> Do you guys think knowledge has intrinsic value by itself?
While knowledge may have no intrinsic value, the act of learning does!
Exciting and satisfying your curiosity is one of the best things you to can do for your brain. And staying mentally healthy in old age is something very valuable. It's definitely better than just watching TV, playing cards or solving crossword puzzles. Learning is more comparable with traveling, but with a lot less stress for the (aged) body. And it's more interactive than just reading, and interactivity is very important, too.
There is a lot of knowledge (to which I count in particular all proven facts) that has no value at all for me.
For example, take every kind tabloid press. Well, at least the true part of it. Even then, I simply don't care whether some people who I don't even know cheat their spouse, had cosmetic surgery or whatever.
Another example are sports statistics. At least for me, those are absolutely uninteresting. Okay, memorizing them is a nice exercise for the brain, but so is memorizing hundreds of digits of pi, too. (which is also useless, BTW, because we need at most 35 digits of pi for any practical calculation)
I don't think how it's useful to you matters, since we're talking about "intrinsic" value of knowledge. Unless I misunderstood the meaning of the word.
While knowledge may have no intrinsic value, the act of learning does!
Exciting and satisfying your curiosity is one of the best things you to can do for your brain. And staying mentally healthy in old age is something very valuable. It's definitely better than just watching TV, playing cards or solving crossword puzzles. Learning is more comparable with traveling, but with a lot less stress for the (aged) body. And it's more interactive than just reading, and interactivity is very important, too.