ConserveLiberty takes the approach that many of the personality traits that humans (or any of the other animals) possess have organic roots. Meaning - our behavior - the way we detect, perceive, interpret, and react to things - is rooted in the way we are built. The way we are "wired up and connected" determines "The Device That We Are" so to speak. Thus, what we are, who The Me is ... has its origins (at the organism level) in our genetics.

And so it is with Curiosity. [Click here] for Wikipedia's more extensive description of Curiosity.

A less scientifically oriented approach to describing Curiosity can be found here: How Curiosity Works.



A Trip Down Evolutionary Selection

Why might such a "filter" (e.g. function or instinctive behavior, manifested naturally, without question or consideration) develop that would manifest itself as an interest in "that which we have not experienced," and thus have no memory of? What selective advantage would there be in being drawn to "something new, something not noticed before?"

Diagram of a typical myelinated vertebrate motor neuron

All who have studied nervous systems seriously, with a compulsion to get down to the facts of the matter, understand that nerve cells, actually any living cells, react to differences. They may do their own thing in an unchanging environment (if you don't look too hard to understand what is changing even then.) But when something about their environment changes significantly, living cells react. Basically, what they are doing changes. Because doing what they do depends upon the environment they are in. All "Life" really Is is chemistry going its own way within its environment. When the environment changes, that directly influences what the living can do chemically. What they do Do.

At its most rudimentary level, a living cell is a "Difference Engine." It responds to differences.

There are lots of distinct cell types in the adult human body. And among those, lots of different cell types within the nervous system. And they all, despite the various roles and purposes they've evolved to have, are at their most rudimentary level Difference Engines.

A multipolar neuron

A signal propagating down an axon to the
cell body and dendrites of the next cell

Take it up a notch to a specialized cell. A nerve cell for example. They do what they do, but under certain circumstances, they "fire." Basically, they respond to a stimulus by releasing some stored up chemicals. Through evolution, what they release, and under what circumstances, has been selected for. ConserveLiberty will not go into specific discussions of specific type of neurons here. For now, we'll keep it abstract. But the abstract narrative applies to all of the specific types of neurons.

Take neurons up another notch to a collection of neurons. A specialized collection of neurons. Again, selected for evolutionarily. Now we're getting to the stage where communication from a "starting" neuron occurs, firing chemicals that cause a nearby or "touching" neuron to fire next, and so on, all the way to the "ending" neuron. Again, the initial reaction was initiated by the detection of a "difference." Then the firings created their own localized "differences", which generated more firings, and so on.

Take several specialized collections, and together, at another level of complexity, we now have a "central nervous system", and among these specialized collections of specialized collections, we may have a brain. The "original" brain is thought to have arisen over 500 million years ago - the bilaterian brain. And ultimately, what is that brain responding too?

Differences

The human brain (just to pick one example), the cognitive human brain ... is A Difference Engine. Now, why is this relevant to this chapter on the Curiosity Personality Spectrum Tapestry?

Well, if the cognitive brain is a complex difference engine, then it's role is to respond to differences. It would have much more practical use, and much more likely to survive evolutionarily, if it did much more than simply wait for a difference to react to whenever something came along. Firstly, it would be great if it could prioritize which differences to react to if it indeed had a choice. And, secondly, it would be great if rather than "waiting around for whatever happened along" it instead "found the differences first" and then decided what ought to be favored to react to over the rest.

Since the cognitive brain is also A Learning Machine (at minimum A Pattern Recognizer) it has a time saving advantage. It has an "idea" of the significance of things it already "remembers." "I'm still here, so it was compatible with that." "It tasted good, so I'm good with that." "It wanted to eat me, so I will avoid that." And so on.

Where the potential evolutionary threats are are the things it has not seen before. Coincidentally, what it has not yet encountered it also has no memory for or pattern that it recognizes.

This new thing could be advantageous (new food!) or a threat (may kill me!) and so that needs to be determined. Finding the unknown and figuring it out may need to take priority over reacting to what you already know about. Not always, but enough times that if one wasn't interested in understanding the unknown, one may go extinct given enough time.

Of course, evolution generates traits (the filters) without necessarily having a reason for doing so. Evolution, after all, does not think. It is a process, driven by random change. When the changes are advantageous under certain circumstances, they may be selected for if those circumstances are relevant and "in play."

And thus, Curiosity evolved. Not necessarily as a survival impulse. Rather, it evolved and was found to be useful because among many of the outcomes from it a few would be advantageous for survival. The curious would detect mortal threats sooner than the non-curious. Selection happens. It's not really intentional. It's just The Math. In this case, The Mortal Math.

Note, again   → Curiosity is primarily invoked when things or elements of things are encountered (detected) for which no memories have been made. ←   Note

---

The Current State of Understanding Curiosity

"Curiosity" has been something that the psychology, neuropsychology, and biology, and biochemistry folks have been interested in for awhile. The same is true in art, drama, literature in general, humor, etc. Curiosity is such an integral component to human behavior that everyone has it at one level or another, and creative people are interested in exploring it.

Interestingly, unlike some of the other behavioral traits, the variability in default base curiosity is so broad across so many demographic groups that even manifestations of curiosity at the extremes do not tend to arouse much attention from a clinical or social perspective. The "Bell Curve" for manifested Curiosity is very broad.

For that reason, there doesn't appear to be any demand for treatments that might increase or decrease the "incidence" of low or high curiosity like you might have for issues related to affect (e.g. mania, depression), reality judgement (e.g. schizophrenia, various neuroses), addiction (e.g. opioid, alcohol, tobacco, spending), or even the ability to think and make decisions (e.g. various dementias, accident damage, strokes). Without a commercial value or a perceived societal need for the research, not a lot of replicable (thus, validatable) research in the area seems to get funded.

Perhaps there should be. For example, on the positive side, a high degree of curiosity is exhibited by most of the innovators and research scientists in a broad number of fields today. From their research, engineering breakthroughs continue apace. Everything from computing and communication infrastructure, improvements in various health related areas, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and so on. Could we use more? Could the degree of Curiosity be managed or manipulated in order to facilitate more advancement? Should we?

On the negative side, consider various of the crimes committed. Often, many seem to go over the top in unexpected ways. Are these due to a higher degree of curiosity among the perpetrators wondering, for example, "If this is considered bad by others, but fun for me, is their anything novel I can do that would turn out to be even more fun for me, and even worse for others?"

Yet today there does not seem to be much research directly related to Curiosity.

Thus, at this time there is very little to share, for instance, in regard to understanding the molecular biology (genetics, genes, etc.) underlying the infrastructure that generates our Curious behaviors.

It is not the intention of ConserveLiberty simply to write philosophical treatises which can not be validated and have no basis in scientifically skeptical observation or experimentation. Everything presented within the ConserveLiberty site is certainly intended to be tested and refined over time to increase its credibility from what should already be a credible start.

For that reason, any hypothetical declarations made regarding the genesis and manifestation of Curiosity will be backed up, when possible, with examples that have actually been observed that may support the statements made. We'll fold in examples from a genetic / physiological / evolutionary / structural perspective.

Note   →   Anyone freely electing to manifest curiosity (as we've defined it) IS having Fun   ←   Note

→ The Introduction section above was last updated 09 Nov 2017 21:45 PST ←

---

This section will have content posted to it in subsequent revisions of this chapter (Curiosity Personality Spectrum Tapestry). The current version as of this writing is v #1.0.

Let's briefly summarize some of the more important elements of Curiosity as discussed within Wikipedia:

• A quality related to inquisitive thinking, behavior, and emotion.
• An innate quality observed in many different species.
• Stems from a passion or appetite for knowledge, information, and understanding.
• Once aroused, it is considered inherently rewarding and pleasurable.
• Multiple theories have been proposed attempting to explain why we have it and how it drives us. All have their strengths and shortcomings.
• Its root causes are relatively unknown beyond theory.
• Neurological mechanisms involved in the reward pathway, motivation, attention, learning, and memory are relevant.
  
  
  Click to enlarge
• Dopamine is linked to the process of curiosity. It is responsible for assigning and retaining reward values of information gained. Research suggests higher amounts of dopamine are released when the reward is unknown and the stimulus is unfamiliar.
• Cortisol may be associated with curious or exploratory behavior.
• Various regions of the brain are involved.
• Curiosity has been universally observed to diminish with age. The changes are variable across individuals, potentially for a variety of reasons. Theories abound.

Alzheimer's and The Cognitive Reboot:

Regarding the implication of structures in the brain and the manifestation of curiosity, ConserveLiberty will give two examples based on the experiences of people who are known to the author.

First we will discuss observations of Alzheimer's Disease by people known by the author to offer critically thinking, scientifically skeptical observations independent of expectations that may have been taught by others.

Then we will discuss the manifestations of behaviors observed by others during the recovery period experienced by the author (the Cognitive Reboot) discussed in a previous posting.

The two examples are somewhat opposing examples when compared to one another.

With Alzheimer's Disease, the individuals observed are undergoing a rather slow degradation in brain infrastructure. The impact is widespread, affecting many physiological areas, some more than others. All are affected negatively, slowly, and permanently, eventually leading to death.

In the Cognitive Reboot, the opposite is happening. After the accident, much brain function is taken offline but temporarily. Then, over days and weeks, each comes gradually back online again, slowly, and sequentially, though with some overlap. In my case, all the functions returned (I say.)

In each case, the question becomes, "During the deterioration/rehabilitation phases of the illness (Alzheimer's / Cognitive Reboot), was Curiosity seen, if so when, and was it seen to increase/decrease?"

In the Alzheimer's disease examples,
I interviewed two people regarding their experiences with people having the disease.

The first person interviewed was a physician who has been practicing for over 25 years in the same location and has had the opportunity to work with many of her patients over most of that period of time. Many are healthy, but some have developed various chronic illness over that time as well. She was asked,

"Do you have any patients who started out healthy, but as they grew older, developed various senilities or Alzheimer's?"

"Yes, of course. Several."

"Of these, did you know them well enough that you had a sense of whether or not they were naturally curious people, and if so how much?"

"Well, we don't really evaluate people on whether or not they are curious."

"Yes, understood. However, even though curiosity isn't something you might consider clinically, it still does seem to be something that is characteristic for each person. A little different for each person. From that perspective, assuming you got to know your patients somewhat, would you say you might have a feel for how curious a patient was if someone were to ask you about them even outside your medical practice?"

"Sure, I have a feel for that. But most patients come in for specific issues, and are relying on me to address those, and will often accept our advice, or at least listen to it, so it is difficult to tell how curious they may actually be in a non-clinical situation."

"Fine, understood. So, do you think you had some patients who showed themselves to be more curious than other patients when they were discussing their issues with you?"

"Oh, yes. Some ask questions, wanting to understand their issues and what they can do about them more than others."

"Great. So then, just think about a collection of your patients that are in the more curious group. Of those, have any over time developed Alzheimer's?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"OK, here is the question that is the actual reason I wanted to talk to you: Of those patients who had been naturally more curious before their Alzheimer's, how would you describe any changes to their curiosity over time? Have they become more curious, less curious, no change? What do you think?"

"Well, initially I suppose they were still curious. At first they mainly would come in and mentioned that they were forgetting things. Maybe thinking something dietary might help, or vitamins. Just wondering if it was old age. But over time, they pretty much weren't wondering about it much, and generally as time went by not wondering at all. But there are a lot of other things going on besides just curiosity. Their whole affect seems to change. Its as if they are becoming more and more dulled to reacting to things like one normally would. They are coming in with someone, a friend or a family member, and they are relying on them to converse with me. So it is sort of like they are becoming numb to the world. They are not necessarily depressed, although some may be also be depressed coincidentally at the very early stages too. However, as time passes and their Alzheimer's worsens, their affect continues diminishing. They continue to become less responsive. After years I wouldn't even say they are depressed if they ever were. They are just ... there, only. And that's all."

"OK, thanks much."

The second person interviewed was Stella Marrone.

Stella knows someone with Alzheimer's, and has watched it progress over the years.

She mentioned that the curiosity that would have been normal for this individual decreased over time. Eventually just manifesting itself in asking the simple question, "Why?" And then finally no longer wondering "why?" at all.

Now, before going on to our example of the Cognitive Reboot and what that may be able to tell us about Curiosity, lets consider the examples just given with Alzheimer's. And, let's recall our current model of what may be working in Ensemble to evoke Curiosity.

Important   →   There are complicating issues with Alzheimer's, because degradation is happening across much of the brain, including (likely) anything necessary for the direct cognitive generation of Curiosity. But, is there anything at the margins that could be insightful, one way or another?

Possibly.

Recall (from the Preface section) that these 4 exist in ensemble to generate Curiosity:

• Memory: Curiosity supports the learning function. Curiosity will not be invoked if a memory exists for something. Curiosity will be invoked if the memory of it does NOT exist. Remember, ConserveLiberty defines MEMORY here.
  
  
• Recall: Having No Recall of something may or may not invoke Curiosity. Depends on the Memory status. If not Forgotten, Curiosity will not be invoked.
  
  
• The ability to form new memories. Curiosity will not be invoked if new memories cannot be formed.
  
  
• Available free memory storage capacity. If no infrastructure to remember something new is available, Curiosity will not be normally invoked.

It is difficult to validate much that going on with an Alzheimer's patient, because the one in the best position to affirm what is going on is the one with degraded cognitive abilities ... which we need to be online for us to get a credible assessment! So, we can only do our best. And, hypothesize the rest. Skeptically.

For the Alzheimer's patient, in the earliest stages, memories are still available, they can be recalled, thus they are not forgotten, and they have some capacity to learn a few new things. Thus, for those things which they have no actual memories, they may manifest curiosity. And they do.

As their disease progresses, many that care for them observe that they retain long term memories (LTM) they already had for awhile, but they lose the capacity to form short term memories (STM). Without short term memory formation, one cannot form long term memories. They've "evaporated" even before they could be transferred to LTM. If memories cannot be formed, Curiosity will not be invoked.

What of the case where they can still form some LTM, but have forgotten some things that they "just need reminding on?" Why aren't they curious about those? Doesn't NOT having a memory of something evoked curiosity?

Ah, we need to be careful about how we use our jargon. Specifically, the terms "memory" and "forgotten." If needed, review here.

What if instead, the memory (memory_a) we think they forgot was not forgotten at all. It was still in memory (memory_b), but the Recall Function had degraded, and wasn't recalling things currently within Memory (memory_b) as well. In that case, Recall was diminished, but the memory was still there. Thus, Curiosity would not be evoked even though it "appeared" (practically speaking) it had been forgotten. Truly Forgotten means Totally Gone. Memory_a was still in Memory_b.

How do we know if that was the case? Well, we don't. And we can't. The only one in a theoretical position to know is the individual with Alzheimer's. And they no longer possess enough cognitive function to even give us a hint.

However, we may do better with this very question once we examine the experience of the FULL Cognitive Reboot.

---

In the Cognitive Reboot example,
... the opposite was happening with regard to the various cognitive and neurological functions. They were gradually coming back online vs. gradually deteriorating and going offline with Alzheimer's.

After the accident, much of my brain function was taken offline primarily due to anoxic insult. In this incident, I was quite fortunate. No penetration to the brain itself occurred. No damage to the brain happened due to direct physical injury from an external object. Coup contrecoup injury was observed from MRI images. At the time it was not known whether or not this damage would progress to permanent physical injury due to "internal harassment." In addition, the anoxia inducing issues (e.g. blood loss and an above dura hematoma) were addressed within an hour of the accident, and both issues were able to be resolved. It was not initially known to what degree they had been resolved in time. Fortunately, the author was a healer.

In this case, though various brain and cognitive functions went offline and breathing on my own eventually ceased, my heart kept beating. Then, over days and weeks each gradually came online again, slowly, and sequentially, though with some overlap.

ConserveLiberty was quite fortunate that family visited daily AND TOOK NOTES regarding my progress. I later suggested videos would have been helpful, but at the time my family did not consider that I would ever care to see them, or to even use them to derive a Cognitive Reboot mechanism or look to them for insights into the Curiosity Personality Spectrum Tapestry!!

In fact, on discharge from the hospital when I asked why videos had not been made, their reaction to my question implied that such a morbid curiosity had not even occurred to them.

So what do we know from this "opportunity?" Perhaps an examination of this experience might shed some light on the biological aspects of the manifestation of Curiosity.

• Early on, all cognitive activity that could be communicated was offline. Not atypical for the type of injury. Sedation was also heavy in order to protect from basic instincts known to surface (e.g. flight or fight response) when head injury patients first become aware that they are "somewhere", do not know where they are, cannot communicate, cannot make sense of what at all is going on, believe they are restrained, do not have freedom of voluntary movement, do not have freedom to manifest independence, may experience pain, may experience confusion (if cognitive ability is sufficiently online to enable confusion.)
  
  
• Extubated Day 4. Minimal communication possible. I very weakly spoke ??, which some thought might have been a request for my wife. Thus, some memory with recall might have been working. Later, had perception that I was in poor circumstances. While I had a "sense of status" about that, there was very little sign yet of Curiosity. My instinct was to Move Forward. Short Term Memory (STM) Formation not evident.
  
  Later that day (sedation lessened) I would pick at my head bandage, and ask, "Please, why hat?"
  
  Later again that day I was inquiring feebly and repeatedly what had happened and why I was in the hospital. That information was withheld, reasonably, but later I was told why. And I whispered, "Thank you."
  
  While it is possible that the repeated questioning may be a sign of curiosity, it is also true that I had very limited transient (pseudo) STM formation, and would forget what I was told within seconds. It would not make it into STM or Long Term Memory (LTM.)
  
  
• By Day 8, I was aware that I could not "remember," and got my wife's commitment that she would remember for me. My desire to remember was back on line. My ability to remember was not. I do have memories that were generated during Days 3-14, but not only do I not have any idea when or in what order they were actually generated, it is also very clear that the stored memories are mixed indistinguishably with both Real and Imaginary. Perhaps 5-10% Real, and 85-90% Imaginary. None of the (very few) memories were 0% Real. None were 100% Real. They all had a Real component that actually occurred, but I am informed that none of the memories had even any chance of happening as I "Recalled" them. My "recall" of what I remember has never changed over two years. They were basically stored significantly corrupted with the imaginary.
  
  
• By Day 9, I would spontaneously observe that my glass was "statistically empty" or "statistically full". The recognition of what an Actual Fact may be was coming back online. Again, it is not clear what the magnitude of my Curiosity status was, because LTM Formation was still offline. STM might last for 2-3 minutes. I would continue to ask the same questions again repeatedly, after a few minutes, as if I had never asked them before.
  
  
• Day 15 - My earliest credible Long Term Memory. The sign on my wall stated, "Pt. is impulsive." That is the first credible lasting (thus long term) memory. I also remember not understanding what that meant, whether it was relevant, or whether or not it described a person or a Pt., whatever that was. So I kept trying to figure it out whenever it caught my attention. Thus, I consider this day as ...
  
  Important   →   ... the day Curiosity that attracted and held my attention began to come back into play.
  
  However, is that true? Perhaps that is simply what I can remember because it was the first incidence of LTM Formation, which at the time I didn't even recognize as such. Who knows how curious I might have been during times earlier that I did not and could not form a LTM about.
  
  

In the end, we are left with hypotheses about that. It is always a wise thing to be skeptical in search of the Actual Facts. In this case too, the person theoretically in the best position to know the actual answer to that had not yet, at the time, rehabbed sufficiently to even grasp the question abstractly enough to answer it.

→ The Big Picture section was last updated 12 Nov 2017 13:00 PST ←

---

← Previous - Preface   Articles, Essays, and Commentary     Next - Multiple Filters In Play →

Consider thoughtfully.