>I hope you don't find this depressing (despair should be left to
>experts), but I'm 19 right now and I've never managed to top the
>insights I had at age 16.
My immediate impression is that your data sample is not big enough. Certainly the evidence is that any decline in your brain follows your physical decline, and doesn't preceed it: so you should be at your peak now and for a few years! Of course the decline doesn't have to be great if you keep your brain active as well as your body. Given what most people do with their brains (and bodies) as they get out of school its not surprising that people loose flexibility and loose creativity as they age. My subjective experience is that having worked hard on a PhD for the last few years I have become much more creative and flexible in my thought processes. Certainly I don't feel any particular decline (yet).
ciao, patrick
Patrick Wilken http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~patrickw/ Editor: PSYCHE: An International Journal of Research on Consciousness Secretary: The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/ http://www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/