Nice!

Fire consumes what it burns. A vehicle engine consumes its fuel until the tank runs dry. As humans we consume food which provides our body with the nourishment it needs to produce the energy required to move our muscles, think, breathe.

Literally, to consume something is to use it up until gone. So learning does not consume knowledge. While the knowledge some people learn may well be wasted on those individuals, even then, unless they are the sole being on Earth in possession of that knowledge and they die, it is not lost because others know the same things and generally that knowledge would be available in books, or other media.

A long time ago, I read that the literal translation of Korean for making a mistake is "buying knowledge."

Reading all these comments just underscores for me how the nature of value (and maybe consumption) has changed. There is so much value in software and things that do not get "consumed" in the sense of burning gasoline or wearing down the tread on a tire.

Even something like a medication, which is consumed in the traditional sense, may be trivially cheap to manufacture, but what users are really "consuming" is all the research that went into discovering the medicine and proving it safe and effective.

What's being consumed when someone takes medicine? Is it the chemicals in the drug, which get consumed by chemical reactions in the body and excreted? Or is it the knowledge attained in developing the drug, which is never used up no matter how much medicine is consumed?

In order to better understand the significance of this question one must first understand the nature of zero sum and plus sum games and the consequences of consuming something that is available in unlimited supply.

To use "consumtion" in regard to learning, may be poetic, but it isn't reality.

I believe learning is not an act of consumption. Reading a writeup produced by another person or hearing a lecture is.

Learning does not happen at the same time of consumming content. Those are two different acts.

Paying to learn is paying for a service.
Paying for a service is an act of consumption.

Unless you can cite a way in which learning requires no energy and no time as it takes place... By definition, if either (or both) of these are being used consumption has taken place.

The real question is whether or not it is an investment. Is it an act of pure consumption with no appreciable output, or is it a tool that leads to results later on down the line. For many (unfortunately) information goes in, but doesn't really effect any real output or change.

True, my usage was narrower than the normal usage. I was thinking more about the distinction in economics between consumption spending (which uses up something) and capital spending (to build something).

Gotcha. Appreciated.
But consume doesn't necessarily mean to destroy or use up, it also means to take in, eat, drink, digest, as well as buy. Information can be consumed and still used by others.

My point was the book is never depleted by the fact that I learned from it. I could lend the book to all my friends, they can learn the exact same facts, and the book is still just as usable as when it was first read. Also, I could sell the book after I read it. But what if I had originally purchased it for the exact same price secondhand. Again nothing has been consumed.

The same thing is not true with consumer goods. eg: if I eat some food, nobody else can eat the same food.

In my point about teaching, if I consume one hour of a tutor's time, nobody else can consume that same time. But I might fail to learn anything from the tutor, which does not change the fact I consumed that service. Thats why the act of learning itself is not consumption.

We're always consuming. While learning we depreciate the pages of a book, use an Internet connection service, possibly hire a teacher/tutor, use a depreciating computer, use ink or pencil led, eat food to fuel our body and brain, and sit in a location that goes for $1.25 per sq foot in my area. In modern times these costs are largely insignificant because we live in an age of plenty.

Odd way to look at it. You do consume the information from those books to shape you view. While the book isn't consumed the facts are ingested, digested, and help to nourish a viewpoint.

John Locke Quote

"Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge; its thinking that make what we read ours."

Consuming information? Yes, it's an act of consumption...particularly when one has to pay for that information...like buying a book, although the learning is up to you and if you did, then you consumed the knowledge or information contained with in.

You pay for college, right?...you paid someone to teach you how to learn and you learned, hopefully, something in return.
If you buy an game or an apt to learn how to play or use that apt then I would consider that an act of consumption also.

Examples in Merriam Webster dictionary: Consumption of resources or The document was not intended for public consumption.

Knowledge, information or facts are resources to be consumed. Just like eating food produces health, (hopefully) and energy. The consumption of information you learn hopefully produces knowledge or a given outcome and perhaps a physical product to be consumed.

Learning, No. You read a book and learn facts, nothing is consumed.
However, if you employ teaching services, then they are consumed. Ironically, that is true even if you learn nothing from it.