General

Understanding helps you prevent hazardous events
preventing hazardous events reduces pain
less pain means more opportunities to derive pleasure

Logic 101

[quote=Flexography]We could think of pleasure in terms of positive rewards, where a positive reward is any non-destructive thing acquired as a result of something else. I say "non-destructive" as to exclude things like pain (which is a result of things), but this could potentially lead to issues, as "non-destructive" is ill-defined insofar as it is subjective (as it currently stands).
So, if you are talking about our motivations for understanding things, understanding results in knowledge; knowledge is a positive reward; hence our desire for understanding was motivated by pleasure--the positive reward of knowledge.[/quote]

how about i pleasure u

People have different interests that tug at their curiosities.
Knowledge (or understanding) relieves the tug and gives a sense of satisfaction.

Satisfaction is a form of pleasure.

People have obligations throughout life and understanding different things helps solve these obligations.
Responsibilities are gone which might indirectly lead to some form of pleasure. The excluded negative pressure may now be replaced by a pleasant experience, leading to satisfaction.

@crazybass: there are lots of reasons to want to understand something
some people want to understand math because they want to pass math class
some people want to understand math because they like math
i dont really get the question

[quote=Xreniya]people like to underestand things because getting what they want means they have to understand things
sometimes people like to understand things because understanding things is what they want
but sometimes getting things doesnt make you happy
it makes you sad sometimes
sometimes it doesnt make you anything at all[/quote]

But that is exactly what I'm saying. Sometimes understanding things makes you happy, sometimes it does nothing to change your overall mood. But what about what caused that act of understanding things? There has to be some sort of drive to cause someone to intentionally want to understand something. Your points are interesting but it still doesn't help to answer the question.

people like to underestand things because getting what they want means they have to understand things
sometimes people like to understand things because understanding things is what they want
but sometimes getting things doesnt make you happy
it makes you sad sometimes
sometimes it doesnt make you anything at all

[quote=ox0Shad0w0xo]The point of understanding things is to gain knowledge, either through a desire to learn, a curiosity of how things work, or an obligation to know what you're doing. Whether or not you take pleasure in gaining said knowledge is another story. But even without relating it directly to pleasure, the reason for wanting to understand things is pretty clear cut if you ask me.

Unless you're in a psychology or philosophy class though, you're seriously over thinking things here.[/quote]

But that doesn't explain why we have the urge to gain knowledge. Your examples can all be related to satisfying a desire. To me satisfying a desire is similar to the pursuit of pleasure. Even if you are simply understanding things aimlessly there has to be some sort of thing driving that aimlessness. If you are curious about something it means you are in essence trying to satisfy that curiosity by understanding. Satisfaction is related to pleasure in that the opposite of satisfaction is dissatisfaction. You are trying to satisfy a dissatisfaction which is essentially a drive to generate pleasure with satisfaction. But maybe we can gain some insight by exploring what can come out of understanding when you create a dissatisfaction from a state of satisfaction. What do you think about that?

I don't believe anything is ever "clear cut" and there is always a rabbit hole nearby which can be explored.

@flexology

Well we can be sure that everything destructive is non-destructive. As far as your confusion to what accounts for destructiveness goes, I think we have to decide whether or not destructiveness is subjective or not. So we should try to decide if everyone understanding of destruction is the same to determine if what is destructive is subjective or objective. I believe the examples you give are good examples to explore. Is self inflicted harm seen as destructive? Sure it can be seen as self destructive by many people, but what about the off chance that someone were to hypothetically perform an act of self harm as part of some sort of fanatical religious ceremony, then the act of self harming is not destructive to that individual but a form of fulfillment, namely that fulfillment of whatever he believes he will gain with the ceremony. With that we can determine that the "essence" of destruction can be subjective. But when we look at the semantic and linguistical reasoning's of the word "destruction" we are dealing with something with predetermined boundaries. The act of destruction will be an act of destruction regardless of what the producer of such destruction believes.

Darn that was a little difficult, I'm sure I missed something...

The point of understanding things is to gain knowledge, either through a desire to learn, a curiosity of how things work, or an obligation to know what you're doing. Whether or not you take pleasure in gaining said knowledge is another story. But even without relating it directly to pleasure, the reason for wanting to understand things is pretty clear cut if you ask me.

Unless you're in a psychology or philosophy class though, you're seriously over thinking things here.

So deep man.
Sometimes I like to pretend I'm a potato and just rock back and forth all day in my chair.

@flexography

But is there any counter argument which can contradict that? I have a feeling this is problematic in ways that we are unable to see at the moment. It can't be that simple to relegate every way of looking at reward into pleasure. Or can it?

I agree also, your mentioning of the "non-destructive" is problematic. Since the term non-destructive is very exclusive, meaning if you delve into the semantics of it, it excludes everything destructive which in some cases can be the cause of pleasure. For instance when some people watch a monster derby they gain a great deal of pleasure from watching the destruction of cars. So I think we would have to redefine what positive rewards would constitute. (just using a silly example here)

why don't you just take a psychology class

Knowledge and understanding suck
T> Knowledge/understanding for money