I have many topics that still fascinate me as much as they did when I was a kid – to be honest, maybe even more than back then, because now I know how ridiculously complex they are and what ultra-specific conditions needed to be there for this to emerge. Knowing more doesn't make things less miraculous, but more so.
And despite knowing a lot about fluid dynamics and clouds I can still just stare at a beautiful cloud in awe and wonder how it would be to live up there in the naive, romantic sense. I know a lot about acoustics and what makes my instrument work, but in the end I can still just sit there and play it. If anything that knowledge allows me to connect more intimately with the world around me
Losing your childlike side is something that happens to many people, because they are afraid of how it is being perceived from the outside – and then they internalize this so much that they don't even allow themselves awe and wonder even inside the privacy of their own heads.
Maybe this is coupled with the Dunning-Kruger effect? So if someone is in the valley of people who don't know a lot, but think they know everything, the wonder of the world around them might indeed be lost for them.