Reflection on age identity

I am not an advocate of stereotyping and saying, that we are programmed to react and behave in a certain way. I am glad, that such a belief is being acknowledged by science. Until recently, deterministic worldview dominated and defined the laws underlying human relationships and our understanding of nature. For example, genetics, and with it, the programmed process of aging, only confirmed our sense of powerlessness and alienation. We live, grow old, we get sick ... this is our fate.

The beauty of science is, that it describes the reality. It relies on evidence and it is dispassionate. Because of it, we are now slowly learning, that our world and our lives, do not need to be described by deterministic laws. There are elements of randomness and unpredictability in our world, the elements of quantum reality. Every time we make decisions, we collapse all of the possible choices into one event. This is quantum reality collapsing into deterministic world. Our choices can always tip the balance and change the outcome. Do we prefer unpredictable reality with various choices, or are we more in favor of safe and secure world of determinism, in which our decisions determine the outcome and are limited by our previous decisions?

We are immersed in quantum reality, but live deterministic lives, like Phoenix we have the body, but also a possibility for a rebirth. Hence we are younger, than our biological age. A contradiction? Our cells renew themselves regularly, which can be interpreted as means to insure, that we are supplied with unlimited possibilities, so we can change any time. Sounds impossible? Science has shown us, that our genetic information is not deterministic, as once believed, and that we are able to change this information by adapting a particular lifestyle. Our choices are stimuli for our cells to adequately respond to them. Changes are saved and passed on - in this way, our cells accumulate knowledge. However, since epigenetic changes appear to be the response to environmental stimuli, which fluctuate, they can also change or even become erased. Therefore, it is true, that there are people who seem to defy the passage of time. Their young spirit is usually trapped in old body, but their attitude and subjective age determines their appearance and health.

Although people may think of their body, as a fairly permanent structure, most of it is in a state of constant flux, as old cells are discarded and new ones generated in their place. The cells lining our digestive track last only 5 days. The red blood cells, bruised and battered after traveling through the maze of the body's circulatory system live up to 3 months, before being dispatched to their graveyard in the spleen. The epidermis, or surface layer of the skin, is recycled every two weeks. As for the liver, the detoxifier, its life on the chemical warfare front is quite short, the cells live up to 1 year. Other tissues have lifetimes measured in years, but are still far from permanent showing, that our bodies are much younger, more vigorous, than we think.

About the only pieces of the body that last a lifetime seem to be neurons of the cerebral cortex, and perhaps the muscle cells of the heart. Although some research has shown, that heart cells possess some traces of self-renewal, the rejuvenation is a very rare phenomenon. The same goes for cells in the nervous system. Although it has been shown already, that stem cells in the nervous system possess the ability to create new cells, it is still difficult to determine, how common it is.

Although it seems, that we do not replace cells in our nervous system on a regular basis, we change the connections between them, because our brain is "plastic". As it turns out we can change our identity (or the identity of our cells) by exchanging the old cells for new ones as well as by changing the interaction between cells. In the nervous system we do that by playing with our thoughts or by changing the responses to certain stimuli. So we can change communication and interaction between the cells in the nervous system, hence their identity consciously, that is by our thoughts and our approach to life. Given our brain is the master system of our body, it can be inferred, that our thoughts can also have an indirect influence on the identity of the cells in the rest of our body. So feeling younger solely depends on us.

Studies have indicated that in middle and late adulthood feeling of being younger is positively related to mental well being, longevity, physical and cognitive functioning. Positive perception of reality and the passing of time positively influence the state of our health and resistance of growing old. For me positive thinking represents life filled with opportunities, which is not reduced to the deterministic reality with few choices to make us feel safe. So not only positive thinking, but also our physiology gives us opportunity to renew ourselves each day and feel younger, than our birth certificate indicates.