I find that age is somewhat important because it more often than not directly correlates with world experience. As one of the older members on this site, I find others my age more relatable because we're at the same point in our lives (going to college, have a job, live on own, etc.), whereas those people who are younger are focused differently and don't have the same outlook as myself. It's not really a BAD thing, it's just how I see it. I love talking to everyone, but I can only ever really have extended conversations with people my age or people who are mature enough to handle a discussion beyond RHG, animating, or trying to look big in front of others.

EDIT: Fuck I took so long to write this that exilement got in pretty much the same thought before me lol

I don't see how experience is necessarily positively correlated with maturity. It's correlated with knowledge, but I mean just because I don't have as much experience as someone older than 18 doesn't mean that I'm less mature. All it means is I know less about the real world, but I don't claim to know more, I just say "I wouldn't know, I haven't experienced that". I don't see how experiences can make THAT much of a difference. I'd say things like logic make much more of a difference. I can be completely logical in my decisions without having as much experience, and if I lack the experience I don't make a decision either way.

I don't know who that was directed at, but since it follows mine I'll assume it was me. I never said there was a correlation with maturity and experience, I was talking about age and experience, which seems to follow a standard in at least North America. I'd be more comfortable conversing with a mature 16-year-old than a 22-year-old that's lived in their parents basement playing WoW since graduating high school. They might not fully grasp when I say "paying bills fucking blows" because as a 16-year-old they've most likely never handled paying for their own living expenses, but it's still better than having the conversation degrade into which WoW class is the most useful, for example.

It was moreso directed at exilement, who said "Life experience always translates to maturity, and there's no realistic way some 12 year old kid could act as maturely as someone like me around here."
I guess it depends what you define as mature. I wouldn't necessarily say having more experiences leads to maturity. There are some people that have all these experiences and this "wisdom" and yet interpret them badly. Like I said, I think logic and ability to focus on what matters are 2 things that are better correlated with maturity.

Yeah, you do get those people who are like, "AS A MOTHER I HAVE AUTHORITY OVER EVERYTHING BECAUSE I KNOW MORE." I agree with you.

^ True, I hope what I said didn't come off like that.

Quote from Automaton

I don't see how experience is necessarily positively correlated with maturity. It's correlated with knowledge, but I mean just because I don't have as much experience as someone older than 18 doesn't mean that I'm less mature.

Not to sound harsh, but honestly it seems like you're trying to warp your personal definition of "maturity" to whatever patterns of behavior you believe you exhibit, since you obviously consider yourself mature. And when I describe your age group in a way that implies a relative lack of maturity, you need to somehow explain how and why I'm wrong to avoid cognitive dissonance, instead of considering the possibility that I know what I'm talking about and you have a lot of maturing left to do.

I mean, when you say:

Quote from Automaton

All it means is I know less about the real world, but I don't claim to know more, I just say "I wouldn't know, I haven't experienced that".

sure, that's a sign of maturity to acknowledge a lack of experience when faced with it, but why do you think someone who has that experience isn't somehow more mature for it? You said it's correlated with knowledge, so why is saying "I wouldn't know" not reflective of your maturity?

Quote from Automaton

I'd say things like logic make much more of a difference. I can be completely logical in my decisions without having as much experience, and if I lack the experience I don't make a decision either way.

Fair enough, except few people know when they lack that experience in the first place, leading to "logical" deductions that might seem mature and reasonable to you, but not to others who know better. For example, your assumption that gnosticism was some opposite belief to agnosticism. You didn't know you were wrong, but you came to the "logical" conclusion that agnosticism was a useless term because of it.


Just keep in mind that I remember being your age, and I remember thinking I was mature for my age. I'd probably be saying what you're saying now. Think back to when you were 13 -- if you honestly think you're just as mature now as you were then, then I feel sorry for you. It's the same way looking back on 17 as a 21 year old. My brother is 17 and I still see him as a kid.

I guess I take back that "it's correlated with knowledge" comment.

Quote from Exilement

^ True, I hope what I said didn't come off like that.



Not to sound harsh, but honestly it seems like you're trying to warp your personal definition of "maturity" to whatever patterns of behavior you believe you exhibit, since you obviously consider yourself mature. And when I describe your age group in a way that implies a relative lack of maturity, you need to somehow explain how and why I'm wrong to avoid cognitive dissonance, instead of considering the possibility that I know what I'm talking about and you have a lot of maturing left to do.

Pretty much all of that could be turned right around, by saying that you could just be saying the mature people are usually older because you yourself are older, instead of considering the possibility that maybe there is less maturing to do for me than you think there is. I just don't think age is of as much importance as the individual. A 70 year old could tell a 30 year old "you have a lot of maturing to do", the 30 year old would respond with "I don't believe so", and then the 70 year old could say "but you wouldn't know because you haven't experienced full maturity yet as I have at my age. When you get to my age you'll realise this". There's no way to validate the older persons claim other than me coming back to this thread in 10 years time and saying whether or not you were right. It just so happens that at the moment I don't see what experience can gain me, considering I'm out of puberty and therefore not too many mental changes are going to be happening. And even if there was, that doesn't necessarily indicate immaturity.

sure, that's a sign of maturity to acknowledge a lack of experience when faced with it, but why do you think someone who has that experience isn't somehow more mature for it? You said it's correlated with knowledge, so why is saying "I wouldn't know" not reflective of your maturity?

I don't think maturity is related to knowledge, it's related to what you do with knowledge you gain and how you act and think. What you KNOW doesn't make what you do or think mature.

Fair enough, except few people know when they lack that experience in the first place, leading to "logical" deductions that might seem mature and reasonable to you, but not to others who know better. For example, your assumption that gnosticism was some opposite belief to agnosticism. You didn't know you were wrong, but you came to the "logical" conclusion that agnosticism was a useless term because of it.

Again, I would argue that me coming to that conclusion wouldn't be considered immaturity, moreso ignorance. The decision I came to was mature because based on my current information I came to the most logical conclusion in my eyes. When that information was proven to be wrong, I accepted that and proceeded to alter my opinion. Altering your opinion when you see you're wrong is, in my opinion, a mature thing to do. Do I consider someone who already had the opinion that agnosticism wasn't a useless term because they had all the information more mature than me? Not at all. Maturity is about the mindset, not the knowledge that influences the mindset. There's a vast, VAST, amount of knowledge to be gained in this world, the more you know doesn't make you the more mature. It also doesn't make you definitively more intelligent (though there is definitely a correlation there), just more knowledgable.

Just keep in mind that I remember being your age, and I remember thinking I was mature for my age. I'd probably be saying what you're saying now. Think back to when you were 13 -- if you honestly think you're just as mature now as you were then, then I feel sorry for you. It's the same way looking back on 17 as a 21 year old. My brother is 17 and I still see him as a kid.

I've considered this many times, because I think back to when I was 13 or 14 and realise how stupid and immature I was. The problem comes, however, when you start to wonder whether you can ever judge yourself. Who is to say that the 17 year old you wasn't more mature than the 21 year old you, however your current mindset makes you view it otherwise? It's kind of an unfalsifiable thing to say that you will see that you're wrong in the future. I can't say what I'll believe when I'm 21, so arguing it is pointless, what matters is what I think now.

As I have said, maturity shouldn't be related to experience, rather the mind that interprets that experience. There are many 25 year olds that are immature, and there are many 17 year olds that are mature. This is off-topic and I'm not sure whether I fully believe this, but I'd even say anyone that's religious could be considered more immature than someone that's non-religious. And vast amounts of older people are religious.

In some ways I think what we're discussing here is synonymous with wisdom. I mean, people say they gain "wisdom" through experiences with their age. These videos demonstrates why I believe this to be bullshit, and also why the need for maturity is stupid, watch them if you want:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJCwCS0ueO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oklics6PFR8&feature=plcp

As the top comment says:
"You gain wisdom only if you think about your experiences"
I don't think that if someone has more experiences and are older, and interprets and thinks about those experiences in a mature way, that they are any more mature than someone with less experiences who also interprets them in a mature way. The maturity is the same because it's only based on their interpretation, not on how many times they've interpreted.

Quote from Automaton

Who is to say that the 17 year old you wasn't more mature than the 21 year old you, however your current mindset makes you view it otherwise?

I look back on the decisions I made, the way I acted and my overall perspective of other people and myself and wince at how fucking stupid I was. There's no objective measurement of maturity, but I can honestly say I've matured in a LOT of aspects since then, and everyone I know would agree with that.


Look, all I'm saying is that age matters to an extent, I'm addressing the people who are saying it makes no difference. It obviously does. I can't tell how a 13 year old will act or present himself on a forum based off his age, and there's no reason to say he'll act immature compared to any 15 year old. In that aspect, it doesn't matter a whole lot. But if you compare the post history of a 13 year old to a 21 year old, it's pretty obvious who's who.

I agree with what you're saying, I know it's not so much experience that determines maturity, but how you shape your behavior based off of it. That plays a massive part in how mature you appear to others.

All I'm saying is that the sort of experiences you go through from 17 to 21 will make you a more mature person, and will affect your "mindset" with which you base your behavior off of. Your mentality is not static from the age of 17 throughout the rest of your life and anyone my age or older will simply laugh at the idea that it is. Why? Because we were your age and we've gone through periods thinking "I'm as mature now as I'll ever be", only to look back and realize how wrong we were.

While I might be hesitant to admit that at your age, I'd be mortified at my age knowing I haven't significantly matured in the last 4 years.

I guess what you're saying is true, I have to retract the strength of my position somewhat. I guess I feel that the individual matters more than the age?

Let's take a hypothetical example. There's a 16 year old who we consider to be mature for his age, and a 25 year old that we consider to be immature for his age. The first person AND the second person become more mature with time, but in relation to each other the younger one is still more mature. So yes, maturity will increase, but it depends on the individual what their actual maturity level is.

Then again, if we say 60% of people of each age-set are immature and 40% mature (random numbers), then as that age increases the average maturity increases too, even though some of those people in the age group will be less mature than people younger than them.

Quote from Automaton

I guess I feel that the individual matters more than the age?

Cool, so do I. But both of them very clearly do matter in their own ways.

ok, so maturity is more important than age. And now I see the age for some other people on the forum and I dont feel awkward about being young. I'm 11 and I'm turning 12 in october. I can admit, my animations and maturity is not as "advanced" as a lot of people on the forum. I will admit that I can get sorta pissed around here easily if someone is being a total dick, but I try not to get like that, unless it is major dick like. And my animating does need to improve and get better, but that is because I am only 11 and more of the older animators on here are much better because they have gone through all the grades and I bet some have gone to animating school too. And atleast I dont act like- not saying any names *cough* Kanga-B- I mean he acts like he's growling at someone else when he gets pissy. So, I guess I shouldn't of felt weird about giving my age before.

This actually manifested into a debate over night?
I'll be damned yo.

So yeah, that was a pretty interesting read.

Quote from Jutsu

This actually manifested into a debate over night?
I'll be damned yo.

I was surprised too when I got on this morning, because there were already three pages of comments.

Quote from Jutsu

This actually manifested into a debate over night?

manifesting debates is what I do, nigga

Quote from Exilement

manifesting debates is what I do, nigga

You're doing a good job bro.
*bro fist*

Well, I'm back to lurk mode now, I'll be watching.