Every day, an all new you

We are always changing. Literally. In a region of the brain called the hippocampus, about 3 percent of neurons are replaced each month. Red blood cells get a little overripe after a few months in service and are trashed in favor of new ones. Proteins have a shelf life, after which they are degraded and new copies are substituted. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single molecule in your body that was there at birth.

This unsettles me - the idea that the me sitting here is destined to be reconstituted with all new molecules. It would probably unsettle anyone. On a psychological level, we are all resistant to the inevitability of change, all biased to believe that what is, will always be. This isn't just an academic concern; it's pertinent to the new world dawning in a few weeks.

If you carry out a "longitudinal" study - follow your subjects for decades, as scientists have done - and, at various points, assess their personalities and values, you'll find that there's a steady rate of change throughout. We're all constantly evolving. Then try asking your subjects a retrospective question: How much has your personality changed in the last decade? What about your values? From teenagers to grandparents, people give relatively accurate assessments.

Now, instead, ask your subjects a prospective question: How much do you think your personality and values will change in the next decade? People systematically underestimate the extent. They believe that the person they are today is the person they will always be.

Belgian scientist Jordi Quoidbach and his colleagues first discovered this phenomenon. In a 2013 Science paper, they called it the "end-of-history illusion". People recognize the changes they've undergone but resist the idea that change will continue unabated into the future. Intellectually, history ends with the present.

This phenomenon is reflected in how we perceive our tastes and our social patterns. Who was your best friend 10 years ago? Joe Blow from Outer Mongolia, to whom you haven't spoken in years. Who do you predict will be your best friend 10 years from now? Well, of course, my current BFF. It's hard to imagine that a relationship that so matters in your present could drift into irrelevance, as so many have in the past. What was your favorite band 10 years ago? Some flash-in-the-pan group you'd be embarrassed to be caught listening to today. And a decade from now? Well, your current favorite, of course - hey, this is music for the ages.

It makes intuitive sense that, while remembering specific changes from the past, people have trouble picturing specific changes in the future. How can we contemplate liking some new singer in a decade who probably is in middle school now? But this limitation evidently extends beyond specifics; we have trouble contemplating how much we will "change as a person".

Quoidbach and his colleagues found that this end-of-history illusion produces bad economic decisions. How much would you pay to go to a concert by that band you loved a decade ago? "Them? Two cents." How much would you pay for tickets to a concert in a decade by your current favorite? "Lots, they'll be even more awesome by then." There's no better example of the economic consequences of the end-of-history illusion than people paying to remove tattoos - who would have guessed that your opinion would change about those ink portraits of Pokemon characters?

We view our present selves as having finally arrived, finally evolved into the person we were always meant to be. We can recognize that we are the end-product of all those changes over the years. But no way will this slow evolution just keep going, we think.

In various ways, then, we tend to find the present to be, well, so powerfully present, that it's hard to imagine that it will prove as fleeting as all those dimly remembered pasts. But - here's the conclusion to my long windup - we'll need to be more imaginative.

I feel as if we are in crisis like nothing in my lifetime, and I know I'm not alone.

To fight this despair, I remind myself daily of the end-of-history illusion.

I try to both think and feel the fact that the present about to cave in on us eventually will be the past. We can hasten that process if we struggle against it every inch of the way.

Tribune News Service

每一天，一个全新的你

我们始终处于变化之中，这种变化实实在在。我们大脑中有个叫海马体的区域，每个月都有3%的神经细胞会被替换掉。红血细胞在为人体服务数月后会失去活力，然后会被新的红血细胞取代。蛋白质也有保质期，过期后它们就会被分解，为新的所取代。你很难从身体里找到哪怕一个分子是自你出生就存在的。

这种想法让我很不安——即现在坐在这里的我注定要被全新的分子重构。这也许会让任何人都感到不安。心理上，我们都抗拒这种变化的必然性，我们都一厢情愿地相信，现状会永远继续。这不仅仅是一个学术问题：它也关系到未来几周后即将出现的新世界。

如果你从事一项“纵向”研究——像科学家那样，追踪受试者数十年，并在不同的时点评估他们的性格和价值观，你会发现，自始至终他们的变化速率非常稳定。我们都在不断进化。然后，你问你的受试者一个回顾性的问题：在过去10年中，你的性格改变了多少？价值观改变了多少？从青少年到老人，他们都会给出相对准确的评估。

现在，你再问你的受试者一个预测性问题：你觉得未来10年自己的性格和价值观会改变多少？人们通常会低估改变的程度。他们认为当下的自己会永远如此。

比利时科学家若尔迪·霍尔迪巴克和他的同事首先发现了这一现象。在2013年《科学》杂志上发表的一篇论文中，他们将其称为“历史终结错觉”。人们承认过去的变化，但拒绝接受未来也会同样变化的道理。在人们的头脑中，历史终结于当下。

这种现象反映在我们对品味和社交模式的认知上。谁是10年前你最好的朋友？一个你已多年未曾联系的来自蒙古的某个人。再预测一下，谁会是你10年后最好的朋友？那当然是我现在最好的朋友了。你很难想象现在对你如此重要的关系，会和过去很多关系一样，逐渐淡化成毫不相关的事。10年前你最喜欢的乐队是哪个？也许不过是某个昙花一现的组合，而现在你可能都羞于被别人发现在听他们的音乐。那么10年后呢？当然是你现在最喜欢的乐队——嘿，他们的音乐会经久不衰。

从直觉上说，这不无道理。人们虽然能记得过去具体的改变，却很难想象未来的具体变化。我们怎么能够预期自己喜欢10年后出现的新歌手？他没准现在还在读中学呢。但这种思维局限显然不止于具体事情；我们很难预测自己“作为一个人会有多大改变”。

霍尔迪巴克和他的同事发现，这种历史终结错觉会让人在经济方面做出糟糕的决定。要是让你现在去听自己10年前喜欢的乐队的演唱会，你打算付多少钱？“他们吗？2美分吧。”要是让你10年后去听你现在最喜欢的乐队的演唱会，你愿意付多少钱？“很多。到那时他们会更棒。”人们花钱除掉纹身的例子，最能反映历史终结错觉的经济行为后果——谁能想到你对“口袋妖怪”纹身的想法会发生改变？

我们认为当下的自己已经定型，最终演变成了我们应该成为的自己。我们会认为自己是过去所有变化的终极产物；在我们看来，这种缓慢的演变绝不会继续发生。

在种种情形下，我们会发现当下如此真切强大，以至于我们很难想象，它会和那些我们只有朦胧记忆的过去一样转瞬即逝。但——这就是我铺陈到此的结论——我们需要更具想象力。

我感觉我们就像身处一场空前的危机之中，而且我知道，有如此想法者不只我一人。

为了对抗这种绝望，我每天都提醒自己历史终结错觉的存在。

(本段的翻译有奖征集中)

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