Imagine your self as the very first scientist. I can imagine you looking at two things and asking youself, "Why are these two things different?" This would seem to me to me to be the ultimate motivation. Without that, science is just a group of technitions.
It comes from Herman Hesse's novel, "Narcissus and Goldmund."
"Narcissus: 'Yes. You've hit the nail on the head. That's it: to you [Goldmund], differences are quite unimportant: to me, they are what matters most. I am a scholar by nature; science is my vocation. And science is, to quote your...
I think it was more that the artist didn't give a crap about differences and could see all things as the same while the scientist wants to separate things into catagories.
Isn't all of this is just speaking of the scientific method? Why would you put two elements together and run a current through them? Isn't it to see if something different happens. Isn't this the essence of scientific inquiry?
It seems to me that you are discussing scientific method. Let me ask you this, if nothing were different how would science exist? How would you determine a plant from an animal?