Wisdom for centuries has been a religious or philosophical concept that varies somewhat by culture. But Jeste tells ScientificAmerican.com that there is reason to believe that it's rooted in neurobiology.

sooo, let's start by defining wisdom....

Hi miad20, You make a good point. We could also use a definition for the word "mind", as in "everyone has lost their mind". I've noticed that particular word isn't used much anymore, espeacially by scientists.

This is an extremely interesting topic which only seems to create more questions.
wisdom is not necessarily defined by knowledge
nature vs nurture?
combination of both? Neither?

regarding the general effort of neuroscience to identify which part of the brain does what function- i read yesterday an interesting question (in grof's book - see a video here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2906661141511112183).
Let's start by imagining a broken tv set; a specialist comes, identifies the broken part, replaces it, the tv is working again; the question is: can you say that just by identifying the part responsible for the function, you can say that part is producing and the result?

i keep thinking for the answer..