The inclination to withdraw himself from the public as far as possible is regarded as one of Virgil’s most salient characteristics: this at least is the impression given by the few testimonia and numerous anecdotes of his life. The guiding principle of Virgil’s life as a poet of the res publica Romana could be described as an ‘art of disappearing’, which becomes evident in different ways. By means of this Virgil sometimes succeeds in withdrawing himself spatially even from Augustus, the mightiest designer of space, and in establishing certain limits to his ‘topotactic’ power. To present the ‘withdrawing technique’ practised by Virgil, this chapter draws on information gathered from biographical texts on Virgil as well as on relevant passages of Virgil’s work, naturally without ignoring the documentary fragility of the texts considered. Nevertheless there are conspicuous correspondences between the texts about Virgil and the poetological messages within his literary works, which give an impression at least of his effective seclusion. His reception by his contemporaries and immediate successors proves his greatest success in this respect.

We propose that the processes underlying insight problem solving in humans depend on two distinctly different forms of curiosity: Curiosity1 (which is associated with a habit-based, goal-centered, reinforcement learning processing system), and Curiosity2 (which depends on the discursive, default mode, medial-temporal-lobe based processing system). The former kind of curiosity is goal directed and increases with approach to the rewarding answer. The latter is exploratory and goal averse: “twiddling.” The possibility of insight, we suggest, depends upon the individual initiating a deliberate system switch upon apprehension of an impasse. Problem solving involves engaging in a habitual mode of responding and motivation by Curiosity1. With insight problems, however, this normal mode fails to lead to a solution, and impasse results. Acknowledgment of the impasse may trigger a strategic switch to a different kind of curiosity and information processing system: the discursive, default mode Curiosity2 system, wherein the solution that was previously unavailable may be found. This view is consistent with traditional stages posited to be involved in insight problem solving. However, several paradigms used to study creativity or investigate 'Aha!' reactions do not fit easily with this view of insight. Using this perspective, we evaluate the evidence for insight in nonhuman animals.

What makes us durable in alone time is a combination of background, personality, mindset, approach, and mental tools. It may come as no surprise that adaptable, confident, and optimistic people are better at alone time, because those traits are important for resilience in any context. But we are also learning that those who are able to stop and introspect, who are generally curious and self-reliant, flourish when they’re alone. Perhaps more importantly, how we perceive solitude can make or break that time. Being able to see value or meaning in it, even when we must be alone, is critical. Feeling that we have interesting and challenging activities in that space also makes it more enjoyable.

Chapter 1 starts with examples of typical child-instigated explorations in science, highlighting the importance of EC education as a whole and of developmental and cognitive psychology. This chapter describes children’s wonder and curiosity towards the world as it outlines what science looks like in the early years. As part of the definition of science, the chapter introduces conceptual, procedural and attitudinal science knowledge, and looks at how these relate to young children’s learning of science.

The best way to characterise the pleasure of thinking is to retrace its development. Chapter 2 thus approaches the pleasure of thinking from the perspective of developmental psychology. After a presentation of the meta-theoretical frame of a sociocultural, constructivist, developmental approach, the chapter first presents the classical observations made by Charles Darwin and Jean Piaget, both of whom identified manifestations of pleasure in young children. Second, the chapter examines the literature based on close analysis of parent-infant observations, which shows that from 3 or 4 months of age, children may experience playfulness, a shared pleasure in humorous situations, and the positive experience of being the author of their actions. Third, it presents literature on curiosity, humour, and interests in the preschool years, which reveals that children’s curiosity can be cultivated into interests. In school years, fourth, pleasure is often considered at the margin of the classroom, but also in relation to mathematics and, incidentally, in interactions. In the final section, the chapter rereads longitudinal data, retracing the conditions in which children may develop pleasure in learning and thinking.

Thinking is an activity that has a trajectory. Through the previous chapters, five modalities of pleasure of thinking have been identified: (i) a core and fundamental curiosity; (ii) a semiotic activity of binding experience in more or less complex wholes, or functional pleasure; (iii) the occasional joy of finding a solution thanks to our background capacity to engage in relatively free semiotic explorations, that is, the pleasure of discovery; (iv) the dialogical pleasure of the shared activity of thinking; (v) the awareness of the activity and its pleasure, a meta-pleasure. These five aspects can be experienced in a more or less playful way and lived more or less bodily – in modulations that partly depend on the actual setting as well as on cultural norms and guidance. Chapter 5 proposes a model of the person to account for such trajectories of thinking. It first emphasises four principles we need to hold about mind based on our exploration; it then proposes an integrated model of mind; and it finally qualifies trajectories of thinking and their pleasures.

The bacio mordace, or the biting kiss, was one of the most erotic and consequently very popular poetic tropes of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, particularly through the poetry of Battista Guarini (1538–1612) and Giambattista Marino (1569–1625). In his later books of madrigals, particularly the Seventh Book of 1619, Monteverdi was drawn to madrigals with such provocative imagery, although in a more overt way compared to his earlier kiss madrigals of the Second Book of 1590. In his later kiss madrigals, Monteverdi sought to give a musical dimension not so much to a cerebral obsession with kisses, but rather in the execution of them. The concertato medium proved ideal to render musical poets’ syntactical play on who is kissing whom, and the degree to which teeth were involved.

We have an amazing ability to change our brains based on what we choose to do, and scientists have called this “neuroplasticity.” When we throw ourselves into a new activity, whether it is learning to play chess, a musical instrument, or a competitive sport, we forge new connections in our brains. Resilience, too, often involves learning and sticking to physical or mental habits. In this chapter you will learn a few different ways you can challenge yourself mentally, embracing curiosity along the way.

How does a person curious about or wanting to do science learn it? The thesis of this book is learning science requires not only digging deeply into the subject but learning how to learn. It is not enough to learn facts about the history of science or to study chemistry, biology, or physics per se. One must also have a sense of the roles of psychological and social factors in science. We can read about the development of Newtonian mechanics or quantum physics, but that does not tell us why Newton, or Planck, Bohr, Born, or Heisenberg studied these subjects in the first place or what thought processes they used in their work. It does not tell us how their personalities and intuition drove their work. It also does not tell us why the work of these scientists was or was not accepted by the scientific community, rightly or wrongly. Most importantly, it does not tell us why we think we know what we do or even if what we study is real. Epistemology and metaphysics are required here. This chapter explains why such knowledge is obligatory if one is to do science well.

Designers in the real world must adhere to cost and schedules, pay attention to the competition, and work in multidisciplinary teams. Their products are typically the result of incremental, rather than radical, innovation. A questionnaire on how design thinking influences organizational outcomes revealed that four beneficial practices were to form diverse teams, generate diverse ideas, emphasize active listening, and execute real-world experiments. Curiosity, interest, and a drive for sense-making drive motivation, which can be measured by the Motivation to Innovate Inventory. Innovation requires risks and thus a balance between taking and reducing risks. Both traditional and foresight forecasting reduce risks, although the foresight perspective is more uniquely suited to the current complexity of world events. Technical and scientific progress contributes to success, but the process of innovation must be analyzed within a complete system that depends not only on the product but on the market environment, production facilities, knowledge, and social support within the organization.

The central message of the introduction is one must understand science if one wants to do science well. This requires a holistic educational approach, one that not only teaches the whats and hows of science, but most critically, it's whys. Why is the sky blue? Why do normal cells turn into cancer cells? Why do we use the scientific method and from where did it come? Why would one want to be a scientist in the first place? Why is science done in the way it is, that is, what is the gestalt of science? The whats and whys of science are practical in nature. The whys, in contrast, encompass theoretical, philosophical, historical, and social underpinnings of science. The whys are particularly important now when the probity and veracity of science are being attacked, and people seek to replace actual facts with "alternative facts" (falsehoods) for political, religious, or economic purposes or out of plain ignorance.

The feeling of curiosity can be perceived as an emotion linked to a modern era in which people were in the process of transcending borders and discovering new continents as well as new ways of living and thinking, becoming thus the godmother to modern science. Especially from the nineteenth century on, many Germans identified curiosity as the most vital prerequisite for strengthening the country’s position as a leader in education and science, and many efforts were made to educate mainly the sons of the upper-middle classes. This chapter examines how this initially led to a gender gap, favouring inquisitive boys and rejecting nosy girls. The socialist workers’ movement, in particular, that promised its members a better material and social position through education actively participated in initiatives to popularize science. While in the Weimar era the fight for equality in education was slowly transferred to women and girls, the ‘Third Reich’ and the GDR subsidized travel to recognize ‘top workers’ and motivate others to perform better. Curiosity nurtured in this and other ways inspired more and more people to cross boundaries and get to know the world as we see it today.

In this chapter, I first consider Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelian notion of “practices.” For MacIntyre, practices refer to special forms of human activity that harbor what he calls internal goods, goods to which practitioners progressively gain access as they acquire more experience. Part of what it means to enact a leisurely state of mind is to become attentive to the internal goods of our practical engagements. At the same time, the activities in which we can cultivate and enact leisure should not only be thought of as “practices,” in the MacIntyrean sense. Attending only to such practices would narrow the range of human engagement in which leisure can be experienced. More provocative is the philosopher Albert Borgmann’s  notion of a focal practice, which resonates with MacIntyre’s account, but includes a broader range of activities that count as worthwhile practices. While Borgmann’s account of focal practices covers what MacIntyre has in mind, it also includes simple activities such as cooking, walking, and reading. Borgmann shows that even, and especially in such engagements, we can experience and further cultivate leisure. Drawing from both MacIntyre’s and Borgmann’s insights, I sketch out three tangible ways to cultivate leisure.

Information-seeking research emerges from separate traditions focusing on one-time information-seeking behavior (research on curiosity), and long-term task engagement (research on interest). However, these lines of research have been developed independently, and there has been little discussion as to how they can be understood in an integrative manner. Here we present a general framework (the reward-learning framework of knowledge acquisition) that provides a more comprehensive understanding of information-seeking behavior, effectively linking these two research traditions. This framework is based on existing reward-learning models that account for one-time information-seeking behavior, but extends them to explain its long-term development by incorporating the key role of knowledge accumulation.