Comment by Justin on Joy in the Merely Real · 2008-03-21T04:54:10.000Z · LW · GW

I look at Keats' quotation in almost the exact opposite way that you do. I think the greatest, or at least most efficient scientific minds are the ones that delight the most in mystery, and are most dulled by the explained.

If our brains are a limited resource, and what we deem "interesting" is where we devote the bulk of our mental processing power, then it would be optimal for the brain to dull-ify anything once we have fully explained it. Once we know everything about rainbows, we should immediately cease thinking about rainbows. We are then free to redirect our reasoning powers against the remainder of the mysteries in our world.

I think our brains' wiring to find mystery "interesting" and the explained "dull" is the engine that directs scientific progress.