"Nothing in us reports on an absence. No creature ever needed a sense for the path it did not walk." - Ken Woodward

More than sixty percent of Google searches now end without a single click. We type the question, read the summary, and leave. The trip is gone.

Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff argues that curiosity needs a gap to switch on, and that learning deepens while the question stays open. The answer closes the window.

But the reaching is not our failure. Wanting the missing piece is old equipment, and it worked well for a very long time, because you used to have to walk over the ridge to find out. What changed is the hit rate. We catch every time now, in three seconds, and the machinery on the other side never gets to run.

This week we look at which gaps are worth keeping open, why resistance is the mechanism rather than the toll, and what ten years of a daily question taught me about the limits of my own idea.

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions)

Keep questioning!

Read more