As humans, we only grow up to find that the faculty of wonder to slowly diminish, but the ability can never be lost. With that said, it is clear that I do not completely agree with Knox's point of view, especially with the diction of 'ability'.
Alberto Knox creates an analogy of this statement for Sophie, comparing it to people at the tip of a rabbit's fur, full of curiosity, at the 'position to wonder' crawling deeper and deeper into the fur as they grow older, slowly loosing the enthusiasm to find out unanswered questions. To an extent, I agree with this, regardless of the terrible analogy. However, when he mentions that when people reach the bottom of the fur, they 'become so comfortable' that they 'stay there' and never 'risk crawling back up'. This can instantly be proven wrong when Sophie mentions her grandmother saying that she 'never realized how rich life was until now'. Does this not mean that her grandmother crawled back up the rabbit's fur, even at an old age?
Knox then raised an example of an infant being in constant amusement and wonderment for whatever it has perceived, whereas adults are not the least bit enthralled. Knox explained the reason for this, which I completely agree with, by saying that the reason for this is that they 'take the world for granted' and after years of living in the world, everything has 'become a habit'. By this, he means that people has lived and learned the limits of everything that exists (or so they believe) so that when anything that appears outside of their knowledge, they are in fright and thinks something is wrong. Their absence of wonderment in such a long time has limited their 'knowledge' of what you 'can or cannot do in this world'. They have been 'caught up in everyday affairs' that their existence or the world's existence does not even concern them. But this does not mean that they cannot once again come back to it later on.
Finally, the reason why people gets less and less enthusiastic about finding answers because most people lose interest in things when there isn't an answer, and that they will never be able to find out the truth. There are other things too, such as religion and the existence of God that limits people from thinking further than what and how things come from, being told that God created everything and leaving it at that, not being able to question it.
Alberto Knox is not right in saying that the ability to wonder is lost over time, however it is more correct if he said that the desire to wonder is faded over time, as people can always come back to it whenever, crawling up the rabbits fur again, and wallow in their wonderment to find truths, principles, and true knowledge.
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I like how you question Albert Knox's analogy of that silly rabbit.
What you said about the grandma is also very true. It sometimes takes people a long time or a major event to realize they need to get out of the fur. People also do give up on things that can't seem to be answered and that, I believe, definitely stunts our ability to question further. Children, however, don't normally have this problem as they always seem to be asking "why why why" until they get answers.
We older people definitely need to learn some of their persistence.
However, you talk about religion stopping people from wondering which is caused by "answers" given to people. Does this mean people stop questioning whenever we get answers? You are quite right that most people do stop when they are told certain answers to their questions but that shouldn't be the end.
I think a question can produce an answer but, that answer can produce even MORE questions that enhances our ability to wonder. If we believe God, we could then wonder how big God is exactly that he made the world in 6 days. If we believe in the big bang theory, we could wonder if another big bang could occur (after all, science is quite like a religion isn't it?) and if another world like ours would be created and so on.
Again, we can look at children and see how they never seem to be satisfied with answers. They will somehow find a way to question you about the answer you gave them until you either tell them to be quiet or you have no more answers.
I suppose people DO stop questioning when they get answers so you are right but I don't think people realize the opportunity when answers ARE given. It means there may be even MORE answers so we should keep going on. Therefore something like religion isn't really something that restricts our thinking, it's just a hurdle we must try to get over to deepen our wondering.
It would be as if when people climbing up the rabbit's fur find out that beyond where they are is a world of other rabbits and then simply crawl back down the fur as they've answered their initial question (and yes, as humans tend to do, accept that as that). What they should do is keep going and explore the outside and see what is BEYOND those rabbits.
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