The wisdom that we find in older adults—the most experienced members of our population—follows from these four specific things: associations, experience, pattern recognition, and the use of analogies. And this is why we gain more and more wisdom as we age. Wisdom comes from the accumulated set of things we’ve seen and experienced, our ability to detect patterns in those experiences, and our ability to predict future outcomes based on them. (And what is intelligence if not that?) Naturally, the more you’ve experienced, the more wisdom you are able to tap into. In addition, certain changes in
...more
