Emotions and actions are involved in genetic and anthropological considerations of exploration and migration, it is worth outlining briefly a psychological notion of curiosity.
Despite the fact that psychology has numerous ideas on human curiosity25, one key discovery is that it is extremely idiosyncratic.
While it is true that all people are inquisitive in some way, this curiosity manifests itself in a variety of ways.
The difference between cognitive or epistemic curiosity and sensory or perceptual curiosity is worth noting.
“The need for new information” is referred to as cognitive curiosity, while “the desire for new experiences and thrills” is referred to as sensory curiosity.
The difference between particular and diversive curiosity is another important distinction.
Diverse curiosity refers to a broad need for perceptual or cognitive stimulation, while specific curiosity refers to a desire for a specific piece of knowledge (Kidd and Hayden 2015, 450).
As a result, knowing that someone is inquisitive tells you very little about them since they may exhibit specific cognitive curiosity, diversive cognitive curiosity, specific sensory curiosity, or diversive sensory curiosity.
Furthermore, knowing that someone is inquisitive in one of these ways tells us nothing about what kinds of knowledge or experiences would help them fulfill their curiosity.
The details differ greatly from person to person, and there is no evidence that knowledge and feelings linked to any one subject or area, including space travel, serve as common or universal objects of interest.
Nonetheless, there is a significant link between curiosity and exploration— but only in a psychological and biological sense:
Exploration includes finding new information to address a problem through observation, consultation, and focused thought (specific exploration), as well as new sensory experiences and thrills to broaden one's knowledge into the unknown (diversive exploration).
Curiosity, according to a definition that connects the two categories, is the need for new knowledge and sensory experiences that drives environmental exploration.
Curiosity motivates exploration, but it is usually much more mundane acts of information or sensation seeking, such as tinkering with a new toy, surveying one's local environment (be it one's neighborhood, office, or refrigerator), or experimenting with hallucinogens, rather than something as lofty as sending humans to explore the Moon.
It would be an equivocation to conclude from the facts that we are all inquisitive in some way and that we are all explorers in some way that humans in general are interested about and want to explore space in particular.
Individuals may be interested about and want to explore space, but this does not define the species; to argue differently risks the composition fallacy.
~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan
You may also want to read more about Space Exploration, Space Missions and Systems here.
