The developmental trend toward abstract thinking is one of the compensatory mechanisms of aging that mitigates the decline of our sensory systems. Even apart from that decline, the trend toward abstract thinking helps us to solve problems that would not be solvable otherwise. Aging is not accompanied by unavoidable cognitive decline. The aging brain changes, thanks to neuroplasticity. It changes itself, heals itself, and finds other ways to do things, some of them (such as abstract reasoning) actually better than the earlier ways of doing things; it harnesses neuroprotective and
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