The Importance of Interest

In the detective short story La muerte y la brújula by Jorge Luis Borges, the detective makes the following observation to someone observing a crime scene and making uninteresting and unhelpful observations:

Usted replicará que la realidad no tiene la menor obligación de ser interesante. Yo le replicaré que la realidad puede prescindir de esa obligación, pero no las hipótesis.

[Translation: You will reply that reality has no obligation whatsoever to be interesting. I will reply to you that reality can dispense with that obligation, but not hypotheses.]

Detectives may agree with that, and researchers and intellectuals definitely should. 

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