Discover Top Posts Tagged with #david bainbridge

The modern geography of the brain has a deliciously antiquated feel to it- rather like a medieval map with the known world encircled by terra incognito where monsters roam.

David Bainbridge

#david bainbridge #brain #consciousness

“Teenagers are a wonderful human innovation. Although they are often dismissed as a cultural invention of the postwar years, all the evidence suggests otherwise. As Shakespeare and Virgil made clear in their plots, teenagers are not old children or young adults — they are fundamentally different creatures, with a fresh and impetuous approach to the world. Recently, palaeoanthropology has even shown us when teenagers first evolved. Analysis of tooth development in early Homo sapiens has shown that humans started to take more than 10 years to grow up at much the same time that their brain was making its great leap to near-modern size. This might seem too much of a coincidence.

Indeed, brain scans of modern teenagers back this up — they show that during the second decade of life the brain is profoundly restructured into its uniquely complex final form. Admittedly, the brain may exhibit some quirky behaviour during that decade, but by its end teenagers have developed formidable powers of problem-solving, creativity, self-analysis, focus, ambition, communication and social flexibility. Twenty-year-olds are better than 10-year-olds at everything.

So it was the evolution of teenagers that made us human, and do all the wonderful things humans can do, and the same remains true today. Far from being an irritating transitional phase between childhood and adulthood, teenagers represent a life-stage unique to our species and absolutely essential for its success.

All that brain restructuring means teenagers think in a completely different way from adults — a difference that can be frustrating at times, but a difference we should cherish rather than stifle. And there are some particular features of teenage thinking we must nurture if we are to thrive in the future.

One of these is creativity, something teenagers revel in. Although their thought processes may seem disordered to the adult observer, they are especially adept at comparing dissimilar concepts to create new perspectives. Indeed, many geniuses have drawn their initial inspiration from their almost gauche adolescent thoughts. For example, Einstein wondered what it would be like to ride on a light wave when he was 16 and I doubt he could have had such a crude yet brilliant thought at 60.

Also, teenagers, as we all know, tend to take risks. Parents don't like it, and the authorities don't like it, yet teenagers seem driven to do it all the same. Sometimes, terrible things happen as a result of teenage risk-taking, but very often they don't. The human mind did not evolve in a world of speeding cars, sexually transmitted diseases and potent psychoactive chemicals, and it is poorly equipped to cope with them, yet risk-taking still serves an important function. To be successful in life we have to take some risks and adolescence is when we learn what can go wrong, what can go right, and what it feels like to take a risk. Creativity and risk-taking are essential for human success and prosperity. They are not only important in the arts, but are also the key to success in science, business and the development of a civilised society. If we do not encourage our teenagers to behave like — well — teenagers, then the outlook is bleak.”

— David Bainbridge, Let teenagers have their kicks. They are only doing what comes naturally

#David Bainbridge #Let teenagers have their kicks. They are only doing what comes naturally

Teenagers Are Now Middle-Aged (A Respone to The Guardian)

I read another fascinating article, this time by a very insightful guy by the name of David Bainbridge. Neat name. But the article (linked here) was about how modern teenagers are becoming so much more middle-aged by the time they reach the third decade…

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#America #David Bainbridge #Growing Up #Life #Living #Teenagers #The Guardian

excerpts:

“If we do not encourage our teenagers to behave like — well — teenagers, then the outlook is bleak.”

———

“Life has an emotional, sensual vividness to it when we're young and this cannot be recaptured later on. Once that is gone it is gone forever and to cloud a young person's experience of it is unforgivable. We are consigning our teenagers to an awful, bland sensibleness. And that is simply not natural.”

#Let teenagers have their kicks. They are only doing what comes naturally #David Bainbridge