X-Message-Number: 14753
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 07:36:16 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: about aging and new ideas

Hi again!

Another issue recently raised on Cryonet: will we suffer from being
intellectually old, and thus unable to absorb any new ideas?

Years ago there was an interesting article in the JOURNAL OF GERONTOLOGY
(I will find it if requested; I even wrote about in cryonics material
then) which actually looked at the ages of those who accepted Darwin's
theory when it came out versus those who did not.

The article found that age played no role in acceptance. It's reasonable
to ask how this could be... and the answer is simple. Those who did
NOT accept Darwin's theories, whether young or old, quickly became
obscure and forgotten. Those that DID accept sometimes became famous
later.

There is also a second comment to which we won't really know the answer
until later. An old thinker will have a simple problem with any new
idea which might contradict his/her own thoughts: old thinkers are
NOW close to death, and may not want to think about ideas which 
contradict their own, which once made them famous. Put simply, the
influence of previous thinking comes not because you are old and
have lots of years behind you, but because you have very few years
in front of you. Note that if we start living much longer, then
our future life expands and some of us might more easily accept
new ideas ... just as if we were young again.

		Best wishes and long long life to all,

			Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14753