How Curiosity Works | HowStuffWorks
As the animals we are, humans only need a few things to continue along as a species. We need to find food. Being omnivores, we have a wide selection available to us. We have to find clean water to drink. We need shelter to protect us from the elements. And we need to reproduce. Other than that, we don't have too many more basic requirements. But a cursory glance around human culture shows us just how far we've exceeded these basic needs to create an extremely complex -- and, some may argue, overly complicated -- world for ourselves. The Internet, the telephone, planes, trains and automobiles, our houses, our clothes, our diets, our toys -- all of these things by far exceed our basic needs. We humans have a tendency to go above and beyond. Such is the case with curiosity. This seemingly instinctual urge to gain information we don't really need is extraneous -- and at its most extreme, dangerous. Consider standing outside a dark cave. It's curiosity that might draw one to investigate its
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