Schmidhuber's 2008 'Compression Progress' paper: curiosity is just an algorithm
anselm · x · 2026-09-28
A repost walks through Jürgen Schmidhuber's 2008 paper Compression Progress, arguing human curiosity is an algorithm: the brain is a prediction engine that compresses the world's chaos into predictable patterns.
- Fully predictable inputs (a ticking clock, a blank wall) compress instantly → boredom
- Purely random inputs (TV static) can't be compressed at all → frustration
- What attracts us is rapid improvement in compression ratio — "compression progress" — which the paper uses to explain beauty, humor, music hooks, infant exploration, and why science exists
The core claim: curiosity, aesthetics, and discovery all reduce to a single mathematical principle — maximizing compression progress.
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