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The Rise And Fall Of Curiosity

It is not really clear whether humanityharbors until they rotted away. And the
developed intelligence because it was curioustechnology of how to build such sophisticated
or its curiosity developed its intelligence.ships  gradually  passed  into  oblivion.
It could very well be a combination of both,
with our natural genetic capacity for inquiryZheng He discovered many countries,
stimulating more complex and interconnectedincluding Sumatra, Malacca, Java, Ceylon,
neural  nets  and  bigger  brains.India, Persia, the Persian Gulf, Arabia, the
Red Sea, Africa, and Taiwan. He brought back
For a long time, psychologists believed thatto China trophies and envoys from more than
intelligence was fixed, but new evidence30 kingdoms. His records and maps may even
shows that the more we learn, the more neuralhave shown the Americas, Antarctica, and the
connections are formed and the more we cantip  of  Africa.
learn.
What killed China's exploration of the world?
The driving force behind all learning isChinese bureaucrats steeped in
curiosity, the desire to know, to explore, toNeo-Confucianism thought that since China was
experience  new  things.obviously the greatest civilization in the
world that they had nothing to gain from
A curious lesson about the implications ofmixing  with  foreign  people.
appreciating and withdrawing from curiosity
occurred between 1405 and 1433, when the MingChina became insular and the Western World,
government, under the foresighted Yongleso far behind in technology and the learning
Emperor decided to establish a Chinesearts began to catch up. Eventually, a few
presence in the Indian Ocean basin. Hecenturies later, by the time of the Opium
assigned Zheng He 317 ships, with 28,000Wars, the small island of Britain had enough
armed troops. This expedition awed thetechnology to completely humiliate this giant
people of the coastlines, who were amazed bycountry  and  seize  its  major  ports.
the nine-masted ships. These were the
biggest ships ever known in the world, with aAnd just as the decline of a whole
technology about 500 years ahead of its time.civilization can be traced back to the
eclipse of curiosity, even on an individual
During his first three voyages, Zheng Helevel, most people only enjoy a brief
visited southeast Asia, India, and Ceylon,expedition into learning about new worlds.
and on the next one, he traveled as far asAfter their schooling years, most people
East Africa. Liberally dispensing gifts ofsettle into a routine of quiet desperation
silk, porcelain, and other Chinese wonders,and fail to realize that they live in a world
he also received amazing presents from hisof  wonder  and  mystery.
hosts.
The wonders of learning are enormous; besides
The Chinese people learned much about otherpersonal growth, there is a thrill to it that
people, their customs, and their deities.makes everything else pale in comparison.
Zheng He was also respectful. For example,Here for example is the poetic euphoria felt
in Ceylon, they erected monuments honoringby  Zheng  He:
Buddha, Allah, and Vishnu. They also
astonished the people back home when they"We have traversed more than 100,000 li
brought back "mythological animals" like the(50,000 kilometers) of immense water spaces
Zebra  and  the  Giraffe.and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like
mountains rising in the sky, and we have set
Suddenly the world of the Chinese peopleeyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in
expanded beyond belief, as did those of thea blue transparency of light vapors, while
people  visited.our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day
and night, continued their course (as
Zheng He himself was reported to be arapidly) as a star, traversing those savage
remarkable man, who was rumored to be verywaves as if we were treading a public
tall and broad and walked like a tiger.thoroughfare." (Tablet erected by Zhen He,
Chinese scholars escorted him, drew nauticalChangle,  Fujian,  1432.)
maps and wrote fabulous reports on all that
was  being  discovered.Conservative scholars at court, clinging to
an outmoded philosophy, did not realize
Then in 1424, the Yongle Emperor died andthatwith the death of curiosity, they had
with him the curiosity aroused by the Chinesealso condemned the future of a great
expeditions. His successor, the Hongxicivilization. 100 years before Columbus
Emperor, who reigned from 1424 to 1425 slowlyopened up the Americas, China lost its chance
eroded the popularity of the expeditions. Heto  know  and  explore  the  world.
was followed by the Xuande Emperor, who
permitted one last expedition, during whichWithout a sense of wonder, life is but a
time  Zheng  He  died  and was buried at sea.petty affair. Whenever a civilization, a
country, an institution, or a person loses
A huge surge of conservatism not only endedit, their world shrinks and entropy begins.
the expeditions, but the bureaucrats evenEntrenched in the quotidian, life loses its
went as far as to destroy all known recordsluster, and the promise of what could be
of the expeditions. The nautical charts werefades away like a dying sunset.
burned. The treasure ships sat in the



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