Adult learning is preserved and individuated by the progressive erasure of any pre-established standard.

Evidence

We can now see that the plasticity of the brain, understood in this sense, corresponds well to the possibility of fashioning by memory, to the capacity to shape a history. While the central nervous system’s power for change is particularly clear during the developmental stage, we know for certain that the ability to learn, to acquire new skills and new memories, is maintained throughout life. And this is true in a different way from one individual to the next. The capacity of each to receive and to create his or her own form does not depend on any pre-established form; the original model or standard is, in a way, progressively erased. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 42

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘the original model is progressively erased’ claim is the precise inversion of ‘flexibility as docility to a norm’ that the reader wants to catch in a memo.