[Age and aging as incomplete architecture of human ontogenesis]

The focus is on the basic biological-genetic and social-cultural architecture of human development across the life span. The starting point is the frame provided by past evolutionary forces. A first conclusion is that for modern times and the relative brevity of the time windows involved in modernity, further change in human functioning is primarily dependent on the evolution of new cultural forms of knowledge rather than evolution-based changes in the human genome. A second conclusion concerns the general architecture of the life course. Three governing lifespan developmental principles coexist. First, because long-term evolutionary selection evince a negative age correlation, genome-based plasticity and biological potential decrease with age. Second, for growth aspects of human development to extend further into the life span, culture-based resources are required at ever increasing levels. Third, because of age-related losses in biological plasticity and negative effects associated with some principles of learning (e.g., negative transfer), the efficiency of culture is reduced as lifespan development unfolds. Joint application of these principles suggests that the lifespan architecture becomes more and more incomplete with age. Three examples are given to illustrate the implications of the lifespan architecture outlined. The first is a general theory of development involving the orchestration of three component processes and their age-related dynamics: Selection, optimization, and compensation. The second example is theory and research on lifespan intelligence that distinguishes between the biology-based mechanics and culture-based pragmatics of intelligence and specifies distinct age gradients for the two categories of intellectual functioning. The third example considers the goal of evolving a positive biological and cultural scenario for the last phase of life (fourth age). Because of the general lifespan architecture outlined, this objective becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. In fact, for other reasons (such as the obsolescence created by rapid technological change) the 21st century can be considered as the century of the permanently incomplete mind. The advent of intervention genetics creates a new scenario with promise and despair. Promise because of the possibility to complete the biological-genetic architecture of the life course through a priori and a posteriori genetic engineering, despair because of a new schism created by the risk of dissociation of the time course of genetic intervention and cultural evolution. For the first time in history, humankind is truly in charge of it's biocultural "natural" destiny.