Questioning Motivation

What causes the motivation to question?

Similar to the basic requirement to be capable of questioning, awareness of additional information would also be a component to an individual having motivation to question. As I realized in my last post; Questioning Questioning, in order to be aware of more information existing, for the potential to question that information, an individual requires the ability to understand the cause and effect of concepts, so that they can be aware of the potential that there are alternate causes and effects. 

It seems, at least to some degree, the more information that is learned about concepts of causes and effects, the more potential there is to be aware of additional information, involving varying combinations of factors. So 1 relevant aspect of motivation to question, seems to be quantity of information already gained, and comprehension of the causes and effects of the interactions of the factors involved in the information. But simply having a lot of knowledge and conscious comprehension of the interworkings of that knowledge, doesn’t seem like it would be quite enough to cause motivation for questioning.

Perhaps combined with a natural instinct of curiosity, this could cause desire to acquire more information. But what causes curiosity? It seems that curiosity is natural in animals to cause exploratory behaviour. It would often be beneficial for an animal to physically explore landscape, as sometimes they would be rewarded with a resource which helps them survive. Perhaps humans have this same instinct, and often express it through exploring knowledge, rather than physical territory. If a person explores knowledge, they will often discover a new concept or understanding of cause and effect, which will be helpful for survival. Just like discovering new resources, we would receive positive mental feedback for discovering an understanding, which will be useful. 

Once humans minds developed to a sufficient degree of understanding, and gained enough information, we gained the more complex understanding of the concept of learning cause and effect, in itself. At this point, we could comprehend that the more learning we accomplish, the more progress we make, as individuals and as a cooperative species. Beyond simple mental positive reinforcement for discovering something beneficial, some people (as well as humanity as a whole) gained the understanding of the cause and effect of cause and effect itself. With the comprehension of comprehension and the understanding of understanding, we can be aware of the benefits of the process of learning. 

With the understanding that everything functions through cause and effect, we become aware that learning the components of the function of everything, gains us the benefit of making more accurate predictions, and therefore the ability to make adjustments to our preference. Once this benefit is understood, the next step to attain more information and understanding, is questioning.