Patterns--What Could Be Simpler?

I read in a recent issue of New Scientist, that aging, which may bring with it memory loss, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and a boat load of other mental maladies does have one benefit: increased “pattern recognition.” Yep, as one gets older, a lot of things get dimmer and fade away, but apparently one of the few things that gets, or at least can get, stronger and brighter is pattern recognition, which Laura Spiney the author of the article “Golden Oldies”(New Scientist, August 13, 2005) says is a critical component of problem-solving skills. “Pattern recognition is useful for solving problems. It is the ability to see that the object or problem confronting you belongs to a group of similar objects, and is therefore likely to have similar properties. So you can solve the problem on the basis of prior experience, without knowing very much about it. So, you see, as we get older, we get more capable of solving problems. In our wizened years, we are able to see that a given problem, let us call it problem “X,” is quite like other problems that we’ve encountered, like say, problems “U, V, and W”. If, in the past, we solved “U, V and W” with strategy “A”, strategy “A” might be able to solve our current problem “X”. (Unless of course, problem “X” is a bit different and is really more like problem “Y”, in which case, given my increasingly powerful pattern recognition capabilities, I will note that problem “X” is more amenable to strategy “B”.) So in this case, where I might have used Strategy “A”, instead I will use strategy “B”. But wait a minute! What if strategy “B” has been better used with problems “R, S, and T?” Strategy “B” will not work with “U, V, and W”. Any ol’ fool can see that! No, “U, V, and W” will require a much more subtle strategic approach. It will require strategy “C”. So, in order to make the long story of pattern recognition, a short story, problem “X,”---which I originally thought looked like problems “U, V, and W,” but which in fact, looks much more like problems “R, S and T”--- will be solved, not by strategy “A,” or “B,” but by strategy “C”! I will solve problem “X” with strategy “C”! Voila! There you have it. The amazing story of how, as we get older, all problems are the same. And all we really need to do, is use the same solution for whatever problem we may encounter. From now on, you, like I, will benefit from solving all of our problems with the same solution. What could be simpler?