Routine Novelty

post by BazingaBoy (martin-nenov) · 2025-03-31T15:47:05.217Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

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It sounds like an oxymoron, but it doesn't have to be.

The brain is always trying to minimize surprise, so novelty isn’t just fun - it's essential. Everything from perception to movement to memory is part of this deep drive to predict and adapt, and novelty feeds that process.

Novelty is an extremely valuable resource. However, the way we experience it nowadays is very limited, mostly through the internet, visually and auditorily. We learn new things but don't really experience them; they're more information than visceral experience. We just smirk or lift an eyebrow and move on to the next thing. It's very rare to come across something that truly moves us or inspires us.

That's why I propose Novelty Centers full of things that truly fascinate us and show us entirely new ways of looking at the world.

For example, how many people have used a thermal camera? Sure, you know what it does. Sure, you've seen images of it. But you've never been able to wield it yourself and look at your environment and point it towards whatever piques your interest. It will quickly let you discover whole new phenomena. If you put your hand on a wall and then take it away, your palm print is right there, red on blue. You can see electrical instruments that draw power stand out against the environment; you can see drafts and all kinds of other things.

How about a cloud chamber? Seeing one in person would be about a hundred times more impactful than looking at a video of one.

Or how about getting picked up by several trained staff and getting carried around, like a human-powered roller coaster doing unexpected moves in a carefully predetermined choreography? That would surely be a thrill.

There's many more things that a Novelty Center could have, and new ones can be added regularly. I think governments and corporations should strive to provide people with such places where they can expose their brains and senses to truly novel inputs that will maybe create some new wiring and open new venues of thought and inquiry.

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