In his latest book, The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, journalist and author Alex Hutchinson explores the deep-seated reasons behind human exploration. “My first assumption about human expansion was that it got crowded in the neighborhood,” Hutchinson says, “so we moved over to the next neighborhood but that doesn't get you to Easter Island. There's something else that is driving humans, from the very start of our species, to push off, even when we have enough resources where we are.”
Hutchinson also delves into the psychological and neurological factors that fuel our drive for exploration. He explains that through exploration, humans seek to eliminate uncertainty and surprise with dopamine playing a key role.“We get a shot of dopamine, not when something good happens, but when something better than expected happens.” Hutchinson explains. “It's all about prediction, and comparing reality to our predictions. The ‘free energy principle’, [lays out why] humans seek to minimize surprise and uncertainty. All living things have to follow one simple imperative in order to ensure their prolonged survival, which is that they have to minimize surprise.”
Hutchinson says we can learn a lot about the desire to explore from by observing children at play and says: “I try to say yes to my kids as much as I can, because if they think something seems worth doing to them, they're responding to this internal wiring that’s in their brain telling them that this is an opportunity to learn about the world.”
As we age, it’s also crucial to maintain a sense of exploration for personal growth and fulfillment. “It's not crazy to explore less,” Hutchinson notes, “but it is crazy to kind of lean into that decline, or to become someone who never explores. You can explore more intelligently, but you don't want to [stop altogether]. There's maybe 5% of people, in some studies, who really just stop exploring as they get older. That, I think, is where the problem is.”
Alex Hutchinson pictured here, says: “I would challenge that notion that exploring is not universal. I'll bet there are areas in your life where you explore. It may not be riding 200-mile bike rides, it may be listening to interesting and challenging new music, or reading different books, or intellectually, or in the food you eat. People have this drive.” Photo courtesy of Lauren King.
In his book, The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, author Alex Hutchinson describes why everyone's got some aspect of exploration within them that drives them to sample the unknown.