Can you be forever young or wise beyond your years? Is age a justifiable way of categorising people?

Things mentioned in this podcast:

• Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages of Man’
• Peak age in different sports
• Cognitive changes with age
• When people get married
• When people have children
• Do we become more conservative as we age?
• Average age of first-time buyers
• WaPo on how happiness changes with age

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing the seven ages of man. Nick, kick us off.

Yeah, well, I am 42 years of age.

Get away.

As I go through life, I occasionally, you know, think back to the Shakespeare's seven ages of man speech in As You Like It. And yeah, it's sort of something I remember not far from my school. There was actually a statue, quite a famous statue, I think, of the seven ages of man. It's like seven heads on top of each other, each one representing a different age of man. And of course, as a schoolboy, I was number two, because the seven ages in the original play are the infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the pantaloon, and then second childhood at the end. So I think I'm sort of midway between justice and pantaloon. I think I'm in justice, well on my way to pantaloon. I think that's pretty accurate. And I think the, yeah, so that there are, I mean, I suppose in modern day terms, we think of this as sort of infancy, childhood, teenager, being a youth is the soldier and then middle age being the justice and old age being the pantaloon and second childhood being kind of extreme old age. So, yeah, and it works. Intuitively, it works. I feel like, yeah, I get it now. I feel like that guy, you know, sort of every few years you think, yeah, okay, so I'm moving on now. I'm nearly, I'm approaching the next stage. But what I'm wondering really is whether or not this is meaningful, whether I'm just sort of finding the patterns to make Shakespeare right, or whether or not, you know, there are, is it the case that there are sort of measurable features of a person that, you know, where we can say, well, there is a kind of qualitative distinction between these people and those people, not necessarily a sharp one, it doesn't necessarily happen on your 47th birthday or whatever, but is it the case that actually there are these meaningful stages in life? And if so, what are they?

Great.

Which stage are you at, Fraser?

Well, I'm obviously still a youth. Yeah, well, I'm still the, yeah, the soldier bloke. That's me.

Yeah, full of strange oaths. Yes.

And right now, you know, seeking glory in the cannon's mouth or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, no, unfortunately, I think.

Struck me more as a lover than a fighter, though.

Well, I'm sort of straddling the two, perhaps. Yeah. Um, but, um, no, I think, sadly, I'm, you know, I'm the justice with, you know, full belly cape on ground, whatever it is.

And I think if we think of the justice as dispensing judgment, not just on, you know, the people in court, but in general. Yeah. That it is an age where we feel much more capable of and confident in our own judgments about others. That's certainly something which I've felt quite, you know, for probably for the last half decade or so, you know.

Um, I mean, Peter will come to you at the moment. What was the stage you were at? But I think it's probably fairly similar to us. But, um, yeah, actually, one of my pet hates, actually.

Having pet hates makes you definitely the justice. You're right, actually.

Well, one of my pet hates is the justice is middle aged men. One of the things that annoys me about middle aged men is how they don't bloody listen. And how they think they know everything. And they've been there. They've done that. And there's just this, I was going to say arrogance, but it's not really arrogance. It's a kind of complacency or a, yes, I, you know, it just annoys me.

And the friend sort of sense of self, self certitude. Yes.

This sense of self certitude. Um, yeah, it's just really frustrating. So I think that makes me not quite one of them. But as you said, it's quite justice like to. Yeah. To have a downer on. Yeah.

On other people you're in your, you know, your age bracket.

Peter, what are you? Well, I, I don't know. I haven't seen you mewling or puking lately. I feel like I've sort of bucked the trend. I think I went straight from mewling and puking to, to being a justice. I've always been, I've always been accused of being, being sort of stodgy middle aged. Ever since I was a teenager. Um, yeah, quite judgmental, quite sort of, quite sort of dogmatic, quite know it all. Um, yeah, so I think I felt I fit squarely within justice. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I mean, there's a good example of in one respect, you know, to answer the question we've asked it. So in one respect, uh, yeah, these are quite helpful categories. Um, and they do sort of work. And yet straight away, you know, Peter was saying, well, actually I've kind of been middle aged since I was a kid. So they do kind of fall down a bit. Um.

Well, but in a way though, that sentence wouldn't be meaningful unless it meant something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I like it. Yeah. I mean, I, and I think there is an expectation that people, I mean, to some extent, I remember my, my dad saying something to me once he said, uh, for me, youth was always a spectator sport and I, and I totally get that. I've always felt like I slightly missed out on you. Everyone tells you, it's called. Yeah. You're going to become a raging ball of hormones. You're going to be reckless. You're going to take lots of risks. You're going to have sex with loads of people. And I have got to be honest. That didn't really, yeah. So, so I, you know, yeah, so I feel like, I feel like that portion of it probably slightly missed out on them and probably went straight to soldier, I think. But, uh, yeah, I missed out the, uh, the, the, uh, probably the, yeah, so that, that kind of, but, but yeah, I mean, so, so I think, but obviously those generalizations wouldn't exist unless they were, there was some truth to them. Um, so yeah, I mean, I've, I, I guess, and I, I'm sure Peter has as well, you know, I've looked, I've looked at what some of the dimensions are that we could think about. Tracking someone's, um, you know, someone's sort of position and, and, and how we, how we might find meaningful break points. Okay. Well, let's do that. Well, let's kick it. We can kick off with, um, I think let's kick off with the kind of most mundane, which is the physical. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. First bit is easy, right? Are you still growing? That's essentially, and obviously we stopped growing by the time, more or less by the time we're an adult. So that, that sort of makes sense. Stop growing physically. Inside things are happening, but on the outside, uh, at the age of about 13 onwards, you, you lose the ability to hear high frequency sounds, which is sad. Um, peak fertility for women, about 25, uh, peak mass of sort of body and strength, you know, is about 30. I think for both sexes. Um, your eye muscles start to decline in your mid thirties and you'll become at high risk of shortsightedness, uh, average age of menopause and going gray is about 50. Um, then osteoarthritis becomes a much bigger risk in your sixties. Hearing loss becomes a very significant risk in your seventies. Um, by the age of 80, half of people have cataracts and the probable maximum human lifespan, which is at all possible for reasons that are not well understood is probably about 115. So that's it. The span of life. It's all uphill till you get to about the age of 25 and then it's catastrophic. Luckily they do all, they, they do come at staged intervals, these different, these different ways in which your body declines. And these are really only talking about, I mean, obviously your risk of getting various kinds of nasty diseases increases as well, but these are the sort of structural problems that start that most people will find themselves suffering from. Um, yeah, that's the sort of, it's, that's the physical side of things. Cognitively. It's a bit more interesting and a bit more spread out. I'm afraid it's bad news for us though, lads. But, uh, I don't know.

Peter might be all right. He's sorry. Your brain is still a man. Yeah.

Your brain, your brain is going to grow to about 15. That's when it physically stops growing. It doesn't get any bigger, right. But your frontal lobe, which is of course where we get all the most sort of human bits, the bits to do with our, uh, if you like sort of judgment and our, our ability to, um, sort of see subtlety to controller and behavior to, um, you know, yeah, I guess to make sensible decisions is a good way of summarizing what the frontal lobe does. Um, is, uh, that, that, that keeps going till our mid twenties. Um, but then again, same thing. Then it, things start to slow down reasoning, spatial skills, speed of thought. They all decline. Not by a huge amount. Your cortex starts to thinning out your display, your, the speed of your receptors firing slows down. Um, memory starts to decline in your late thirties. Uh, which is why you can never remember the name of that guy who was in that thing you just saw yesterday. Um, and your reasoning skills declined the order of apparently three, 4% over every 10 years. Um, but up from sort of 45 onwards and above 60, your brain actually starts to shrink, uh, again. And the increased risk of Alzheimer's really kicks off once you get 70 or above good news, some good news amidst all this misery. Uh, so as I said, fluid intelligence declines. Um, you know, that is your ability to kind of, yeah, learn new stuff, uh, essentially sort of compare stuff and see new things, see new, see old things in a new light and all those kinds of things. Um, uh, it declines from your sort of thirties onwards, but your crystallized intelligence, which is like, I guess the things that you have learned and the process, the, the systematized processes that you have for thinking. So that is, I guess, things like your, the, your judgment, the quality of your judgment, your wisdom. Let's think of it as wisdom that doesn't really decline till your, till your seventies. So, so that goes up, that keeps going up and stays about the same. Uh, so that, that is, that's good. Some good news. It's a one way in which we're not declining.

Yeah.

Um, there are a couple of dimensions I've looked at. I've looked at others, but I thought it might be, I don't know if Peter's got anything to chime in with.

Uh, well, they take a slightly, another slightly mundane thing is I think that different cultures have different, uh, thresholds or, or gateways depending on things that you own or that you've achieved. Yeah. So a notable one, perhaps with the becoming a proper adult in, uh, Western society is when you, when you own your own home. Um, uh, and when you, you know, you're not reliant on parents or some other authority for your, your, your, uh, your, your shelter, you, you, you now own your own, you know, your own, and then obviously there's sort of children and, um, finishing university and finishing school, sort of gate, obviously natural gate ways to, to sort of the next stage. And you kind of level up at that point, officially level up. But I feel like, uh, in some ways I feel like I've gone back a stage back to being a bit more of a fighter. Right. When we, when we start, when we set up Aleph Insights and I'll feel like I'm compelled to, you know, give a shit a bit more about my life and about my job and about how, you know, how, how we do, um, you know, it's quite, you know, have I, have I stayed in this previous employment? So I might've just sort of slipped into being like just a company. Yes, man. Okay. Um, but now I feel like actually...

Not the thrusting young thing that you are now.

No, yeah. And now I feel, well, maybe not so much thrusting and young, but I feel more compelled to try harder. Okay. And fight my corner.

Yeah. Yeah. There's something also I don't think we've really addressed, which is the, um, this is all very, uh, male oriented. I mean, when Shakespeare talks about it, he, you know, he uses, you know, seven ages of man, although that's a sort of, you know, a catch or let's say, but these are definitely men who he's talking about and we are all men. Now I don't think...

I'm assuming that you're given to understand it would apply to both, but yeah, I mean, the pictures that he paints are of a man.

But I think there's a couple here that don't quite fit. So when he's talking about the justice and if we think about middle aged men, middle aged men are definitely of a certain type. Um, and you think that doesn't apply? I don't think that applies to women. I don't think they're quite as judgmental. I don't think...

If only we knew any women, we could get them to... Um... I think the best thing we can say here probably at the risk of saying... Sorry, go on.

Well, also, I don't think the soldier quite applies, um, because I don't think, uh, females are quite so...

You're a career woman. I mean, I guess that's 20s, 30s, you know, the age where, you know, in terms of ambition and stuff, it seems like it's a... So that's the modern day, the modern day equivalent would be, you know, what do you do at work?

But hold on. So, because the soldier goes straight to the justice, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So I think there's something missing. I'm not, I'm not saying that women have to be defined by motherhood, but I think there's something missing in there somehow.

So yeah, go on then.

What's your theory? When do you think peak happiness is?

It's meant to be old age at some point. So I'm guessing that sort of the penultimate stage as it were.

Yeah. Happiness basically is U-shaped. So you're happy when you're a kid and you're happy when you're old and you're miserable. Uh, at the maximum misery age is about 50.

Great.

Yeah. So we've got that to look forward to. It's only going to get worse. Uh, yeah. So, um, and then, uh, you know, thinking about politics, as people get old, they get more.

Talking about this whole sort of famous sort of church or sort of more conservative. Yeah, exactly.

Now the interesting, cause I mean, one of the arguments.

I'm actually becoming a bit more left-wing, but anyway, go on.

I've not. Nope. I've not. Go for it.

Okay. There's weirdly seven of them.

Okay.

And I've given them names. Okay. Okay. So age of orientation, nought to two. Okay. Basic skills, walking, speaking, seeing, basic motor skills. You need all that to get through the rest of your life, right? So this is the basic skills before you. Then I declare that two to the age of two to 15 is the age of growth. When your body and your brain are both sort of at their maximum rate of development. 15 to 30, I declare this to be the age of learning where your fluid intelligence increases, your physical growth has stopped, but your frontal lobe is developing. Okay. So then 30 to 40, this is where the other things kick in age of responsibility, marriage, children, home ownership, loss of fluid intelligence and strength. Your eyesight, memory, and hearing are starting to go right. 40 to 50. I was going to call this the age of crisis and I changed it to age of realisation. This is where we hit peak unhappiness. The children are teenagers. You're probably now voting Tory and, but you're gaining wealth at the fastest rate that you will have done in your life at this point. Um, baldness kicking in at this point, big time.

God, I hope that never happens to me.

Then age 50 to 60, age of acceptance. I call this. So your happiness increases now again, after a long, long increase in misery over the course of your life. Now going up again, you're probably going to go grey. You're probably going to have a menopause. If you're a woman, your reasoning skills and your wealth are starting to decline now. And then 60 or above, this is the age of decline where your, your life is going to be primarily driven by which, which, uh, chronic ailments you have. Yeah.

And where the nearest loo is.

Yeah. And that kind of thing. So that's, I don't think it's bad in terms of now this is less, it doesn't line up. It, you know, there's seven of them and I didn't decide that that was going to be the case, but just that's that as it happens, it seems it is what fell out of what I was looking at. So I'm quite happy with that. So, and I think it works. So in theoretically, I'm now at the beginning of the age of realisation after finishing by age of responsibility, um, you know, I'm now, I'm now, I should be, I should be approaching peak unhappiness. My children are growing up and I should be becoming more conservative. I think a lot of that is true.

Yeah, no, no, good segments. I like it. I like it.

So Fraser remind us how old are you now in years, not in mental terms.

I'm 46 years old.

46. Does this sound good? I mean, you, the light is at the end of the tunnel though, because you were going to hit the age of realisation as I call it.

Yeah, no, I'm still waiting for this bit of where I'm still wondering where all my savings are. I'm not sure about that bit.

But you're, you yourself have become a more valuable asset. So your personal capital. Yes. Yeah. If we could value that, it would be priceless.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Fraser should stop building more tunnel, uh, and just step out into the light.

Yeah, indeed. Indeed.

How old are you, Peter? I am 37.

So a whippersnapper. What's, and so Peter should be in the age of responsibility. Okay. Okay.

He's certainly got, you've got a house, haven't you?

Got a house. Yeah.

Not so many of the other ones yet, but, uh, still a player.

So, well, look, um, this brings us nicely onto what I'd like to talk about a little bit. It's, do you have either, we can either use Nick's new model or the Aleph age model. Do you have an age that you either look back upon with fondness or it could be now or in the future? Uh, what's your favorite age? I would say, um, have a think about that. And when you're ready, chip in.

Yeah, I can, I can go for it, but I wonder.

Yours is going to be, yours is going to be now or something. You're going to think it's great. Boringly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I mean, the thing is that I don't think, uh.

Would you have said now 10 years ago? That's what's interesting. Yeah. Okay. It's always now.

Yeah. Yeah. With, with, I don't, yeah. I don't like, there's always, I feel like my life has always been problems and you're

going to go, I'm happy now.

I mean, as a kid, I was very anxious a lot of the time and, uh, you know, as a teenager, I wasn't very successful at being a teenager. No, I didn't seem to do a lot of, I was bad at it. You know, I was kind of, I didn't know how to be cool. Uh, uh, now, see now I've got, I don't care. Well, now I don't care. And in some ways that does make you slightly cooler. Right. But not in my case, maybe, but I, so I feel like there were a lot of, I started out with a lot of kind of baggage and I've gradually shed that and I feel more, you know, free now, you know, certainly got a bit more money than I used to. I mean, when I was in my twenties, I never had any money ever. There's always too much month left at the end of the money, you know, and I couldn't buy anything that I wanted. And, you know, uh, other people always seem to be going out and I couldn't afford to, um, you know, and then, then you have kids and there's a lot of work and then it becomes more fun and less work. Uh, you know, you had a bit of a, you know, worked in a big, slightly boring organization. My job got more interesting over time and then I left and started my own company. Um, which is great. So yeah, I, I honestly don't, I don't, and I, and I think there's something, I don't know, I don't think it's right. People shouldn't look back and go, oh, you know, happiest days of my life, school or university. I think it's really sad. Well, I mean, even at university, I look back and I think, well, I did have a lot of time. I mean, but I didn't do anything with that time and I didn't have any money to do anything with that time that I had. So in a way it would have been better spent doing something else probably.

Yeah. So, you know, it, it, to make it, you know, to continue this theme of sadness or what you touched for me, yeah, it does feel sad because, um, I do have a favorite age and I do look back at it actually, which is probably for about 15 to 25. Um, which doesn't quite fit your category, but, but, um, that's perfect. That's what I call the age of learning. Well, that's a 30. Yeah. Um, but no, I had, I just had such an amazing time back then.

I just, um, it's not one of these teenagers who I was really jealous of. I was like, how are they doing this? Yeah. They know what to do.

I just traveled the world having fun essentially. Who paid for that? Well, I did cause I was working as a teacher. Um, so, you know, living in all sorts of exotic places.

I thought you might've been a trust affair.

If only, um, and meeting, let's say all sorts of interesting exotic people. And it was a great time, you know, um, carefree. I looked great, full head of hair, you know, everything, you know, it was just wonderful. Um, and actually money in, in some senses, I didn't have much money, but in another sense, I had plenty of money for what I wanted to do. It was great, you know? So, and I do sort of, you know, I think it's a mindset.

Freedom ain't worth nothing, but it's free.

But it's free. Yeah.

I think this is a thing actually that I call the purple patch problem, uh, which is something that I've noticed in certain people.

That's the, yeah, yeah.

But what it is, is, is that, uh, people hit, uh, it, what they, it's a kind of local peak of a certain kind of lifestyle or look or personality. And, and they are briefly, let's say that someone's been a bit of a loner or something, you know, or a bit awkward, a bit socially awkward. And suddenly at 15, somehow their brand of awkwardness propels them into coolness or they suddenly become really attractive and everyone fancies them. And, and the day that everyone fancies them, they happen to be wearing a particular type of clothing. And from that point onwards, you know, they wear that for the rest of their lives. They're just, they're always going to dress like a teenager now. And, and I, and, and of course, and they're no longer, they have nothing else to cling to. They've got nowhere else to go because it's all downhill.

Well, actually, and I know a lot of, um, sorry, we'll come to you in a second, Peter. I, um, I know a lot of people who are living that lifestyle that I did and I enjoyed it. And I know a few that remain friends. They've continued that lifestyle and there's actually something a bit sad about them. Actually, they're the oldest swinger in town. Exactly.

Are they, are they unhappy?

I don't know, but it doesn't seem very satisfying to me. I could be wrong. Well, there is a problem.

I mean, there is a bit of a problem about people who take on responsibility, always say they're glad they did. But actually, if you look at happiness, for example, children, I think provably make you miserable. Um, getting married makes men, makes women miserable. I think particularly, I think it improves men's welfare, but, um, and yet everyone says they're glad they did those things. So it might be that, uh, there is some other thing we're expecting to happen, which isn't purely related to happiness, which is to do with some kind of achievement. I don't know. But, um, yeah, expectations.

Uh, Peter, for you, has it already been?

Is it now? Is it coming? Well, similar to Nick, I think now is pretty good. And this period, the last 10 years, it feels like I'm shedding a lot of baggage that I've had from teenage years and things and starting to work the world out. But given that there's a sort of upward trend, I feel it feels like maybe the next 10 years is going to be better. I'll be more secure, happier, have worked out life even more, uh, just be, you know, care less about the small things and have more big things to, to, to enjoy. So yeah, maybe the next, maybe the next period is what I'm looking forward to. Okay.

Yeah. So I think there's a positive message there to all those, uh, to all those depressed teenagers that this too will pass. We've all been there. I know you never believe people never believe this, right? Nobody ever believes that, uh, people older than them have experienced the same things that I've experienced, but, but we have, we've got the data here that shows that you're not atypical, you know? Um, uh, but you, but you know, we, we, well, I'm completely contradicting most of that because I mean, you know, I'm supposed to be really miserable, but not, uh, unless I, unless I am, and I just have convinced myself that I'm not, but yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's it really. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, uh, you know, it's all, it's all going to get better.

You know, I'm not convinced. No. Okay. Um, yeah.

So, um, I watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off yesterday with my son.

Okay. Yeah. I've watched it with my kids. They loved it.

Yeah. It just reminded me of that quote, you know, if you don't, uh, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it. Yes. I don't know. It's not directly relevant, but it feels tangentially relevant. Right.

Yeah. Well, I think all that remains is for me to do is I'm going to go up and buy a Harley Davidson and get a tattoo and, uh, that'll make me feel better. Do it. Yeah. Cool. All right. Okay. Um, thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer, been here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.