Lately we're finding good arguments for the idea that people start declining in abilities earlier than we thought.
At the same time, there's a lot of work being done on life extension.
What happens if we extend life to, say, 150 and what we get is this long, 100-year decline into complete cognitive paralysis?
I'm 43 and I don't feel like I'm losing it. In fact, in some ways I feel more cognitively adept than I was at 27. When I was 27 I was quicker on my feet, but there wasn't a depth there. Now, at least to me, I feel that I have a lot more weight to my decisions and actions. I dunno - tough subject. It could be, like the pot discussion, that I simply feel this way.
I do know that if cognitive decline is going to be defined as starting in the late 20s, we're going to start seeing a lot of middle-aged people getting medicated for age-related cognitive issues in the near future.
Wisdom is what it's called. After 40 your reflexes are slower and you are less likely to have your world shattering idea. OTOH you are probably a better judge of probabilities of success/failure, people's capabilities, and allocation of resources. Lot's of people are significant contributors into their 70's.
I dont think living to 150 means being 80 for 80 years. Probably middle age get stretched forever and the decline is about as fast and as long as it is now.
After 40 your reflexes are slower and you are less likely to have your world shattering idea.
For some people, creativity increases with age.
But still, quick thinking and high energy levels are useful. I think it's crucial that we compress schooling as much as possible so people can do something important while they still can.
I find it frustrating that most people spend a quarter of their life just going to school and you essentially can't do anything that useful until you are at least 25 or so
I find it much more frustrating that the common concept is that once you finish your formal schooling, you're done learning.
As much as listening to lectures for 20 years can be tedious, schools are a compression (time) and expansion (breadth) of the discoveries we would make on our own, and are therefore simply a way to get people up to speed with the current world. The real learning starts after school is out.
As a writer I'd agree with your statement. I've also read a lot about young writers and there are very few specifically for this reason, not necessarily for a lack of creativity but for the inability to produce something believable.
How can a 15 year old write believably about relationships, or going to a bar or club, or any of these things. Experience can easily be transposed from one place to another; aka, you don't have to get kicked in the gut to know it's going to hurt a lot, just like you don't need to win the PGA tour to write how great it would feel to win it. However, if you've never won anything or felt any sense of achievement, it has to be exceptionally hard to write convincingly about someone winning.
I think this is why most writers begin appearing in their 20's (I believe it depends on region, I've seen more early-20's writers from the UK, where you graduate high-school at 16, than from the US, where you graduate high-school at 18) when they've had many formative experiences and they start experiencing the real world. When they start to see hardship and all the rest that comes with adulthood.
That's also why prosists tend to be older than poets. Poetry doesn't require the deep relationships between subject and style that prose (especially longer prose) does.
I remember trying to write about romance at the tender age of 13. Writing kisses without ever having had a kiss leads to hilariously bad results. For that reason, I don't write about sex right now: I'd not like to see myself made a fool of again.
Well I'm trying to avoid sex as a matter of style, my main character is 17 so I think it would be tasteless anyway. I mean if the Twilight series can have such a rabid fan following, I don't believe there's a need for a sex scene unless there's an actual point to it.
I'd also say 95% of books and movies get sex completely wrong anyway because it's added in out of irrelevance. It's like the author had to add an extra 5,000 words to meet their contract and added in a random sex scene. I mean there's an actual award for worst sex scene, which kind of helps make my point.
I think very few books would actually be worse off without a sex scene.
Sex is a useful tool in a book if it's used well. Same thing with kissing, which Twilight uses for its disgusting soft pornography. But both are misused more often than not.
(Twilight teaches an important and saddening lesson, namely: if you give people exactly what they think they want, they'll be content and you'll be successful. I can't like people who like Twilight for exactly that reason. It's the easy path that takes no effort and creates nothing but wasteful noise, and while I don't dislike Stephanie Meyer for being a lazy writer, I dislike the people who reward her effort.
Twilight never really bothered me, it's Harry Potter that really irked me. I can't stand the constant cliches, the bad metaphors, hypocrisy, her use of every adverb in the English language and the patronizing old-schoolboy crap British schooling hasn't been like since decades before even I was born.
I mean what's the whole deal with Dumbledore essentially saying "it's not what you're born with that matters, it's what you choose", but everyone in the school is there not because they chose, but because they were born that way.
See, Harry Potter I love. I don't call it perfect, but I'd say it's the best children's lit I've read, despite the fact that Rowling's writing isn't as good as Lewis's or Pullman's.
As I wrote on another thread yesterday: Rowling's point is that we're not born equal. People are born more talented than other people. That's a fact. What doesn't change between people is that we can all choose how to live despite what we were born with. You can be brilliant and still be an awful person. Similarly, you can be pretty talentless and still do some great things.
Her writing never strikes me as bad. I know the criticisms, and I can see them when I read, but it's an acceptable level of bad. It gets out of the way to make room for her plot, which is one of the best plots I've found in any series (she writes mystery better than anybody), and for her characters, and her characters are among the best in literature. She has an extremely subtle hand at creating character traits, and a lot of people miss that because they feel that the way they feel about the characters is so obvious that it must be because she states things in an obvious manner, which she doesn't.
(I wrote my senior thesis paper on Harry Potter, and I have a huge essay crammed in my throat that's waiting for me to write once I have some of my other writing plans out of the way.)
Twilight, on the other hand, is awful in every way. The characters are terrible. The writing is sawdust. The plot and the morals are such a step back from the shades-of-grey of Harry Potter that I want to slap Meyer and all her fans in one grand-tour slapfest. Perhaps you escaped college before Twilight hit, but it brings out the worst in its fans. I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of the entire series.
I think my hatred for Harry Potter isn't completely because of the fact that I hate the series. I believe it comes more from the fact that the English school system proposed placing it on the national curriculum's book list and were planning to remove either Of Mice and Men or The Lord of the Flies. Thankfully they completely changed this, allowing teachers to teach whatever books they want as long as they were established texts, which included Harry Potter.
I believe the rest of my distaste for the series came from when the books were initially released. There was such hype over a kids book and in my free time I was reading many of the sci-fi classics, and when I finally got to reading Harry Potter it was just an extremely campy version of Ender's Game. I believe even Orson Scott Card (who's a fan of Harry Potter) pointed this out when J.K. Rowling targeted her own fans for the Harry Potter lexicon for 'stealing her ideas'.
I'm fully aware of all that's wrong with the Twilight novels, but it never really bothered me and I've generally avoided books written in first person. However, I came from the UK so I never read or heard anything until I was ambushed into reading it by my (then fiancee) wife, I'd given her like my favorite book of all time to read The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin and she gave me Twilight, which wasn't exactly a fair trade: 200 page book at like 4x5 vs 500 page at 5x7. Then, of course, the movie came out and her friend just happened to have extra tickets for the opening night. I believe that's the easiest I've ever been tricked.
Although, rather ironically, I believe I've contributed more money to Rowling and the Harry Potter series as I have watched most of the movies and eventually actually paid to see the most recent one, and I've yet to give a penny to Mayer.
That's a fair enough reason to dislike something. I hate curriculums to begin with. They limit a teacher's freedom in a way that I dislike.
There was such hype over a kids book and in my free time I was reading many of the sci-fi classics, and when I finally got to reading Harry Potter it was just an extremely campy version of Ender's Game. I believe even Orson Scott Card (who's a fan of Harry Potter) pointed this out when J.K. Rowling targeted her own fans for the Harry Potter lexicon for 'stealing her ideas'.
To be fair, Rowling reminded the world that writers can be superstars given the right context. They reminded a lot of serious writers that literature isn't necessarily dead.
As for the Ender's Game comparison: Harry Potter is far superior. Ender's Game is better-written on first glance, but it does a lot of things I really dislike. As I get older, I like Card's writing less and less.
OSC himself is a hypocrite. He praised Deathly Hallows as one of the greatest moments in modern literature. Once Rowling called Dumbledore gay, OSC, who's devout Mormon, took every chance he could to insult her for that decision and tried as much as possible to show that he wasn't a Harry Potter fan after all. He completely about-faced. The man has a decent writing style, but his opinions are pretty messed up.
(I'd argue with you about the maturity of Harry Potter's plot, but I doubt you want a long diatribe about a book series you're not a fan of, so I'll clam up.)
I follow the philosophy of 'if it isn't in the book, it isn't cannon' so I strongly disagree with how Rowling actually came out saying Dumbledore was gay. I don't get why it wasn't revealed in a book if the character was actually gay. Aside from the religious wackies (which I didn't presume OSC to be) I think most people in modern society aren't offended by a homosexual character, so it strikes me as moronic it wasn't simply stated. I mean he's like an 80 year old man who has no mention of ever being married, in a relationship or having children, I simply assumed he was gay from the beginning.
I'd argue with you about the maturity of Harry Potter's plot, but I doubt you want a long diatribe about a book series you're not a fan of, so I'll clam up.
I'm aware the plot gets more complex as the series progresses and I've considered reading the books, although I'll likely wait a while after the film series is completed. My opinion of it has changed, possibly because the series does mature as the characters do (which is actually quite commendable), but I believe when I tried reading the first book I think I was already trying to read much more complicated books, it felt like stepping down. I didn't see the reward in reading a book for kids when I was reading adult books, which my opinion now is beginning to change. I respect the YA fiction a lot more now, especially since that's what I'm aiming my first novel for.
So who knows, I might have eventually picked up the first Harry Potter book from a purely research perspective. I mean for all my criticism of Rowling, I do admit she's wildly successful and I forgot who said it but "There's no point in being a brilliant writer if no body ever reads it."
I think most people in modern society aren't offended by a homosexual character, so it strikes me as moronic it wasn't simply stated. I mean he's like an 80 year old man who has no mention of ever being married, in a relationship or having children, I simply assumed he was gay from the beginning.
There was never really any reason to say it. I think the seventh book hints at it but there's no point in the series where it would make sense for him to mention it.
As for canon: I think canon is stupid. I don't get into arguments about fictional characters. It makes sense to me that J. K. Rowling would make Dumbledore gay, so I don't care that she announced that, save that I think it might help some kids realize that homosexuality is okay.
I believe when I tried reading the first book I think I was already trying to read much more complicated books, it felt like stepping down. I didn't see the reward in reading a book for kids when I was reading adult books, which my opinion now is beginning to change. I respect the YA fiction a lot more now, especially since that's what I'm aiming my first novel for.
If you haven't read more than the first book I'd absolutely understand how you feel. I was really lucky: I started reading the books at a time when the fourth book came out just in time for me to buy it, and the fourth book is where there's a real turn in how the books progress. (The third book had begun this, and it won the Hugo, I believe; the second book is the single weak point of the series.) So I got caught up at an age and at a time where the series really lifted up.
I forgot who said it but "There's no point in being a brilliant writer if no body ever reads it."
Brilliant writers can't help but be noticed. Even when they're bizarro brilliant, like David Foster Wallace, they find people willing to accept them. And I think Rowling is brilliant too: she's not a brilliant writer, but she's one of the best storytellers I've ever come across.
What happens if we extend life to, say, 150 and what we get is this long, 100-year decline into complete cognitive paralysis?
We go "That's interesting, I wonder which processes are involved and how we can keep their desirable effects while removing or reversing the decline?"
I'm late 20s and I do feel like I'm losing it. I feel overloaded by the infohose of 'news' I skim read every day yet mostly forget completely very quickly, lacking any rigorous understanding of significant subject(s), and facing paralysis of choice of all the things that might be worth spending 10 years studying.
More weight to my decisions? I think it's more inertia and more deeply worn ruts and grooves and more deeply implanted patterns of automatically triggered response that are 'me'.
I'm 18, and occasionally I feel like I've lost something I had before. But that's a common feeling, I'm sure: I'll always want to be wiser and simultaneously younger. I doubt that has anything at all to do with my actual age or level of knowledge.
The feeling of losing things may very well stem from the inertia that builds up in life, along with your own growing awareness of your abilities. When I was 5 I thought I was a superhero: I was powerful and could crush anything. When I was 16, I didn't think that, but I thought that I was a powerful, fascinating individual around whom the world revolved. Now I've begun working out and taking care of myself, and I'm probably stronger now than I've ever been, but I don't have the same blind, false confidence I had before.
Is that losing it? I'll suspect that a year from now if I continue to work out with any level of dedication, I'll be stronger than I've ever been - not just in my mind, but in reality. Similarly, every year I become more aware of my limitations, but simultaneously those limitations lessen and disappear. I'm brighter now than I've ever been, and it's my intent never to enter a life scenario where I'm not allowed to continue to grow.
Inertia is the larger problem: both with body and mind and personality, the longer you don't use something the more it fades away. By your late 20s, you've left school, you've entered a more stable type of living, and there's every chance that you're in a duller, more monotonous setting - and worse, you're faced with the prospect of things never abruptly changing. That's deadly, and I'd suspect it contributes a lot to this attitude of people burning out.
(I come from a slightly unique perspective - the world of writing, where if you publish a book before you're 35 you're considered precocious. In all of literature, the greatest changes have come from people older than 30. I think it's because literature, unlike other forms of music, is forced to be subtle in order to work: it requires command of only a few skills, and there's no pressure to hurry with writing, and so as a result the field is full of people who can dedicate a decade to a single piece. The works that are remembered are the ones so rich with experience that they stand above even this field of work. Unlike, say, music, where not knowing anything means you have an advantage in your ability to create new works, literature very often requires at least an understanding of what's been done before, because without it the chances of your making something worth people's time is virtually nil.)
Speaking from 3 years ahead of you, you're going to begin feeling like you've lost things a lot more.
I swear old age starts at 5 years old, because I can forget the most simple things, but last night my wife was asking me the demographics of Canada and I nailed like 7 out of the top 10 in the right order through guessing alone, just because I have a lot of knowledge to base my guesses off of.
I had a clarifying moment when I was 15, which I believe is the point at which I reached maturity and quite honestly I feel very little difference at 21 than I did at 15 except for experience. I simply realised that the one thing I wanted to do in life was write, and that all the BS of school was transitory. That summer, at 16 I started working as a reviewer and was the first person at the company to get an excerpt on a product, however I left when the politics started interfering with the job. It was like, depending on who the product came from you had to add points to the review. It wasn't so much with movies, but with video games if one was coming from EA it was virtually impossible to badmouth. The final straw came with Oblivion, the preview material was so flawed the game was inherently unplayable without cheats (the whole, a rat can kill a lvl 30 thief because they stupidly made all the creatures level too).
After I left I switched from writing short stories to actually going for the goal posts with a novel. I've ditched a lot of projects, simply because I outgrew them in the process of writing them. I threw out an entire months work because it wasn't original enough for me, and from my experience humans have a very limited ability to see outside of the box when they're focusing on something so if I released it wasn't original then so would everyone else.
My honest advice to you is find someone with a valid opinion on writing (in my case it was my editor, who I became quick friends with) and get them to be brutally honest. Take every single word they say to heart and then feel free to ignore every fucking word if it doesn't help you. Do this with as many people you can trust and get them to be honest and if they don't provide criticism they're not helping.
People often avoid hearing the bad things about their work and people often avoid saying bad things about it, but you need to hear every single criticism no matter how irrelevant it actually ends up being. If it doesn't help you immediately, it will eventually because once you're published your work is open to the judgment of millions of people. It also helps with denials, lots of agents/editors can be helpful, but don't be surprised if you get a standard denial letter... I once got one when I emailed an agent asking what genres he was currently accepting submissions for, which was exceptionally funny.
Speaking from 3 years ahead of you, you're going to begin feeling like you've lost things a lot more.
What sorts of things? Do you mean experiences, or opportunities, or...?
People often avoid hearing the bad things about their work and people often avoid saying bad things about it, but you need to hear every single criticism no matter how irrelevant it actually ends up being.
Actually, the start-up that I'm working on is a site devoted to making brutal critique easier, with the goal of eventually making a cleaner, more effective system for publishing works. I got that brutal honesty from a friend's mom, who worked as an editor for one of the big companies, and who I sent a manuscript at 13. So I guess in some ways I'm lucky: I got that motivation early enough to be able to develop a good system to handle that stuff.
What sorts of things? Do you mean experiences, or opportunities, or...?
I know for certain I've missed some experiences, but I think in the same time I put myself through a ton of unique experiences. I never went into an office job, so I definitely missed the whole office politics thing as I always worked directly for the person who hired me because I went into construction jobs. Although, like I said that gives completely unique experiences; I worked with a plumber who was putting his three kids through private schools because he could afford to, whilst one of my friends was taken out of private schools at 13 because his dad, a surgeon, couldn't afford to put him through. I'd been taught by society to believe plumber = bad job, when really the plumber was making better money and living a better life with better hours than the surgeon.
So I'd say I did lose some experiences, but I'd say the experiences I did get were far more valuable to me because they're less societally recognized. I know I missed a couple of good opportunities, as I was looking for jobs at a newspaper at 17 as an intern because I had enough experience.
However, again I got different opportunities and experience for not doing that. I've been married for like 6 months now and I'm currently immigrating to Canada, which is definitely a unique process, probably the mental equivalent of dropping the soap in a jail's shower.
Incidentally it would no doubt help me when I get published as I'd be aiming to sell first into the US market and second into the UK (where I was born) and the USD and the CAD are closely tied, where as the USD to the GBP could butcher my earnings. Selling second in the UK would more than likely protect against the percentage loss you get from international distribution rights. IIRC you only get 2/3 the percentage in foreign countries of what you do from the original country of publication, but sale-for-sale (when the economy is good in Europe) I could get it doubled on the exchange rate, so I'd still be making 4/3's of a sale in the US. This is one thing I'd have never thought of when I was younger, that the country you live in could drastically affect how much money you make as a writer.
So I guess in some ways I'm lucky: I got that motivation early enough to be able to develop a good system to handle that stuff.
I'd say you're lucky to have had the experience, some people are utterly crippled by any form of criticism. So it definitely gives you good prospects if you deal with criticism well, because any novel probably goes through a dozen people who are being critical of it before it ever gets to the hands of someone who reads it and likes it for just being a good book.
Some people are talking about the first person to live to 1000 being alive today... so, a 900 year decline? :)
I think whilst you have a point you also neglect to factor in that with medical developments extending life we will also end up with developments in mental care/extension.
Lately we're finding good arguments for the idea that people start declining in abilities earlier than we thought.
I got the impression that the research was going the other way. A lot of current research reporting seems to indicate brain plasticity is broader and longer-lasting than we thought.
Course. I'm 27+ so a bit of bias might be creeping in.
At the same time, there's a lot of work being done on life extension.
What happens if we extend life to, say, 150 and what we get is this long, 100-year decline into complete cognitive paralysis?
I'm 43 and I don't feel like I'm losing it. In fact, in some ways I feel more cognitively adept than I was at 27. When I was 27 I was quicker on my feet, but there wasn't a depth there. Now, at least to me, I feel that I have a lot more weight to my decisions and actions. I dunno - tough subject. It could be, like the pot discussion, that I simply feel this way.
I do know that if cognitive decline is going to be defined as starting in the late 20s, we're going to start seeing a lot of middle-aged people getting medicated for age-related cognitive issues in the near future.