Dissecting boredom

In this commentary I critically engage with Andreas Elpidorou’s monograph the Anatomy of Boredom, the aim of which is to develop a functional model of boredom through which its complexity might be unified. After introducing Elpidorou’s functionalist approach, I focus on a particularly novel contribution of the Anatomy, which conceptualizes boredom as a functional mechanism integral to the regulation of cognitive homeostasis–allostasis. Framed by the tension between the “Problem of Plenty” and the “Problem of Parts,” I raise two concerns with Elpidorou’s account, one teleological and one taxonomical, before offering an alternative that draws on recent thermodynamic accounts of living systems.