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Ask HN: Can too much “intellectual curiosity” cause psychological problems?
HN's maxim - "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" seems to become a serious problem for me. I can't stop thinking about stuff. Not in a good way as if it would lead to me some brilliant inventions, but rather in a troubling one that I question everything to a point where it becomes pathological. I spent a lot of time reading theoretical philosophy (External world skepticism, solipsism) etc. Most people seem to think of these as quixotic thought-experiments, but they become a serious trouble for me in my journey to "figuring everything out". Is there anything such as epistemological psychotherapy? lol.
- undershirt 8y agoWell, I can tell you what has helped me so far in my own epistemic crisis: The first two chapters of “Maps of Meaning” helped me separate truth-as-a-descriptive-framework vs truth-as-a-functional-framework, which was great for recovering from what postmodernism did to our sense of truth. “Postmodernism for Rationalists”[1] really helped me define the chaos i felt about truth, and helped me put words and philosophers to different thoughts that I didn‘t know were there. “States and Nomads”[2] helped me realize how all models are wrong, and their utility is ultimately contextual. It also introduced me to Jorge Luis Borges, who has written a lot of creative fiction around ideas like this. A big reprieve came from this analysis of an Emily Dickinson poem on truth[3]. The part about “circumference” of truth really worked for me, I feel now that peace has to come from outside that circumference, not inside (which is what you might be struggling with?). Bertrand Russell spent his life trying to find a philosophical basis for religion and never found one, but this is as close as I've gotten. For my happiness, I intersperse fiction (poetry, short stories) with more serious essays of philosophy. I think that resulting balance between art and treatise has been important for me in getting through this, but I haven't been on this for long. If any of this has landed for you, we can swap sources and thoughts sometime, which might be a good therapy (both ways). [1]:https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for... [2]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGaFcI2UNrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGaFcI2UNrI [3]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55kqNg88JqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55kqNg88JqI
- gus_massa 8y agoNot sure that this will help ... Take a few mathematics and physics courses. In the mathematic course try to think as a mathematician. In the physics courses try to think as a physicist. Sometimes it's good to view the world from a different perspective. I have a Ph.D. in Math and 50% of a major in Physics. It's very interesting to see similar topics in both areas and understand how each one approach the problem. [And sometimes it's interesting to translate the problem to the other field and fill the details.]