[time4hn]

There's multiple kinds of value. As an individual, learning new understandable models can help with developing a useful view of the world and others. Even if that benefit is simply feeling good about "understanding" something - that might still "scratch the itch" of concerns. This understanding might be detached from the material reality of the processes involved, but who cares? With this perspective, they're hardly incompetent if they're getting value from it.

This isn't very far from religion after all. You could consider it a kind of rational spirituality.

The scientific community has its own values, and might rightly reject simplified thinking like this. And that's fine for scientists, but an individual is going to have an easier time accepting stories of pleasure and drives than stories of gene expression and neurotransmitters.