These seems to be a psychology/sociology/evolutionary biology question. Nothing about this question asks about philosophy.

@Lowri but it probably won't stop people here from responding to it :-) I could add the Existentialism tag, and then it would fit.

It's not the tag that makes this not about philosophy; it's the substance.

Aristotle call it desire to understand... from a practical point of view you are right: if programming computers it is enough for me to earn money and live well, why bother about what numbers, sets, Turing machine etc. But discussing about Aristotle and numbers etc we landed on the Moon: thus, the demarcation between what is useful and what is interesting is not so clearcut.

@MauroALLEGRANZA Do you really mean that discussing about Aristotle brought us to the moon? Wasn’t he the guy claiming that each object strives to reach its natural location … :-)

Einstein refers to Galileo as the father of modern science. Galileo had to transcend the storytelling of Aristotle. The story told by Aristotle is that objects on earth come to rest in their natural place. Objects in the heavens remain in perpetual circular motion. He argued that there is an invisible boundary between the heavens and the earth located somewhere between the earth and the moon. This is just a story based on how we perceive the motion of objects on earth and the apparent motion of objects in the heavens. Galileo invented a new kind of storytelling including measurement + models.

Curiosity is more important than knowledge -- Albert Einstein

@ScottRowe - +1 It is deep in human psychology. Really intelligent people aren't afraid to leave some important questions open. Less intelligent people are uncomfortable with a void, it is scary for them. So they try to worship something or someone who could fill this void. God, Aristotle, Trump

There's probably no good answer to your question. Why did you ask?

If an aching desire which can go on desiring while being continuously fulfilled to overflowing is a kind of terrifying gulf, it is the terror of a first kiss and the gulf of space in which to fall in love.

Why ask indeed, if it's not going anywhere. "Philosophy is showing the fly the way out of the fly glass". Many of us are still buzzing in that fly glass, bumping our heads against the invisible walls of our conceptual confusions. I find it fascinating for instance how people can still believe in something incoherent (and useless) like "an absolute, indeterminate free will", but it's hard to pinpoint persuasively what causes the confusion and to help those poor buzzing people :)

@mudskipper I agree with the quote about Philosophy and the fly glass, but I think the Buddhist teachings and Nonduality are already the most effective way to escape "the Tyranny of Concepts". What's left for Philosophy is to shoot down the endless trial balloons people keep launching.

@JonathanZ I was hoping someone knows more than I do about it? Chogyam Trungpa acknowledged this feeling of a gulf when he said, "there's no way to get any ground under your feet." We are doomed to float in space.

a need for justification of our stupidity?

@RedBanana "Nothing fails like Failure" :-)