Age of Consent

A major problem with this kind of reasoning is that while it indicates that you think very DIFFERENTLY when you are older, it doesn't necessarily indicate that the way you think when you are older is BETTER. It could be that someone grows dumber rather than growing smarter. (The former already applies to senility.)

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Senility is a product of brain cells dying out. It's an entirely different process from maturation into adulthood.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

I agree maturation and senility are two different things.

However, it is possible to turn out very differently from how you were as a kid, even in a negative sense. Who you are is not always who you turn out to be.

And, since this is TV Tropes...yep, there's a trope for that.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

^^True, but the underlying aspect to it was a question: what qualifies maturity?

If senility was the only example, we could say that people get smarter until they hit a new phase we can call old age. But an umbrella term like senility itself is another one of those words that are coming under more and more deliberation. New studies indicate certain amounts of brain plasticity remain all the way through old age, and many changes in the way the brain works aren't as drastic as they seem.

So once again, the underlying question raised very keenly has to do with exactly how ones qualifies an individual as capable of making decisions for themselves, in their own situation, in a way that isn't bound to wreck both them, and the societal connections they have, or could have, etc.

edited 26th Aug '11 12:47:32 PM by Toodle

Hence my original point, since different cultures have different definitions of maturity. Which then would feed back into mental development, which feeds back into a behavior, and the loop continues.

One thing it is not is a simple cause-and-effect.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

But not all old folks are senile. I know 80-year-olds that are still smart as a whip.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

@Blue Ninja: Yeah, there's obviously an error in one of the columns.

But besides that the data seems reliable.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1