I'll be 22 in a couple weeks, and I already see the progression from when I was 12, 15, 17, 20... However, it's not a strictly monotonic function of progress. Me_{2008} had a better life philosophy than Me_{2009}, though I think Me_{2012} has surpassed both plus I know a lot more. I've learned things when I was younger that later I either forgot or learned something opposing the initial belief, and then later either relearned or realized the original belief was the correct one. I'm certain there are things I have yet to (or may never) learn/relearn and thus correct whatever is incorrect with my present self... Was there something I understood at age 16 that I don't anymore, and such a thing would make me (even just marginally) better? Probably.
Do you find your self progressing after each year, or every few years, and never taking a wrong turn? As an extreme example I can imagine someone having a bad drug problem in their 30s during which they're worse off in every way than in their 20s, and only come out of it in their 40s. I think for most people improvement and regression are more subtle and happen in many dimensions. Strict progress is illusory. I think it's too easy to get caught up in your present values and discount the wisdom of your younger self just because you care about your present self more than your past self.
It's also fairly obvious with older people that their minds just don't work like they did when they were in their 30s. Are they really wiser, do they really have more total knowledge than at their prime? What's the ratio of those who are and those who aren't? I also like to point out that a lot of important knowledge and wisdom can be found in books alone without experience. It's easy to forget this fact among all humans regardless of age: other people (including your past selves) may be privy to information you are not privy to.
You're right about a lot here. Gaining wisdom with age is not guaranteed, and it's not a monotonic progression. Your comment about drug addiction is insightful.
But neither of those invalidate the original point -- that you can have age without wisdom, but not wisdom without age.
Taken at face value, the fact you can't have wisdom without age seems nothing more than a truism. The more interesting questions are: what age is necessary (since if old men can be utter fools, no age is sufficient) for a potential (realized or not) of significant amounts of wisdom (enough "to be dangerous" and acquire more on one's own), and is more age always better? I'd say no to the second, and arbitrarily 14 (with fuzzy boundaries) to the first. There are those in history (and right now) wiser in their teens than most others in the population above their 50s. "Whence wisdom?" is thus not answered with "age", even if people do in fact have to age to acquire wisdom given the nature of time. It is acquired through study and thought, and it is hard to come by in a vacuum. Personal experience matters to some degree, but I'd argue the experience of others is more important (and easier) to learn from. ("I don't need to try krokodil to see why it's bad", etc.) Those in history who were wise well beyond their years as a young teen usually had a wise helping hand tutoring them for many years. It's much like differential and integral calculus: a 7 year old can learn it without too much difficulty if they have the right instructor.
So you assert you're further along the path with respect to the nature of wisdom (or am I misunderstanding you?), but you have provided no evidence to suggest whether that's really the case or whether you have actually gone off in the brush mistakenly thinking you are getting further ahead. There's an aphorism that comes to mind: "The great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge." As I alluded to above, I've thought the same thing about "I used to do that..", albeit with a shorter time interval. When I think it these days it's a warning sign, though I admit in many instances it really does seem like past me was obviously off-course and stupid, and I can see others making the same mistakes I made. What's interesting to me isn't the observation of that observation, what's interesting is what particular mistakes I think are being made. (Without elaboration, some examples include mistakes related to beliefs about Objectivism, communism, sovereignty, money, and cultures. An example where I was more correct at 13 than I was at 17 was beliefs about the nature of knowledge.)
So, what mistakes am I and others here making? What made your perspective change, and why are you sure your current perspective is less wrong? I've given some reasons for why I believe what I believe, how about you?
I don't assert anything, I'm just sharing my experience: That I made _exactly_ the same arguments/points you and others are making when I was young and not taken as seriously. Now, having walked further down this path, I feel differently. I'm just sharing with you a single data point.
Do you find your self progressing after each year, or every few years, and never taking a wrong turn? As an extreme example I can imagine someone having a bad drug problem in their 30s during which they're worse off in every way than in their 20s, and only come out of it in their 40s. I think for most people improvement and regression are more subtle and happen in many dimensions. Strict progress is illusory. I think it's too easy to get caught up in your present values and discount the wisdom of your younger self just because you care about your present self more than your past self.
It's also fairly obvious with older people that their minds just don't work like they did when they were in their 30s. Are they really wiser, do they really have more total knowledge than at their prime? What's the ratio of those who are and those who aren't? I also like to point out that a lot of important knowledge and wisdom can be found in books alone without experience. It's easy to forget this fact among all humans regardless of age: other people (including your past selves) may be privy to information you are not privy to.