milum we may be having more of semantic debate than a literary one. FWIW I would separate the experiential from the informational, although there is some overlap in that every experience conveys some information ("oh, so that's what a backrub is like! how interesting!"), and the reception of data (reading, for example) is an experience itself. you may conflate them but I see them as separate. some of my favorite books have taught me a great deal, but there are other aspects that go beyond the joy of learning. take pride and prejudice for example. of course it is a joy to learn about life in the 18th century, and to learn by living vicariously through the characters, but there is for me a joy of connecting to another person's mind (Austen's in this case) that is more spiritual and seems to be poorly summed up as just learning. getting carried off by a great writer's narration is about as close as we can ever get to being inside someone else's head. it may be educational to experience, but it is also a sort of conjugation for the soul completely unrelated to eros (usually) if you know what i mean. to me that goes beyond mere "learning." i'd write more but it's already way too late and i'm going to be hating life when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning.
