Why do you thirst for knowledge? Why do humans thirst for knowledge? You dont have to answer both be cause I just want straight answers, not personal opinions, unless it about why you personaly thirst for knowledge.
Knowledge is empowerment, and empowerment is exhilarating.
i see, interesting
–Confucius.
Knowledge is an addiction, like alcohol. You build up a tolerance after a while and pretty soon most of the stuff out there tends to become boring. This leads to an ever-specializing, yet ever-expanding quest for the, the better, the more refined. And there ain’t nothin’ wrong wid dat.
sounds about right to me
Confucius said “wid dat”?
Advancement for a better life is one pursuit, in many shapes and forms. That’s the easiest explaination. But not everyone pursues knowledge.
Some people buy magazines for pictures, some for information, some for the feeling of accomplishing reading a magazine. We all have our goals, there is not a direct answer to that question that is universal, it is subjective.
Generally speaking though, yes, most people thirst for knowledge for power, “because knowledge is power, yay kids!”
Lol. Confucius was more ahead of his time than we expected.
The masses seek knowledge for power and a feeling of superiority, if not immortality.
The thirst for knowledge is exactly the same as a yearning to travel the world, only for bookish types. 
Knowledge is power. If you can understand it you can control it, or at least protect yourself from it.
Also, the more understanding you gain about the world, the easier it is to recognise what is BS or not.
I suppose I personally seek knowledge and understanding because I don’t like believing things. You can believe absolutely anything, thus belief is worthless stuff. You need reason, logic, knowledge and objectivity to ever have a hope of understanding how anything really is.
So if one is to have knowledge, they believe they have immortality?
If one were to have knowledge they would learn they have no power and no superiority. For the more one knows, they learn they have much to learn. In this they find that it will rot as their flesh in the ground. For we are but a second in time.
One day a caveman was sitting there in a cave. Looking at the ground.
Suddenly, the first conscious question that ever existed came into this particular caveman’s head.
“Why?”
“Why, why, why, why, why?”
The caveman was stunned. What was this?
And thus, the art of questioning was born.
All humans descended from this caveman are able to ask why.
I descend from this caveman.
Therefore, I am able to ask why.
Why gives us the mental faculty to gain some sort of knowledge.
Therefore, if I can ask why, then I can gain some sort of knowledge.
(Which also means, If my mind cannot ask why about a particular subject, then I am unable to gain knowledge in it.)
Just like the caveman. Cars didn’t exist then. Therefore, he couldn’t ask questions about cars.
(Note: Caveman is gender neutral. It could also be cavewoman.)
The phrase “thirst for knowledge” is apt in that the craving for knowledge and the craving for food and water may be analogous. Look at it like this. A person is multi-layered, consisting of various “levels of being”. Let’s simplify and use just three main levels:
3. Mental
2. Biological
- Physical
On each level you interact with your environment in a different way, and on the biological level the medium of exchange is food and water. Without these nourishments, you drop a level to the merely physical - that is to say, you die. Similarly, on the mental level, the medium of exchange is information or knowledge. And without this “food for thought” you drop a level to the merely biological, ie. you become “dehumanised” or animal-like.
For me knowledge is a hobby. For humans well, I would say each has their own reasons to wish to gain knowledge.
but all this is gathering knowledge
and you know this how
I feel it my duty to at least attempt to interject a minority viewpoint to this discussion, one which I am sure will be met with at least some hostility, (since it is a rather unpopular line of thought these days.)
I saw no disclaimer at the outset of this thread, rejecting replies from any position other than a more popular humanistic outlook. This being the case, I would dare to venture a more extreme answer to this question at the risk of taking the discussion in a completely different direction.
Simply put, God decreed that man should subdue the Earth and rule over it, as per Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
Our curiosity therefore would be a natural inclination in man, from God, as a means to carry out his decree.
that was a great answer but one thing about the bible troubles me, and that is that it was writen by man.
That knowledge is power is an unproved tautology. Knowledge can also be debilitating as in the knowledge of death and disease. On a biological level, from which all of our mental conceptions derive, knowledge is the possibilty of extending existence, at least for one lifetime.
I just enjoy philosophical texts like no other.