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Anything other than your speculation to back up your belief in individuals neural plasticity having anything to do with the social advances you mention? Young

by andyrj 12y ago

Anything other than your speculation to back up your belief in individuals neural plasticity having anything to do with the social advances you mention? Young people have not had a great record of voting. So those changes you are attributing to neural plasticity are likely brought about by those old frozen minds you mention, and less so the young plyable ones if you ask me. But everyone has a right to an opinion I suppose.

kcovia 12y ago
Check out The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for an argument for this in the science world: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_R... In a nutshell: people don't change fundamental beliefs, even when confronted with evidence. Instead, they die off and the newer generation adopts the new theory.
- kiba 12y ago
  I am sure Einstein and his generation would like a word with you.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - zw123456 12y ago
    Most of what Einstein achieved were during his miracle years from 1905 - 1915 when he was in his 20's and 30's. But just to level set, I am not an ageist, I am 58 years old. And all this is just my opinion of course, but I find for myself it is harder and harder to accept new ideas. But being aware of this, I try to always listen and embrace new "crazy" ideas young people come up with. I think older people like me have wisdom and younger people have new ideas and if there was a way to combine those things it would be powerful. Perhaps stating the obvious there.
- benbreen 12y ago
  That really isn't what Kuhn is getting at with the idea of a paradigm shift. It's not an argument based on generational age or demographics, it's more about observational data slowly accumulating until current explanatory models become untenable. The people doing the accumulating and the people doing the sudden theoretical shift aren't necessarily the old in one camp and the young in the other. Granted I do see how that argument could be made, given the fact that a lot of the famous paradigm shifts were made by people in their 20s - it just isn't Kuhn's argument.
nitrogen 12y ago
Young people don't vote in part because they feel like there are too many old people voting for their votes to make a difference.
dllthomas 12y ago
"Anything other than your speculation to back up your belief in individuals neural plasticity having anything to do with the social advances you mention?" You seem deeply confused. If those changes happened entirely because old people changed their minds, then individual neuroplasticity has a tremendous amount to do with the changes mentioned. On the flip side, in a world with no neuroplasticity at all, we would only see change when people are born with different views. "Young people have not had a great record of voting. So those changes you are attributing to neural plasticity are likely brought about by those old frozen minds you mention, and less so the young plyable ones if you ask me." "Young people" and "old people" are not static sets. Imagine a world where young people change their mind frequently until 25, when they stop changing their mind and start voting. You would never see the mind of any individual over-25-year-old change, but the distribution of views in the over-25 population would still change as people enter and leave that population. If social change requires support of some proportion of that population, stopping people from leaving it will slow social change. I have no strong opinion about just how much our world resembles that one, but your reasoning does not support your claim here. There is some evidence that neuroplasticity tends to decline as people age.
zo1 12y ago
Just like to add that voting isn't the only means to affecting change in this world.

by andyrj 12y ago

kcovia 12y ago

Check out The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for an argument for this in the science world: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_R... In a nutshell: people don't change fundamental beliefs, even when confronted with evidence. Instead, they die off and the newer generation adopts the new theory.

kiba 12y ago
I am sure Einstein and his generation would like a word with you.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- zw123456 12y ago
  Most of what Einstein achieved were during his miracle years from 1905 - 1915 when he was in his 20's and 30's. But just to level set, I am not an ageist, I am 58 years old. And all this is just my opinion of course, but I find for myself it is harder and harder to accept new ideas. But being aware of this, I try to always listen and embrace new "crazy" ideas young people come up with. I think older people like me have wisdom and younger people have new ideas and if there was a way to combine those things it would be powerful. Perhaps stating the obvious there.
benbreen 12y ago
That really isn't what Kuhn is getting at with the idea of a paradigm shift. It's not an argument based on generational age or demographics, it's more about observational data slowly accumulating until current explanatory models become untenable. The people doing the accumulating and the people doing the sudden theoretical shift aren't necessarily the old in one camp and the young in the other. Granted I do see how that argument could be made, given the fact that a lot of the famous paradigm shifts were made by people in their 20s - it just isn't Kuhn's argument.

nitrogen 12y ago

Young people don't vote in part because they feel like there are too many old people voting for their votes to make a difference.

dllthomas 12y ago

"Anything other than your speculation to back up your belief in individuals neural plasticity having anything to do with the social advances you mention?" You seem deeply confused. If those changes happened entirely because old people changed their minds, then individual neuroplasticity has a tremendous amount to do with the changes mentioned. On the flip side, in a world with no neuroplasticity at all, we would only see change when people are born with different views. "Young people have not had a great record of voting. So those changes you are attributing to neural plasticity are likely brought about by those old frozen minds you mention, and less so the young plyable ones if you ask me." "Young people" and "old people" are not static sets. Imagine a world where young people change their mind frequently until 25, when they stop changing their mind and start voting. You would never see the mind of any individual over-25-year-old change, but the distribution of views in the over-25 population would still change as people enter and leave that population. If social change requires support of some proportion of that population, stopping people from leaving it will slow social change. I have no strong opinion about just how much our world resembles that one, but your reasoning does not support your claim here. There is some evidence that neuroplasticity tends to decline as people age.

zo1 12y ago

Just like to add that voting isn't the only means to affecting change in this world.