What do you find interesting and why does it matter?
Scientists taught rats to drive rat-sized vehicles in exchange for treats. When then offered treats without needing to drive, three quarters of the rats preferred to operate the vehicle to get the treats.
Many of the trained rats were observed taking an unusual pose while watching the scientists set up their vehicles. The scientists had only seen the same pose before in rats that were high on opiates.
I think the most obvious conclusion to draw is that rats enjoy learning and using new skills when there’s a reward involved, and that often the skill itself is the reward.
The US Navy in the the decades of 1910-1950. Really all Navies of the world. Those navies would have seen some of the most famous naval activities in history.
It is said that a Sailor in 1850 had more in common with a sailor of 1450 than they did with a sailor in 1900.
Sailing went from Wind Power, to coal fed steam power to oil powered. All within a 50 year time frame. The advances must have been insane to witness.
In 1910 there would have been good enough naval technology and still so much communication isolation world wide to make sailing very akin to leaving the planet.
Singularities and it doesn’t matter but they blow my mind.
What do I find not fascinating would be a much quicker way to answer your question.
Does it matter? To me at least, yes. My curiosity and… that ability to be astonished/excited even by the most insignificant or mundane things, and a desire to welcome those things (and persons), I think is what made me the person I’m.
I thought the same thing. lol
What isn’t fascinating?:)
Spiders are extremely fascinating and I wish more people would take an interest in them. They are mostly harmless and fear of them is irrational and illogical.
They are such a diverse group and have so many important functions in nature. There are some really cool ones out there like the lynx spiders or garden orb weavers like Argiope argentata. They are so fun to watch catch insects and go about their little spider lives. They are just so fucking cool.
Especially the green lynx spider ladies. They are my absolute favorite and such little badasses :)
AI alignment. Because it is a statistical math problem with deterministic modes of output.
It is likely the greatest scam in history yet to be revealed. It is nothing like how it is presented and seen now. This is code from the standard vocab to reset and realign bots. •»ÀĪÙ
Particle physics: It’s (to our current understanding) describing our universe at the smallest levels and showing us just how wild things are that we can’t see, helping us understand how to build systems in ways we’d never imagine before.
Mineralogy (for lack of a better term): it matters on larger scales than I particularly care about to be honest, I just love seeing a natural crystalline structure and knowing it’s some combination of copper, oxygen, etc etc… I love copper bearing minerals lol azurite and dioptase are so beautiful!
Did you know in experiments on Chimpanzees it has been shown that they likely have equivalent memory and cognitive abilities to humans?
So what is the secret to our success? Social learning.
Hands down the most fascinating thing I have learned are the theories of Joseph Henrich, an anthropologist and the Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology of Harvard University, in his book book “The Secret of Our Success”
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178431/the-secret-of-our-success
I have to only choose one? Hmm… the truth about what humanity was like between the origin of the species to the oldest known society. Thousands lf years we no nothing about. Cryptozoology and cryptoanthropology. What species did the christan narrative erase from history. We have confirmed small humans and giants. What else was or is out there.
Radio, how radio works is so remarkable. Communication systems in general, it’s crazy that we ever figured any of that out.
the fact so many people lack imagination and empathy.
and that they think if you don’t agree with them or your life is different than theirs, you’re a terrible person that should be beaten into submission until you do agree or pretend your life isn’t different than theirs.
Neuroscience. Briefly, the study of how the connections in our brains make us function, from completing simple tasks like movement, coordinating, perceiving the world, and finally, constituting our sense of self and consciousness, this all is so extremely exciting and fascinating for me.
Why does it matter? Well, in the short-term, research in this area allows us to invent better treatments for various conditions — from deafness with cochlear implants to depression with deep brain stimulation.
In the long term — understanding who we are, what does it mean to be human, and what the limitations of our understanding and thought are.
Disclaimer: I hate AI and the whole recent movement about AI in neuroscience from people who clearly don’t understand the basics. No, “AI”, which is to say LLMs, are not conscious, don’t display patterns similar to advanced human thought, and I remain to be convinced of theirs usefulness in this area of research.
Dragon mounds, who buried them? You never see dragons with shovles.
Bureaucracy. Particularly how it informs political structures (looking at you, Weber).
