AceJohnny's Journal: Aging, synthesizing, simplification

Lots of old respectable people seem to go on wild tangents. See: Tipler, Freeman Dyson, Linus Pauling.

As we age and learn, our brain culls unneeded neural connections. This is a natural and required process. Too many neural connections have been correlated to neural pathologies (autism?).

I wonder if too *much* culling makes people oversimplify their understanding of things, as their brain tries to fit new situations into their existing schemas?