An epilogue

I want to pass on a clip from the epilogue of Jim Holt's  2012 book "Why Does the World Exist?  An Existential Detective Story" in which he describes his attending a small ninetieth birthday celebration for Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) the famous French anthropologist and ethnologist . The master made the following brief comments:

“Montaigne,” he begins, “said that aging diminishes us each day in a way that, when death finally arrives, it takes away only a quarter or half the man. But Montaigne only lived to be fifty-nine, so he could have no idea of the extreme old age I find myself in today” - which, he adds, was one of the “most curious surprises of my existence.” He says he feels like a “shattered hologram” that has lost its unity but that still retains an image of the whole self.

This is not the speech we were expecting. It is intimate, it is about death.

Lévi-Strauss goes on to talk about the “dialogue” between the eroded self he has become - le moi réel - and the ideal self that coexists with it - le moi métonymique. The latter, planning ambitious new intellectual projects, says to the former, “You must continue.” But the former replies, “That’s your business - only you can see things whole.” Lévi-Strauss then thanks those of us assembled for helping him silence this futile dialogue and allowing his two selves to “coincide” again for a moment - “although,” he adds, “I am well aware that le moi réel will continue to sink toward its ultimate dissolution.”

Positive effects of aging on cognition and emotion regulation

After I returned to Austin Texas in late 2017 to live in the family house of my childhood I started a discussion group (The Austin Rainbow Forum) that meets on the first Sunday of every month at 2 p.m.  to discuss a contemporary topic or idea, with background reading usually provided before each meeting. On this coming Sunday, August 4, our topic is "Positive Aspects of Aging."  I thought I would share with MindBlog readers the background material I recently sent out to the group:

Here is an article that summarizes studies on factors that influence longevity :
The Key to Longevity is Boring

And here is the response to my asking ChatGPT 4o :

“Can you summarize and point to research showing that senior adult brains are better at some cognitive and emotional functions than younger brains?”

The bot’s response:
 
Research indicates that senior adult brains can outperform younger brains in several cognitive and emotional functions due to a variety of factors including accumulated knowledge, experience, and certain adaptive changes in the brain.

Cognitive Abilities: Older adults often have larger vocabularies and a greater depth of word knowledge than younger adults. They excel in tasks that rely on accumulated knowledge and experience, such as language comprehension and usage (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/brain-health/how-aging-brain-affects-thinking) (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/some-brain-functions-may-improve-age) .

Emotional Regulation: Seniors tend to exhibit greater emotional stability, experiencing fewer negative emotions and showing reduced emotional reactivity compared to younger adults. This improved emotional regulation is linked to better overall well-being and mental health (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/brain-health/how-aging-brain-affects-thinking) (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/cognitive-super-agers-defy-typical-age-related-decline-brainpower)

Attention and Distraction Management: Studies have shown that older adults can become more efficient at focusing their attention and ignoring distractions as they age. This ability, part of what is termed "executive control," often improves into the mid-to-late 70s (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/some-brain-functions-may-improve-age) .

Judgment and Decision-Making: Older adults are generally better at making rational decisions and demonstrating improved judgment. This may be due to the brain’s ability to adapt and recruit additional neural resources to compensate for age-related declines in other areas (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/brain-health/how-aging-brain-affects-thinking) .

Cognitive Reserve and Brain Maintenance: Some seniors, referred to as "cognitive super agers," maintain cognitive functions on par with much younger individuals. These super agers typically have slower rates of brain volume loss, and their brains show structural characteristics similar to those of younger people, such as a thicker cortex and a larger hippocampus (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/cognitive-super-agers-defy-typical-age-related-decline-brainpower) .

These findings illustrate that while certain cognitive functions may decline with age, other areas can improve or remain stable, leading to a nuanced understanding of cognitive aging. For further reading, you can refer to the research conducted by the National Institute on Aging and other related studies (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/brain-health/how-aging-brain-affects-thinking) (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/cognitive-super-agers-defy-typical-age-related-decline-brainpower) (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/some-brain-functions-may-improve-age) .
 

The tyranny of words

Some reflections during a wake period at 1:30 a.m. this morning... 

Mulling on the tyranny of thought as a ruminating mind calms down and refuge is found in a quiet space from which words rise like wisps or vapors, a space free of subjects and objects in which there can be no hurry. 

Grateful to be experiencing an aging process that enables a dedifferentiating 82 year old brain to experience a return towards its youth, letting go of the clouds of senolytic discourse that have come to clutter it and increasingly experience being the calm and quiet space from which everything rises. 

Feeling sympathy for public intellectuals whose writing I follow, immersed in their addiction to words as they oblige themselves, many due to financial necessity, to keep writing a stream that includes mediocre as well as brilliant work, each generating a rivulet in the streams of discourse diverging and merging in an infosphere that is becoming increasingly contaminated by the words of robots that duplicate and obscure their efforts.  Grateful for the retired professor’s pension that  permits optional association with, or dissociation from, this world of words.