25 isn’t a hard line. The reality is that our brains continue to change forever. But, to use a metaphor, around our mid 20s is when it’s done “cooking”, but just like you might let meat “rest” on the counter for a bit after it’s done cooking, your brain keeps changing, just not to the same degree. Maybe some day if brain scanning technology gets better, and we have a real healthcare system, people could get scans to see when their brain seems to have reached full maturity, especially if they’ve committed a crime. Of course “full maturity” will always be sort of an arbitrary choice because as I said, our brains are never truly finished.
I think we’re trying to find a level of neurological development that describes a level of consciousness we’d mostly agree is sufficient to warrant responsibility for ones actions… For instance if a toddler shoots and kills someone, we know there’s no way it was intentional, it was an accident or at least there’s no way the toddler knew what they were doing or could grasp the consequences. But at some point in the development of that brain something changes. At puberty a whole section of the brain starts developing rapidly, and it just so happens it’s the part that processes decision making. Exactly the part that changes us from what kids are to what adults are. So figuring out what a fully developed vs not yet fully developed one looks like seems pretty important. Then making scans regular procedure for when you need to determine if someone is developed enough to be responsible. But like you said, when a particular person gets there varies a lot, based on a lot of factors. I would hope a simple scan could help you prove you don’t need your rights taken away.
25 isn’t a hard line. The reality is that our brains continue to change forever. But, to use a metaphor, around our mid 20s is when it’s done “cooking”, but just like you might let meat “rest” on the counter for a bit after it’s done cooking, your brain keeps changing, just not to the same degree. Maybe some day if brain scanning technology gets better, and we have a real healthcare system, people could get scans to see when their brain seems to have reached full maturity, especially if they’ve committed a crime. Of course “full maturity” will always be sort of an arbitrary choice because as I said, our brains are never truly finished.
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I’m sorry you’re going through that, that sucks.
I think we’re trying to find a level of neurological development that describes a level of consciousness we’d mostly agree is sufficient to warrant responsibility for ones actions… For instance if a toddler shoots and kills someone, we know there’s no way it was intentional, it was an accident or at least there’s no way the toddler knew what they were doing or could grasp the consequences. But at some point in the development of that brain something changes. At puberty a whole section of the brain starts developing rapidly, and it just so happens it’s the part that processes decision making. Exactly the part that changes us from what kids are to what adults are. So figuring out what a fully developed vs not yet fully developed one looks like seems pretty important. Then making scans regular procedure for when you need to determine if someone is developed enough to be responsible. But like you said, when a particular person gets there varies a lot, based on a lot of factors. I would hope a simple scan could help you prove you don’t need your rights taken away.