Knowledge Drive

TW/ mentions of self-harm

 

In Freud’s prominent paper The Ego and the Id, he outlines something that has been called drive theory. Freud suggests that there are several drives and that these drives are dichotomous in nature. Broadly speaking, drives are physiological or psychological needs or desires. The theory follows that our behavior is centered around fulfilling the desires from these drives.

For example, Freud named the drives of Eros and Thanatos. In Greek mythology, Eros was the personification of love and sex. In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death. As such, the behaviors Freud assigned to these two drives are closely aligned with those Greek ideas.

The Eros drive is commonly referred to as the life/sexual instinct. This drive is associated with life instincts that deal with reproduction, pleasure, and basic survival. This drive is also based upon the pleasure principle. The pleasure principle is the principle that states that humans seek pleasure and avoid pain as a means to satisfy their Eros drive.

Conversely, the Thanatos drive is commonly referred to as the death drive. Freud theorized that this drive was expressed through risk-seeking behaviors such as drinking, or through outwards aggression. This drive towards destruction can also be turned inwards when it comes to suicidal ideation or self-harm.

While these constructs have varying levels of descriptive utility, I think that they fail to account for a very specific way that humans think. Thus, I propose the existence of the Knowledge Drive.

Simply put, the Knowledge Drive is the innate desire humans have to find knowledge. Now, when I say “knowledge” I don’t mean the Platonic definition of knowledge. Plato’s definition of knowledge necessitates that the information is true. For the means of my definition, the only necessary component of knowledge is that the individual who has this information believes it to be correct.

The prevalence of this drive is substantiated with history. Many previous societies have created systems of understanding the world around them. Some societies believed that Gods and Goddesses controlled things such as the weather, crop yields, life, and death. Of course, with science, we know that this is probably not the case. It is psychologically difficult to believe that things occur without rhyme or reason, thus, many societies created these false systems of understanding the randomness of the universe.

Anecdotally, the knowledge drive also seems to be a useful construct. Experience tells me that most people are very uncomfortable with the notion that the universe is random and that things occur without a higher reason.

I think that people are attracted to explanations for the unknown because it gives people control. If I have knowledge and am able to predict what is going to occur in a situation, then I have a greater capacity to control my surroundings and am less prone to the anxiety that coincides with the unknown.