> "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.

Strongly disagree.

Crystallized intelligence lets me see analogies and relations between disparate domains, abstract patterns that repeat everywhere, broadening my vision from a blinkered must-finish-this-task to a broader what-the-hell-is-this-world-I'm-in. I'm old enough to realise life is finite. Nothing satisfies like understanding.

Emotional intelligence lets me actually behave more like what I know a sane person should behave like. It lets me see I don't have to act on every passing whim and fancy, which are more like external noise than something of an essential expression from my inner self (which is a culturally-instigated fantasy). It lets me see how I'm connected to everyone else and everything in the world. Why I shouldn't stuff my own pockets at everyone else's expense. Why making other people unhappy ultimately makes myself unhappy. It wouldn't have been that hard to spot if I hadn't been caught up in fluid intelligence feats of strength.

These are the real rewards of middle age, not anyone's consolation prizes.

That said, I respect your right to disagree. But I feel this particular way.

> are the consolation prizes no one really wants.

If you can't figure out how to use accumulated knowledge and advanced people skills by your late 30s, then maybe you weren't so rational or adaptable to new situations in the first place. Things may not click for me like they did when I was 25, but I usually see right away when I have relevant knowledge to solve a problem or when I know someone who can help.

YMMV, but I was too horny to actually make use of my superior fluid intelligence in my 20s, so I’m content with the tradeoff here.

Crystallized intelligence sounds like “wisdom” to me, and emotional intelligence sounds like “charisma + tact + empathy.” Those are all things a person should definitely want, probably even more than raw intelligence itself.

Crystallized intelligence makes you good at solving problems, emotional intelligence makes you good at life, fluid intelligence makes you good at solving puzzles.

I'd gladly trade in some of the fluid intelligence I have left for more emotional intelligence.

Or you could just join me and be in denial of it.

I'm only half joking. I think it's notable that chess players tend to peak in their mid to late thirties. But that's only looking at world class players who have reached something relatively close to their genetic potential for the understanding we have today. It's entirely possible for 'regular' humans to continue seeing major improvement well past 40. I know that some players have achieved the GM title in their 50s and 60s. These were already strong players beforehand, but maintaining the level of play to get those norms and ratings is a very significant task for anybody.

It's entirely possible that these observations are 100% consistent with the reported observations and analyses, but if so then those analyses don't really matter in the way that we intuitively think they'd matter.

An individual can improve their fluid intelligence (“variance”) through a variety of means well into adulthood. Yes, more research is needed (and I’m sure a lot of research is being done), but I can guarantee you can already do this reliably right now.

"Fluid intelligence" is not very valuable when it comes to long-term decision making.

The paper actually argues we peak in our 50s.

”Across both model weightings, humans appear to reach their peak in cognitive–personality functioning between the ages of 55 and 60.”

What they call "fluid intelligence" is just intelligence and the rest are skills/aptitudes. "Crystallized intelligence" is more plainly: efficacy/productivity and it's common knowledge that people are most productive during the middle of their lives. When they have the best balance of knowledge accumulated and raw intelligence.

In humans, intelligence manifests as memory, spatial and verbal reasoning, pattern recognition, etc. What is so interesting about IQ and g (the general factor) is that all of these abilities trend together. A score in one area is a good prediction of the score in another area. There is no reason why that must be the case a priori, and LLMs are a great example of an intelligent system which is much better at recalling information than it is at reasoning.

Human aging doesn't seem to affect all of these abilities uniformly. e.g. Everyone seems to complain about memory the most (and that matches my experience), but I've been pleasantly surprised how well neuroplasticity and pattern recognition have held.

> As someone well past "peak" fluid intelligence at this point, I always hate reading research like this. "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.

At the end, I agree with you, but for a different reason. My fluid intelligence is still doing well, but my newly acquired “crystallized” and “emotional” intelligence are just good to let me understand why people want to write existential horror stories. Hell, I now realize that some of the dark stuff I didn’t want to touch with a long pole three years ago are in fact escapism to a rosier parallel universe. I liked myself better when I was sixteen years old and I couldn’t understand that boy one year older than me who said he despised our prisons of flesh. May you be doing well Y.P., and if you happen to stumble upon this paragraph, know it took me 25 years to see what you saw so clearly.

Really? What did you achieve in those times of high fluid low emotional intelligence?

I played a whole lot of video games myself. It’s nice to look back at would i could have achieved with my current perspective but that’s kind of the point of this.

Don't knock crystallized intelligence.

In my 20s, I could learn a programming language in a weekend by reading a book. I could write code fast. I could figure out bugs. I felt so fast and so smart.

In my 40s and 50s, I looked back at that guy with some amusement. Sure, I didn't type as fast. But I spent a lot less time debugging because I wrote it right the first time, because I could just see what the right thing do to was. Net result was that I produced working code in less time. 48 might have been my peak year.

Emotional intelligence is what allows you to actually raise kids. Having it at midlife is a benefit, not a downside.

Isn't fluid intelligence learning? and crystallized intelligence stuff you already know?

> "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.

Speak for yourself. I'd happily retroactively trade a dozen IQ points back in my 20s for emotional intelligence. I'd be much happier.