Introduction: When Exploration Requires a Destination In my last post, I embraced the metaphor of exploration—not of lands or oceans, but of models, ideas, and intellectual frontiers. I wrote that the realm of thought still offers vast space to map. But exploration, even metaphorical, carries a hidden assumption: that we’re going somewhere. Maps, by definition, imply destinations. And destinations imply goals. That, already, is a curious twist. Before we talk about how to explore—or how to live meaningfully, or how to do science or build a life—we might ask a more basic question: how do we choose where we’re trying to go? ...