It seems plausible to me that there is a sort of selection process in which people are creating ostensible-wisdom all the time, but only some of that wisdom gets passed along to the next generation, and the next, and so forth, while a lot of it gets discarded. If some example of wisdom is indeed ancient, then you can by virtue of that have at least some evidence that it has passed through this selection process.
To what extent this selection process selects for wisdom that actually earns that designation I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.
It seems plausible to me that there is a sort of selection process in which people are creating ostensible-wisdom all the time, but only some of that wisdom gets passed along to the next generation, and the next, and so forth, while a lot of it gets discarded. If some example of wisdom is indeed ancient, then you can by virtue of that have at least some evidence that it has passed through this selection process.
To what extent this selection process selects for wisdom that actually earns that designation I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.