Ask HN: What happens to your consciousness/self-awareness as you age?

[amichail]

When does consciousness peak? What is it like to be 80 years old?

Is there generally much of a difference between consciousness at 20 and 40?

How do you measure consciousness at these ages?

Yes, hearing gets worse as people age thus reducing consciousness, but I'm more interested in changes not directly related to the senses.

[petercooper]

I think the question is akin to asking "When does your taste in music peak?" That is, I think it's an interesting question, but that the quality of what you're measuring is not absolute and changes in odd ways over time. I think that there's a significant difference in my self awareness (and taste in music!) between the ages of 20 and 28 (now) but it's not absolutely better or worse - just different.

Yes, hearing gets worse as people age thus reducing consciousness

If you're saying this, this emphasizes the differences, since I don't think even being rendered blind and deaf would reduce my levels of "consciousness" as I consider the term.

[TallGuyShort]

>> How do you measure consciousness at these ages?

You certainly ask some weird questions. It's apparent that you and I define consciousness differently - and I'm sure the same could be said between most people. When you say consciousness, do you mean alertness and reaction times? self-awareness? awareness of surroundings? Or the state of being awake? If you define it more specifically, I'm sure it will be more obvious how it could be measured.

[amichail]

Anything that is not common knowledge in this regard would be interesting.

[synnik]

Consciousness is binary. It comes on, and stays on until death or mental incapacity.

If you are talking about thought capacity, analytical thought, ability to form and evaluate philosophical positions, etc, etc... those continue to grow your whole life.

Speed of thought peaks at right around 40. You will slow down after that, but the quality of thought won't diminish.

Finally, innovation -- this probably does peak around 30ish. You spend most of your twenties learning news things, and coming up with your own ways to integrate them into your world view. That integration breeds innovation. After 30, your worldview is more stable, and needs less integration, so innovation also is more rare.

Every individual will be different, of course. Everything above is just generalizations...

[GreggW]

Okay, here's my $.02. I'm 55 and re-teaching myself Scheme (25 years ago, I edited the BYTE Magazine special issue on Lisp, and I just discovered that an excerpt from my review of The Little Schemer is now quoted on its back cover). I'm in the late stages of my training to be a marriage and family therapist (second MA at age 53), and I have an open-source project that I fiddle with (infoml.org). So what's my take on things?

Consciousnesses is far from binary; sometimes I think it's the most finely nuanced thing in the universe (read The Head Trip, by Jeff Warren). Speed of thought decreases--you got that right--but I've now got decades of experiences behind me, and these lead to thoughts I never could have imagined when I was 25. Unfortunately, it's not true that "quality of thought won't diminish"--my father died with dementia at 85, and it certainly changed the last 20 years of his life. Change is the only constant in life, by the way, and flexibility and openness are your greatest assets in dealing with it.

As you grow older, meaningful connections to others, humble achievements (helping others at a personal level), and balance in all things become more important than power, money, and sexual conquest. I feel I'm far more creative than I was 20 years ago, but my desire to sacrifice balance for achievement has diminished; at this stage of my life, different things (as described above) are more important to me.

Some parts of getting older truly suck, but I am a lot happier and calmer that I used to be. I really know who I am now, and I can no longer be jerked around by what other people think. It's a great ride, and if you take care of yourself along the way (mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually), it can be quite worthwhile. Good luck to you all doing whatever you're passionate about!

[amichail]

What about sleepwalking? What about dreaming? Are those at the same level of consciousness as being awake?

How aware are you of yourself and your surroundings in a factually correct way?

[davi]

Unfortunately this question, at this time in our understanding of neuroscience, is so ill-posed that the only response [1] this neuroscientist-in-training can give (in the 2 minutes I have allotted to the task) is to agree with Joshu [2] and shout, "MU!"

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[1] Well, okay, the only response that I find both cogent and fun to write.

[2] http://peterspearls.com.au/mu.htm

[crocowhile]

The general rule in the field is that it is impossible to answer about other people/beings consciousness. Among scholars, this is known as the "what is like to be a bat" rule, after a seminal 1974 paper by Thomas Nagel (see http://www.clarku.edu/students/philosophyclub/docs/nagel.pdf )

[mindhacker]

Perhaps it is difficult to define an attribute such as consciousness/self-awareness let alone measure it. How does one know he is self-aware? Perhaps one who says he is self-aware never is.

[amichail]

True, but let's assume that he/she is telling the truth if what he/she says corresponds to what others perceive as reality.

[huherto]

I do not know about consciousness.

But Judgment seems to improve with age. (Sorry no references)

[villageidiot]

What is it like to be 80 years old?

When is the last time you talked to an 80 year old? Would you even consider asking this question to an 80 year old in real life? Why try to research this question on HN where the average age is close to 25? What do 25 year old hackers know about aging? Oh sure, I have no doubt they assume they know something about everything but I really think you're barking up the wrong tree and need to go outside and, you know, talk to people.

[amichail]

Even knowing how people would compare their level of self-awareness at 40 to what it was when they were 20 would be interesting.

There are probably quite a few people here that are 40+ years old.