Age and Wisdom

[Gawain of Orkeny]

However, I tend to agree with rory and disagree with Lemur, mental inflexibility seems to be more a trait of the old, rather than the young. I see that in myself, as well.

Because you learn from experience and your experience tells you this. The young have no experience so they are more flexible. Thank god we get set in some of our ways. This can be a very good thing if you have developed good traits and not bad ones. The young are born to learn the old to teach.

[Blodrast]

Sure, I agree with you, but just to clarify, we're talking about (roughly) two categories of things here:
1. First category is things that the old folks (guess I'm including myself here, as well) know as the better way to do some things, and they are actually right about it; the young ones disagree with this mostly because they haven't had the life experiences to prove them that this indeed is the case.
So for this category, I agree with you that it's good to have faith in doing things the true-and-tried way.
However, next comes second category of things.

2. Second category is things that can be done in a different way, and the older generation tends to be reluctant to adopt them, whereas the young people are more willing to try it.
The thing is, the only reason our species survived is because of this one trait: adaptability. We were never bigger, faster, stronger - we were smarter, and that manifested itself in our ability to adapt.
Society is changing these days much, much faster than it used to do a few centuries ago.
In lots of ways - small ways, apparently, but when you put them all together, you get a whole new society.
Sometimes it's good to try to do things in a different way - that's exactly the only way to make progress. Things change (sometimes because of us, sometimes not), and we need to adapt. Society is changing fast, very very fast, and all these changes need to be taken into account when deciding upon one's course of action.
(I'll try to clarify a bit more with an example: look at all the electronic-social stuff, places like myspace and facebook and all that stuff. I'm not saying we should all start using them, I'm not even saying they are a good thing or a bad thing. I'm saying they are happening, a lot of people are using them, and when you make a decision, you need to take that into account, because their appearance and existence has changed things, and our society).

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Well one of the real questions is just when do you become set in your ways. When does old start?

[Blodrast]

No idea. Prolly varies from person to person, too. I've seen old people who were very open-minded (few, though). I've seen young people who are very conservative - too much so for their own good.
For my specific case, I've passed 30, and like I said, I've noticed I've been getting less and less flexible over the last, say, 5 years or so. Significantly so.

But again, I think it depends on what kind of person you are, your background, your education, how much you keep up to date with society, what you do (not necessarily as a job, but as occupation/hobbies), etc.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

. I've seen old people who were very open-minded (few, though).

OK how do I rate

[Caius]

age --> wisdom: true?

Occidental World = No
Oriental World = Yes

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Lets not leave out American Indians yes . In fact its still so in many cultures around the world. Like I said nothing beats experience. You can learn it the hard way on your own or take an old person who has been through it countless times tell you their experiences and learn from that. It never hurts to get us old folks view on something before you act on it . In fact its usually advisable.

[Incongruous]

Considering that most of the people in ths forum are probably under 40, this is just unfair.

[Lemur]

Even scarier than the old vs. young issue is the dreaded Dunning-Kruger effect. In short, these researchers proved that those who know the least on a subject will grossly overestimate how much they know, and how competent they are. Likewise, those who know the most will generally underestimate their knowledge and competence.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

When they start hiring kids to teach us old folks in school age will no longer equal wisdom. Does anyone else think the young know more in general or are in general wiser than those older than them or for the most part arent the old wiser from experience?

[rory_20_uk]

Occidental World = No
Oriental World = Yes

And what world was more stultified than the Oriental world? big on everything being done the same, but sadly nothing really happened new.

If the young only learnt what the old taught we'd still be slogging behind wooden ploughs as thats what we'd always done.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

If the young only learnt what the old taught

Notice you had to add only. If the old didnt teach the young the young would be dead