Epistemic status: just speculation loosely based on my understanding of how my brain works and assuming other peoples brains work similarly. I think the problem might be that there are too many mysterious diseases. As an analogy: I have a desire to learn a second language, but often when I start trying to learn a language I will be distracted by other languages I could learn, I’ll study one language for a few months and then abandon it for a different language, and then abandon that language for another, until I look back and barely remember any words from any of them, and I’ll think if only I had some reason to commit to a specific language, like if I had a partner who spoke a second language, then I would for sure be able to focus my effort to learning that specific one. In the same way I’ve researched medical topics before, but there is a lot of medicine to learn and I have no reason to focus my effort on one specific mysterious disease. When me or my family or friends get sick I will sometimes spend some time learning about the disease or the medicine that they got, but quickly move on to other things that interest me of which there are many. If me or someone very close to me got sick with a chronic mysterious disease that would probably result in me getting fascinated by it to a similar degree as you are now, but currently I am not in that situation. other than someone I care about getting sick I am struggling to think of another reason I would force myself to focus on one specific issue, perhaps if the government or my job assigned me a specific illness but I am not a doctor so I don’t see why they would do that.
Epistemic status: just speculation loosely based on my understanding of how my brain works and assuming other peoples brains work similarly.
I think the problem might be that there are too many mysterious diseases. As an analogy: I have a desire to learn a second language, but often when I start trying to learn a language I will be distracted by other languages I could learn, I’ll study one language for a few months and then abandon it for a different language, and then abandon that language for another, until I look back and barely remember any words from any of them, and I’ll think if only I had some reason to commit to a specific language, like if I had a partner who spoke a second language, then I would for sure be able to focus my effort to learning that specific one.
In the same way I’ve researched medical topics before, but there is a lot of medicine to learn and I have no reason to focus my effort on one specific mysterious disease. When me or my family or friends get sick I will sometimes spend some time learning about the disease or the medicine that they got, but quickly move on to other things that interest me of which there are many. If me or someone very close to me got sick with a chronic mysterious disease that would probably result in me getting fascinated by it to a similar degree as you are now, but currently I am not in that situation. other than someone I care about getting sick I am struggling to think of another reason I would force myself to focus on one specific issue, perhaps if the government or my job assigned me a specific illness but I am not a doctor so I don’t see why they would do that.