Psych Thread: You teach me, I teach you

[EmilyMiller]

Wisdom is knowing how to compensate fir your theoretically diminished cognitive function.

Citation please?

Em

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It’s a race between experience and brain cell apoptosis. Sometimes the apoptosis wins.

Take math. Most people say it’s a young person’s game. I’m not saying academic knowledge = wisdom. But if some brain functions peak before 40, surely others do as well.

Em

Well, you are looking at it all wrong. Intelligence, memory, and motoric abilities... they all peak even before your age. Wisdom doesn't peak, assuming a healthy brain. Wisdom isn't an ability, it's seeing the world for what it is, once you shed the glasses of naivete and idealism that most people are born with. When I look back at myself at that age, I can easily say I was an idealistic fool. Arguably, I am still one, but far less so than I used to be.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Did you mean to address that to me?

1. I did Structural Biology in grad school, not Psychology
2. Grad school was some time ago
3. I just said kinda the same thing

Em

I did. I know that you were not a psychology major (that was for the OP); i hadn't figured out which of the sciences you studied, but thought it was something biology related. I believed that you were more recently done with your studies; I'd guessed maybe two years. Sorry for that erroneous assumption.

I'm 25 years removed from grad school in a psychology related field, and have more practical experience than I'm going to talk about, so I've found the OPs initial 'offer' amusing.
But whatever you understand about neurobiology, don't count us oldsters out. We're wiley and we have better insurance.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Well, you are looking at it all wrong. Intelligence, memory, and motoric abilities... they all peak even before your age. Wisdom doesn't peak, assuming a healthy brain. Wisdom isn't an ability, it's seeing the world for what it is, once you shed the glasses of naivete and idealism that most people are born with. When I look back at myself at that age, I can easily say I was an idealistic fool. Arguably, I am still one, but far less so than I used to be.

I think we need a robust definition of wisdom if we are going to discuss it meaningfully. “It’s what old people have” won’t cut it .

Em

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Citation please?

Em

No citation. Just a distillation of what I have needed to learn and change, as well as close observation of what happens when a person iss no longer able to compensate for cognitive decline. You are, of course, free to dismiss it in the full bloom of your abilities, as the rambling of a person losing the battle with cell death.

 

[lovecraft68]

Love the attitude here that a younger person can't know anything.

If Lily hasn't been driven off she can start with judgmental narcissist in her profiles for most here.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I did. I know that you were not a psychology major (that was for the OP); i hadn't figured out which of the sciences you studied, but thought it was something biology related. I believed that you were more recently done with your studies; I'd guessed maybe two years. Sorry for that erroneous assumption.

I'm 25 years removed from grad school in a psychology related field, and have more practical experience than I'm going to talk about, so I've found the OPs initial 'offer' amusing.
But whatever you understand about neurobiology, don't count us oldsters out. We're wiley and we have better insurance.

I’m not, hun.

I was merely saying that age doesn’t correlate with wisdom. For a start, some people never achieve wisdom. For seconds, age can rob previously wise people of their faculties (indeed it will rob us all of them in the long run).

If someone had the seed of wisdom when young, and they manage to maintain their mental faculties as they age (or at least only have a gentle decline) then greater experience should mean greater wisdom. But there are two ifs in the preceding sentences.

What I said was that I’m very aware of how little I know. Grad school helped me to get that perspective. I don’t think much of a grad school where people leave thinking they know it all.

Em

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I think we need a robust definition of wisdom if we are going to discuss it meaningfully. “It’s what old people have” won’t cut it .

Em

I know it is a bullshit answer, but it truly feels like gaining eyesight where you were blind. The trouble with it is that it can't really be taught. Your parents and other random older people will always try to give you advice that comes from experience, but no matter if you heed the advice or not, it is simply not the same. It is one of those things you have to see and live for yourself to actually grasp it properly.

We are not all the same, so Em at her 26 could be wiser than AwkwardlySet at his 41, or even wiser than some other AH person who is 70 even. But Em at 41 will without a doubt be wiser than Em at 26, considerably.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I was merely saying that age doesn’t correlate with wisdom.

That's an assertion with which I completely agree.

 

[Bamagan]

This thread now reminds me of a quip I once heard:
People who live in sandcastles should try not to make waves.

I love the beach.

 

[lovecraft68]

Assuming one is willing to learn from that most harsh mistress, Experience.

But also - Preach it

I like the assumption that experience comes with age. It doesn't, it comes with circumstance. Do we know hers? No, we don't.

What I know is a bunch of jackals are making baseless assumptions and having this arrogant tone of "You could never figure me out."

I mean, how could anyone profile such a complex crowd of highly intelligent and successful know it alls the likes of which we have here. So desperate to be special, and edgy and so complicated.

Or so you want to think.

People here are so self centered they can't possibly see anything in anyone else. FFS this crowd can't tell the difference between a male and female poster

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

If Lily hasn't been driven off she can start with judgmental narcissist in her profiles for most here.

If OP has, in fact, majored in psychology, they kinda should have been prepared for a reception like that.

Not defending it in any way. Just saying that it had to be expected.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I like the assumption that experience comes with age. It doesn't, it comes with circumstance.

Absolutely correct. Experience comes from what you've had to live through, and some people live through more at a young age than other people do in 8 decades of life.
But even people who do have to live through harsh or unusual or difficult circumstances when they are young, or even from birth, add on additional experiences and circumstances every year that they're alive.
The limiting factor as to whether a person gains what is commonly called wisdom from those experiences is whether they're willing to. Some young people are willing to, from the get go. Some people seem never willing to.

 

[EmilyMiller]

We are not all the same, so Em at her 26 could be wiser than AwkwardlySet at his 41,

Like there is any doubt!

But Em at 41 will without a doubt be wiser than Em at 26, considerably.

Assuming a) I live that long and b) I don’t addle my brain with too much alcohol.

Em

 

[madelinemasoch]

"Grad school was some time ago"

"26 years old"

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

FFS this crowd can't tell the difference between a male and female poster

Honestly? I always imagined you as this late-forties to mid-fifties rocker-babe, with tattoos up both of her arms and a rough voice from smoking too much.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Honestly? I always imagined you as this late-forties to mid-fifties rocker-babe, with tattoos up both of her arms and a rough voice from smoking too much.

That's just his personality.

 

[EmilyMiller]

"Grad school was some time ago"

"26 years old"

I only did an M.S.

 

[lovecraft68]

Absolutely correct. Experience comes from what you've had to live through, and some people live through more at a young age than other people do in 8 decades of life.
But even people who do have to live through harsh or unusual or difficult circumstances when they are young, or even from birth, add on additional experiences and circumstances every year that they're alive.
The limiting factor as to whether a person gains what is commonly called wisdom from those experiences is whether they're willing to. Some young people are willing to, from the get go. Some people seem never willing to.

No argument, but the tone here is that this person-that we don't know-has no experience and could not possibly have any useful insight into anyone's stories or the author themselves, which isn't really fair.

I think this is a let's see what they have type of scenario where we'd get a sense of it one way or another, but I doubt that will happen because they didn't receive the warmest of welcomes here. I'll have to pull this thread up when someone mentions what a small community we are compared to how many authors are on here. Why should people come and deal with this?

And let's face it, if she showed up here talking about her tits and acting like a bimbo she'd have had a much warmer reception from the dogs here. But a young educated woman not here to giggle and be a 'good girl"? Well that's just not going to fly.

I'd say there's some insight, but its just stating the obvious.

 

[XerXesXu]

Absolutely correct. Experience comes from what you've had to live through, and some people live through more at a young age than other people do in 8 decades of life.
But even people who do have to live through harsh or unusual or difficult circumstances when they are young, or even from birth, add on additional experiences and circumstances every year that they're alive.
The limiting factor as to whether a person gains what is commonly called wisdom from those experiences is whether they're willing to. Some young people are willing to, from the get go. Some people seem never willing to.

Humans learn in exactly the same way as AI, by exposure to a training set, -experience - and affordance. Some find experience rewarding and seek it out, some find experience aversive, and try to avoid it. People who seek experience, and seek it for longer will inevitably have learnt more than those who avoid experience or have less of it.

That’s probably what distinguishes school learning from wisdom.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

the tone here is that this person-that we don't know-has no experience and could not possibly have any useful insight into anyone's stories or the author themselves,

Then I'll thank you to aim your vitriol at someone who actually wrote a comment in that tone or assumption.
You quoted my response, which made no such assertion.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Fucked if I know what I know, but I sure as hell know what I don't know. And I'm still learning the rest.

 

[EmilyMiller]

So much material for a psychologist on this thread .

Em

 

[ElectricBlue]

So much material for a psychologist on this thread .

Em

More a psychiatrist, I'd have thought.

 

[EmilyMiller]

More a psychiatrist, I'd have thought.

You are probably right.

Em