like it ever. When I see David Blain (sp?) perform, I am amazed (and curious) about how he does “street magic.” Do I think it’s magic? Of course not. In fact, I presume that there is a rational scientific explanation to it. But, that does not make me less curious. In fact, I’m curious to know the explanation.
Conversely, when I walk into someone else’s house and they flip on a light, I do not stop to be sure that their lights work the same as mine (even though I have no experience with their lights), because the phenomenon is not new to me. I’ve been a good Bayesian and simply applied my experience with thousands of light switches to this new light switch.
Curiosity is a function of (1) our familiarity with the phenomenon, and (2) the intensity (or magnitude) of the phenomenon (is that a little flame coming from your fingertips or a 100′ flare?). It has little to do with Science! or Magic! as curiosity-stoppers.