Mike Carruthers:
Every
creature on the earth has two basic instincts, survival and reproduction
and what makes humans different from other creatures is our third
basic instinct.
Alex S. Key:
And I propose that the third basic instinct is innate human
curiosity - our desire to stimulate our minds, our desire to
learn, the instinct to learn.
Alex S. Key,
author of the book The
Third Basic Instinct…
There probably
isn't a scientist today who can explain why humans evolved the
large brain and no other creature did. And the dinosaurs were
around for two hundred million years and didn't evolve a large
brain but curiosity is actually something that can explain this
missing link in evolution - because it gets us to use our minds.
Of course other
animals do display curiosity.
And certainly
when we look at our puppy dogs and we see them raise their eyebrows
in curiosity (and chimpanzees are actually more curious than
dogs) but in both cases and in all of the cases these creatures
(including dogs) will spend hours and hours just lazing around
virtually doing nothing.
Humans can't
do that, says Alex, our brains won't let us.
Even if we're
sitting on the sofa, we have to turn that TV on because we have
to stimulate our minds, we have to have a conversation and pick
up the phone - we can't just sit there and do nothing. And if
you look at children by the way, they have the greatest example
of the learning instinct in action every day because they have
the most to learn.
At somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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