I had an English teacher in high school who always harped on some statistic he read that said the way the brain was formatted was that after about 25 something-or-other happens that makes learning grossly new skills difficult (that is, something that’s radically different than what you’re used to, like learning to play a musical instrument, take up martial arts, learn a language, etc.). I have neither found anything to support or contradict this, but perhaps someone else here knows.
The Neanderthal people had bigger brains than modern humans. What did they use all that extra brain for? They sure didn’t use it to invent new ideas. Talk about being “set in your ways”: The Neanderthals kept the same static culture for about 100,000 years and it does not seem to have invented anything new in all that time.
When I look at my teenage kids, I feel sorry for their lack of depth, their lack of connection to any enduring culture. All they seem to care about is the latest rap videos and cartoons on TV. They insist on keeping their culture as superficial as possible, and when I try to introduce them to more lasting art, music, or literature, they react with impatient boredom.
Neither the Neanderthals nor the video-addled teenagers could contribute much to culture, each in their opposite extreme. What we need for richness and depth of culture is the two combined: conservatism and innovation. Neither one alone is sufficient. In Renaissance Florence, they understood this. The best symbol to express this idea was used by the Aldine Press. In this symbolism, knowledge is an ocean. The dolphin is able to surge and leap ahead rapidly through the ocean, while the anchor holds your position steady. This is the key to valuable learning: be able to make new knowledge, while not losing the old.
Modern chaos theory has demonstrated what Aldus Manutius in 15th-century Florence understood. When a system is totally static, nothing can happen. When the state is totally in flux, nothing can take hold. The really interesting new configurations take place along the boundary between fixity and chaos.
To a point, but then we regress into increasingly juvenile behaviour until madness or sickness overtakes us. Or maybe its just my family…
My dad has always told me that I have up until the age that Jesus died to shape my personality and my “quirks”, I suppose… So his theory is that at the age of 33, the way you are is the way you’ll always be…
Nope, it’s not just you. That’s the route all right. It’s all part of God’s marvelous plan.
All pre-industrial societies put a premium on elders, because in societies where the rate of change is very slow having accumulated wisdom about the way the world works can be life-saving.
In societies where the rate is change is very quick, being older is actually a disadvantage. What they thought they knew and understood about the world is likely to not be correct.
The question then becomes whether being reliant on an understanding of the world gained over time is merely cultural or a basic part of the way humans are built.
My guess is that it is heavily genetic. Humans, like all other animals, evolved in a world in which change was slow and accumulated wisdom about conditions helped one to survive to the old age in the first place. It’s hard to imagine how this could not be selected for. (It’s also an underlying point behind Gould and Eldridge’s punctuated equilibrium theory, in which sudden environmental change forces species changes. Successful adaptation to conditions is a disadvantage when conditions change suddenly.)
Major societal changes in one human lifetime is so recent a phenomena that nobody really understands it. And humans aren’t prepared for it. It will just get worse, too. Imagine how out of date you young’uns will be in the world of 2054.
And that brings me to a minor peeve that I want to rant about. Immortals vampires are always depicted as being really cool, hip, with it, even in advance of the rest of the culture. Nonsense. If you think your grandparents aren’t cool and are totally out of touch, a 500-year-old vampire would be a walking anachronism, going around muttering about why baths aren’t necessary and what ever happened to good words like wouldst and couldst.
Two Languages Better Than One to Keep Mind Young
I sure am glad to read this.
Je suis vraiment content de lire cela.
nân itu paTikka mika cantôshappaTukirên.
[QUOTE=Zoe]
I think that one reason that I have some difficulty comprehending some changes in society is that now that I’m older, time moves very quickly for me. I can’t keep up with the changes.QUOTE]Ain’t it the truth! Time seems to go progressively faster and faster the older you get. Five years can seem like a long, long time when you’re eighteen, and it seems like only a year or a year and half when you’re fifty (I’m 55).
But I’ve found a great way to stay younger and to keep a more open mind is to spend as much time as you can around young people. I’ve always been a good-humored and fun-oriented guy and I find it an easy fit. I just ignore my age and they do, too…pretty much, that is. 