Pleasure of knowing

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This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)

Pleasure of knowing is a hypothetical reward for possessing valuable knowledge. The reward is experienced at the time when knowledge can be applied. The reward would be independent of external factors such as the praise of peers. The same reward might be experienced at time of review (e.g. in spaced repetition).

A separate, distinct, and well pronounced reward, the pleasure of learning is based on discovery. New information of high value is perceived as pleasurable. If we look at the mechanisms of the pleasure of learning, we might conclude that spaced repetition involves no pleasure (as opposed to incremental reading that involves learning new things beyond sheer review). In reality, there is a pleasure of knowing. This pleasure may be independent of the observer, i.e. has nothing to do with boasting of knowledge. This pleasure may not even depend on discovery, like in knowing answers to questions in a quiz, where the same knowledge needs to be retrieved and used in new contexts. The pleasure of knowing can be pure. It may not be as pronounced as the pleasure of learning new things, however, it clearly exists, and perhaps deserves a more thorough interpretation at this site.

I was inspired by this precious vocabulary test. We used it with Kuba before his 13 years of school in a month experiment. I observed it more than once: the test tends to induce fatigue and even sadness. The reason is the gradual increase in the difficulty of vocabulary. The tested subject is enthusiastic at first, because he knows all the answers. Gradually, disappointment sets in, then discouragement and fatigue. Could this be just homeostatic fatigue associated with learning? No. That fatigue dissipates fast after the test. It is the contrast of the pleasure of knowing (at first) with the displeasure of abstract vocabulary (at the end) that clearly demonstrates that the pure pleasure of knowing exists.

The pleasure of knowing seems to be associated with memory retrievability. It is probably more fun to refresh a piece of knowledge that might easily be forgotten than to review a piece under a strong impact of the spacing effect. Perhaps this is a way of the brain rewarding a productive review. We might then wonder about the chicken-and-egg problem of productive review: is this that productive review results in better consolidation that is pleasurable, or perhaps the pleasure of review involves the knowledge valuation network in consolidating the piece. The latter hypothesis is quite attractive if we consider that at the time of learning, the pleasure of learning is determined solely by knowledge valuations. Valuations also determine the likelihood of preserving short-term memories, a vast majority of which get ignored in the learning process. Knowledge valuation network could then explain many aspects of memory with respect to the impact of semantics on recall. It could also explain why schooling is inefficient wherein low valuation result in vestigial long-term consolidation. The Fundamental law of learning is based on an undisputable link between learning and reward. The chicken-and-egg problem remains: is review effective due to the pleasure of knowing or is the increase in memory stability a source of reward signals. By analogy to learning, and by evolutionary benefit, efficiency should be rewarding. I therefore posit that productive review based on a substantial increase in the stability of memory is, at the very least, a contributing factor in the pleasure of knowing. This does not exclude the possibility of the link between reward and the efficiency of review being a two-way relation.

Compare: Pleasure of learning and Pleasure of communication