A Simple Test of Mental Improvement

One simple test of mental improvement is to ask how much you have changed your mind in the past ten years. While there can be change without improvement there cannot be improvement without change. In which case, having changed your mind on important issues can be an indicator that you’re not just letting your brain become a mildewed sponge. Old dogs, as it turns out, can learn new tricks, primarily because humans are not dogs and ideas are not tricks. Our declining mental function is largely our own doing – like muscles, our mental output lessens not simply, or even mostly, because of age, but disuse.

Naturally, thinking differently doesn’t automatically mean you’re correct; it only means you’ve continued thinking. Ten years ago, I considered myself a libertarian atheist. Today, I’m a conservative Catholic. When I was young I had more answers than questions; today it’s the reverse. Maybe I’m wrong about everything, but I cannot be accused of not thinking about anything.

In the past ten years I have changed my mind fundamentally about most fundamental issues: the existence of God, how to think about the good life (ethics), human freedom, political organization, what happiness consists of, the uniqueness of man, and — above all — the truth in religion.

Nor is not changing your mind an infallible indicator of non-improvement. Perhaps you still believe many of the fundamental things you believed ten years ago. However, you can then ask if you understand those beliefs better and perhaps with more subtlety? Even if the position is broadly the same, do you think differently about that position now than you did ten years ago? If not, then Houston we have a problem.¹

1. Originally, it was “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”