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RobinHanson comments on Rationality Quotes - July 2009 - Less Wrong
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But is it true? Do young folks have more of an ability to unlearn falsehoods than old folks?
I think it is true relative to the average young folk and the average old folk. To the extent that there is an uncommon skill involved in unlearning falsehoods, we can imagine people who get better at this skill by practice and learning over time. And hence, as it were, "stay young".
I think the point of the quote is not that young folks are more able to unlearn falsehoods; it's that they haven't learned as many falsehoods as old people, just by virtue of not having been around as long. If you can unlearn falsehoods, you can keep a "young" (falsehood-free) mind.
I don't think that's necessarily the thrust of the quote. It doesn't say "to remain youthful, with respect to the ability to unlearn falsehoods, requires unceasing cultivation of this ability". I don't know the context or the intent behind the quote, but it doesn't seem to imply for sure that young people generally have more of this ability than older people.
The only context is that it appears in a set of other sayings of Lazarus Long in the interlude chapters of "Time Enough For Love", later collected into "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long". I've always thought it reasonable to assume that this is Heinlein himself talking. He had more of these aphorisms than could be worked into the dialogue.
Some people through the years accumulate more and more knowledge and beliefs, not all true, and never unlearn any of them. Whatever they acquire, they cling to, and end up as stiff, bitter old folks railing against a world they can no longer deal with. Others retain a lively intellect indefinitely, by always being open to the truth -- that is, to discovering that they were wrong. That is my interpretation of the quote.
As someone else put it:
"The things that we learn prevent us from learning."
-- W. Roy Whitten