Seeking Circuits

I found this in a Siri Hustvedt book :

Jaak Panksepp was a neuroscientist who said that what animates us is a “seeking system”, which pushes all mammals, a mouse or a human, to explore or understand what’s around, and to extract a meaning from every situation we meet.

A quick Google search lead me to this paragraph, which will make thinkers smile :

‘’For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing.”

E. Yoffe

I think there are ranks here – from crazy seeking for useless lols on Internet to exploration of other cultures and areas of knowledge…

Some also say that depression is caused by a failure in our seeking system…

Thanks for reading!