Re: poly: Why Oldies Stations?

Anders Sandberg writes:
> Of course, the real question once we begin to get somewhere with our
> answers to this question is what to do about it. Can we extend the
> exploring period through some means?

I can think of one that seems to work fairly well, but it has the
disadvantage of not being particularly legal these
days. Hallucinogenic drugs tend to put people in a "lifestyle
questioning" frame of mind, even at an older age, but they certainly
don't work for everyone, and whether the cost/benefit of them is
worthwhile is open to question.

Failing that, some people are more culturally plastic than others. I
believe it is possible to simply deliberately decide to make ones self
more "plastic" for a while, at least when it comes to trying/exploring
new things (and the reason hallucinogens may work for some people is
because they simply tend to shock one out of one's paterns.) It is
certainly the case that even older people can force themselves to
adapt to new cultural patterns, but whether they can make themselves
"educationally plastic" in the way that younger people are, especially
with respect to things like learning languages or big new chunks of
fundamental skills, is something I'm not sure we have an answer to.

> Is it a good idea?

I'm not sure, actually. Perhaps, perhaps not. Being a neophile, I tend
to look down on neophobes, but that doesn't mean that being a neophile
is necessarily a "better" thing. I'd like to think so, but that could
perhaps be prejudice on my part.

Perry
Received on Fri Apr 3 15:48:34 1998