  The quest to comprehend the origins of intelligence raises intriguing
questions about the evolution of learning abilities in natural systems. Why do
living organisms possess an inherent drive to acquire knowledge of the unknown?
Is this motivation solely explicable through natural selection, favoring
systems capable of learning due to their increased chances of survival? Or do
there exist additional, more rapid mechanisms that offer immediate rewards to
systems entering the "learning mode" in the "right ways"? This article explores
the latter possibility and endeavors to unravel the possible nature of these
ways. We propose that learning may have non-biological and non-evolutionary
origin. It turns out that key properties of learning can be observed,
explained, and accurately reproduced within simple physical models that
describe energy accumulation mechanisms in open resonant-type systems with
dissipation.
