“We cannot be taught wisdom,” as Proust remarks, “we have to discover it for ourselves by a journey which no one can undertake for us, an effort which no one can spare us.” Are such stages purely existential or cultural—the behaviors, the perspectives appropriate to various ages and stages—or do they also have some specific neural basis? We know that learning is possible throughout life, even in the presence of cerebral aging or disease, and we can be sure that other processes, at a much deeper level, are continuing, too—a culmination of the ever wider and deeper generalizations and
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