5 replies to this topic

[fripay]

I'm thinking that all life that we know of may be genetically programmed to die. Sort of a genetically imprinted expiration date.
And this is not just a result of entropy's steady assault on the ordered functions of the body; the 'shelf life' is 'intentional', worked into genetics through evolution.

Why would it be an evolutionary advantage to die? It makes no sense on the scale of the individual, but on the scale of populations, of species, it does make sense. If the old don't grow weaker and die, their greater experience and/or continued growth gives them an advantage over the up-and-coming younger crowd. Great for those individuals, but bad for the population, because that means they have much less genetic flexibility their ability to evolve quickly and change to suit changes in their environment is reduced, possibly to near zero in an extreme case.

So, we then get evolution on a macro scale. Natural selection begins promoting or eliminating whole populations, based on their ability to evolve to suit new conditions.

Obviously, however, organisms that die too quickly will not get a good chance of passing on genes, and will also be selected against. So, we have two forces pressing pre-programmed life expectancy in opposite directions. The interest of a population's flexibility presses the age down, while the interest of an individual's ability to pass on genes presses upwards on it. Eventually, a balance is reached, setting the pre-programmed death age for that particular species or population.

Am I right?

[Nameless_]

You are...

What I think is that life is just a contract with death. Without life, you can't die (well, obviously, because you have to be alive in the first place if you want to die), and without death, there is no life.
As our bodies grow older and older, you can see that we are less flexible and find it harder to change. So if we grow older, and something significantly changes, like a new environment or something, we will find it hard to adapt to life. Also, it's unfair for potential life if we grow older and have no reproduction. Why do WE get a chance to live life (and for forever too), while people or animals that might've been life do not. What makes us US?

It is hard, and there's also the evolution argument that we have to consider as well.

But then. What is life anyway?
Are we just programmed to live, reproduce and then die?
Are there another reason for us to live?
Are we just a tweak of chemicals that somehow bonded together to form US?

This is another point of why we have to die... if we didn't, well, then we'll be thinking about those questions for the rest of out lives... or should I say, eternity?

(Apart from the second question, because if we lived and will live forever into eternity, we won't know what death is and therefore will not ask a question regarding death.)

To tell you the truth, in that world of immortals, we might even fantasize about death, as we will grow sick of life and grow sick of having a conscientious mind. We would earn for a thing or a state of ourselves where we could just forget about everything, forever (death) and while this might seem ridiculous in our society, world and universe (after all, isn't the soul reason of living is to stay alive as long as possible?), it might not be in THAT universe and in that world, as things work out differently in different worlds with different laws of physics and life. :)

[truefusion]

The definition of natural selection implies that the reason why you died was because you just so happened to be given an evolutionary process that led to your doom. In other words, you evolved to your own doom; "death" itself was an evolutionary process. This implies that death can be avoided. But in order to survive death, from the theory's perspective, you would require an evolution that prevents death. In which case would contradict this part:

fripay, on Aug 16 2009, 08:16 AM, said:

I'm thinking that all life that we know of may be genetically programmed to die. Sort of a genetically imprinted expiration date.
And this is not just a result of entropy's steady assault on the ordered functions of the body; the 'shelf life' is 'intentional', worked into genetics through evolution.

Why would it be an evolutionary advantage to die? It makes no sense on the scale of the individual, but on the scale of populations, of species, it does make sense. If the old don't grow weaker and die, their greater experience and/or continued growth gives them an advantage over the up-and-coming younger crowd. Great for those individuals, but bad for the population, because that means they have much less genetic flexibility their ability to evolve quickly and change to suit changes in their environment is reduced, possibly to near zero in an extreme case.

But this perspective of yours wasn't practical to begin with. That is, if the theory concerns survival of the fittest, why then should the more experienced be eliminated just so the younger, inexperienced side be given a chance? On the contrary, that's not the case; the theory does not suggest considerations for other species or subsets of a certain species. Even so, it wouldn't be safe to argue, at least from the theory itself, that certain species were specially chosen, due to how random the process is perceived as. And i wouldn't call it safe, either, to suggest that the reason for their death was to keep the earth's resources in check—even if the earth's resources gets balanced out as a result of it.

Life need not include the theory of evolution in order to claim that life is predestined to end.

[Nameless_]

truefusion, on Aug 17 2009, 01:02 AM, said:

The definition of natural selection implies that the reason why you died was because you just so happened to be given an evolutionary process that led to your doom. In other words, you evolved to your own doom; "death" itself was an evolutionary process. This implies that death can be avoided. But in order to survive death, from the theory's perspective, you would require an evolution that prevents death. In which case would contradict this part:

I never really thought about it this way before... Death: An Evolution?
It is just too weird, too hard to comprehend. If death is an evolution, then does it mean we evolve throughout life until we die? I thought evolution was the mutation of your genetic genes when it is passed from your parents to the offspring, and it is a way and a method to keep the species alive, by giving them adaptabilities of what they need to survive in this new environment.

It saves them.

But if what you said is true, then evolution not only saves a life (or a species) but also kills them. Then what is the point of evolution. Let's say that evolution helps people (and animals) to grow up and be able to survive in this world (babies can't survive themselves), then why turn the biological clock in the opposite direction once you get to your thirties, slowly and not painfully killing you? This I don't get.

(And when I type "biological clock", I mean biological clock in the sense that you are surviving, surviving, and growing and developing the skills that you need to survive, then slowly dying, dying, dying, losing all the skills (or most of the skills) that you have attained in life. NOT biological clock in the sense that you reach to your middle age years and turning back into a baby.)

[truefusion]

Nameless_, on Aug 16 2009, 05:49 PM, said:

I never really thought about it this way before... Death: An Evolution?
It is just too weird, too hard to comprehend. If death is an evolution, then does it mean we evolve throughout life until we die? I thought evolution was the mutation of your genetic genes when it is passed from your parents to the offspring, and it is a way and a method to keep the species alive, by giving them adaptabilities of what they need to survive in this new environment.

It saves them.

But if what you said is true, then evolution not only saves a life (or a species) but also kills them. Then what is the point of evolution. Let's say that evolution helps people (and animals) to grow up and be able to survive in this world (babies can't survive themselves), then why turn the biological clock in the opposite direction once you get to your thirties, slowly and not painfully killing you? This I don't get.

Natural selection can yield either beneficial or unbeneficial changes within a species, that is, as described in the Origin of Species. When it provides unbeneficial changes, this, according to its definition, will yield to the species death. Therefore you have basically evolved to your own doom, without your consent. Likewise, without your consent, you can evolve to your benefit. Obviously, you would accept the beneficial one, and by the time you notice that you've obtained a biological change that leads to your doom, you'll probably be dead by then. Regardless, decay when applied to organisms is always a biological change, therefore, in other words, you are evolving to your death.

[networker]

You can say all you want about death but when it comes right down to it
there is one thing to be sure of. Death is as natural as living.
The way I see it, death is a natural metamorphosis in our
lives. It leads to something else.
Every physical part of our body turns into something else
after death as does the soul or spirit,
which one could compare to electricity.

Although we don't understand it and probably never will. There are somethings
we are not meant to understand. We just aren't given the 'windows' to
perceive it and understand it.