Learning Is Like a Drug—But Better
Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus writes about how learning is like a drug: “[Illicit] drugs elicit dopamine artificially by fooling the brain, while activities like sex and eating elicit dopamine naturally. Listening to music taps into the dopamine system in part because hearing something new is a signal that the brain is learning something, and we have evolved to enjoy acquiring new information. Shortcuts like drugs, however are fleeting. Although narcotics can elicit dopamine fairly directly, over time it takes a bigger and bigger dose to get the same rush, and can lead people to destroy families, risk their health and even lose their lives. Learning new things is a lot safer, and ultimately a lot more satisfying. There is a myth that children (and for that matter adults) don’t really enjoy learning new things, but as every video game maker has realized, the truth is just the opposite. From ‘Space Invaders’ to ‘Halo,’ ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and ‘Zelda,’ practically every video game is in part about mastering new skills. As video game designers realized long ago, if you can keep a player poised on the knife’s edge of conquering new challenges, neither too easy and too hard but square in what the cognitive psychologist Vygotsky called the Zone of Proximal Development, you can keep gamers engaged for hours. As long as we constantly feel challenged but never overwhelmed, we keep coming back for more and constantly sharpen new skills. The trouble, though, with most video games lies in what they teach, which often stays with the game when the game is complete. A game that makes you good at shooting aliens may have little application in the real world. Learning a more lasting new skill—be it playing guitar or learning to speak a foreign language—can equally harness the brain’s joy of learning new things, but leave you with something of permanent value, in a way that neither drugs nor video games ever could. It leaves you with a sense of fulfillment”: http://bit.ly/IVSakF.
I like Marcus’s emphasis, not only on how the experience of learning feels in the moment, but in what you are left with after the learning experience is over.
With all due respect to Gary Marcus, I will have to disagree with his premises and some conclusions. Listening to music is not learning, in the sense described. Learning present is a secondary, supporting cognitive, psychological structure, among many others. I do not think it is even close to primary when music is in question. Everything, more or less, we experience, has a component of learning, but also many, many other things as well. I think Marcus made a long “logical connective jump” by connecting music, learning, and video games too. How about learning physics or mathematics, for most of the people? There is no dopamine rush, I am sure. There is stress, anxiety.
There is a pleasurable learning and unpleasant learning. That should be in the focus. Music makes us feel good, but it’s not because of learning, but because of the evolutionary built faculty that can appreciate aesthetics and beauty of music. Some learning process, of course, takes place, but that process takes place in almost anything we do. While listening music, learning, to me, is way less important part. Hence, connecting learning as a reason for dopamine release is wrong conclusion, in my opinion. I am sure that dopamine is released when we look at the beautiful painting or sculpture as well. But, it is because of aesthetics we can enjoy, and not because of (secondary) learning process that may, with other processes, provide the biochemical and psychological infrastructure for art enjoyment..
I think Marcus is absolutely correct. Learning, when presented in a way that encourages progress, through constant challenges that are neither too hard nor too easy, is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding ways to spend your time. Video games have known this for a long time.
I think it is important to pay attention to music as well. Although the learning that takes place when we listen to music is much more subtle than the learning that takes place when we try to learn a new language, music still shows us the importance and enjoyment we derive from pattern matching. There is a lot that can be applied to learning to make it more accessible and enjoyable by making it more about pattern matching and less about memorization and following instructions.
Well i think knowledge, and the search for it, is intrinsecally embedded in human nature. We are not only complex entities, made of a large group of atomic particles vibrating, but we are, in the sense of conciousness, we exist, and we have the need to search for the causes, ane even more we even struggle to reach the meta causal of everything.