why don't we live forever

[mwmorph]

then wouldnt life be boring at 5000years?

 

[Anubis08]

The chemical pathways our bodies follow and our metabolism leads our bodies to age. SOme even suggest that errors in DNA replication can lead to it. There are also certain chemicals produced by the body that age us. Why would you want to live forever anyway?

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: Anubis08
The chemical pathways our bodies follow and our metabolism leads our bodies to age. SOme even suggest that errors in DNA replication can lead to it. There are also certain chemicals produced by the body that age us. Why would you want to live forever anyway?

The question is, why WOULDN'T you. I think anyone who has truly thought about it realizes how mediocre life is without the means to fulfill goals and dreams that require many lifetimes to accomplish. Just imagine being able to do "hobby" projects and learn things that you just dont have time for in "real life". Look at how mediocre a lot of technology or entertainment is because there just "isn't enough time/resources".

At some point in human evolution humans wont have to work at all because technology and robotics and/or superior genetically engineered humans will make managing all the difficult tasks today of survival trivial, in fact survival for 99% of the human race will be so easy in the future that they will have the problem licked if the stupid backward people before them dont wipe themselves out.

Also economies as they exist today are going to keep being upset by technological progress as we start to more and more create technology and intelligences that are superior to our own. It's like creating our own technological gods to take care of us well we spend all our time pursuing our own interests or truly having total control over how much we work and pursue leisure activities and hobbies.

Just imagine a mind-machine interface and computers able to construct any possible arrangement of matter that actually works just from schematics in your mind as you imagine them in real time. Of course I may be going out on a bit of a limb because there are "real world" limitations such as physics and chemistry but survival will be trivial and the future and economies where people work will not exist, just imagine that. Children of the future wont have to work like we do because they will either 1) be superior or 2) Have artificial intelligences that can do it infinitely much faster then any human being ever could.

Just like physical labour and factory workers were displaced by robotics and machines, so will human intelligence, it's only a matter of time.

 

[imported_justchecking]

Originally posted by: her34
why do bodies age until death, instead of aging until adulthood and maintaining that state.

is death evolutionary necessary?

This has to be the most technical question ever asked ? Nobody knows the answer. More than
2000 years ago, Buddha had the same question and he left his royal comforts to go to forests
and solitary confinements to meditate and try to find the answer to this question. I dont
know if he found the answer, though he did come out with this great wisdom, which says
"impermanence is permanent". It is just a law of nature. Everything including living and non-living
decays.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: her34
why do bodies age until death, instead of aging until adulthood and maintaining that state.

is death evolutionary necessary?

I've seen people forward evolutionary and religious explanations, but since I'm more familiar with the former I'll add my knowledge to the heap.

I've seen some refer to telomeres, the actions of telomerase, etc., and someone else refer to cellular biology. However, those are all proximate explanations. They explain how we age and die, but not why we age and die. Also, those mentioning mutation rates as inevitably causing defunct cells would be interested to know that mutation rate appears to be under selection itself from organism to organism. (In other words, some organisms' DNA mutates at faster rates than others.)

Asking why in biology requires an evolutionary perspective. There are many theories about aging and death, I'm sure if you google "evolution senescence" you'll find some of them. Specifically look for Weismann's hypothesis (now basically discredited because it requires population level selection), mutation accumulation, antagonistic pleiotropy. Also, specifically for humans, look up the grandmother hypothesis (the nobel laureate who said evolution has no need for grandparents was probably wrong). If you have trouble finding easy to understand explanations, let me know, I'd be happy to sit down and give a basic outline of each theory.

Have fun, it's an interesting topic.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: justchecking

Originally posted by: her34
why do bodies age until death, instead of aging until adulthood and maintaining that state.

is death evolutionary necessary?

This has to be the most technical question ever asked ? Nobody knows the answer. More than
2000 years ago, Buddha had the same question and he left his royal comforts to go to forests
and solitary confinements to meditate and try to find the answer to this question. I dont
know if he found the answer, though he did come out with this great wisdom, which says
"impermanence is permanent". It is just a law of nature. Everything including living and non-living
decays.

You're missing the obvious: We procreate and procreation is just a different kind of cell division and if human ancestors have been on the planet for millions or billions of years that means cellular machinery that survived is practically immortal, its just directed in the wrong direction (re-creating the wheel when we create another human being) instead of fixing the human being resources are expended into developing hundreds of thousands of eggs and sperm.

 

[imported_justchecking]

Originally posted by: Gannon

Originally posted by: justchecking

Originally posted by: her34
why do bodies age until death, instead of aging until adulthood and maintaining that state.

is death evolutionary necessary?

This has to be the most technical question ever asked ? Nobody knows the answer. More than
2000 years ago, Buddha had the same question and he left his royal comforts to go to forests
and solitary confinements to meditate and try to find the answer to this question. I dont
know if he found the answer, though he did come out with this great wisdom, which says
"impermanence is permanent". It is just a law of nature. Everything including living and non-living
decays.

You're missing the obvious: We procreate and procreation is just a different kind of cell division and if human ancestors have been on the planet for millions or billions of years that means cellular machinery that survived is practically immortal, its just directed in the wrong direction (re-creating the wheel when we create another human being) instead of fixing the human being resources are expended into developing hundreds of thousands of eggs and sperm.

Nice theory dude . Keep trying. You might actually get it right one day.

-JC.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

What he's describing is close to the disposable soma theory.

 

[aceofspades230]

"impermanence is permanent" is such a good quote because it really does describe everything in the universe from the molecular level to the universe itself.

 

[artikk]

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
It's not subjective. Your cells can only divide a limited amount of times. After that, your body's systems start to fail, and you die. Quite simple.

Anyway, the most likely reason is that after the Flood, God said he would limit man's days to 120 (years, that is) which is about what it is. He probably changed our cells' timers so that they die off after that much time. It all comes back to the original sin though. If you want an evolutionary answer, it's because we're not fully enough evolved. Yay.

And now, the flames begin, then this thread gets locked.......

We age because the telomeres on the chromosomes of the cells get shorter each time the cells divide until the cells don't have telomeres anymore. Then death awaits.
Aging Info

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: russianpower

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
It's not subjective. Your cells can only divide a limited amount of times. After that, your body's systems start to fail, and you die. Quite simple.

Anyway, the most likely reason is that after the Flood, God said he would limit man's days to 120 (years, that is) which is about what it is. He probably changed our cells' timers so that they die off after that much time. It all comes back to the original sin though. If you want an evolutionary answer, it's because we're not fully enough evolved. Yay.

And now, the flames begin, then this thread gets locked.......

We age because the telomeres on the chromosomes of the cells get shorter each time the cells divide until the cells don't have telomeres anymore. Then death awaits.
Aging Info

Fourth time that's been explained in this thread.

 

[MetalStorm]

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
Anyway, the most likely reason is that after the Flood, God said he would limit man's days to 120 (years, that is) which is about what it is. He probably changed our cells' timers so that they die off after that much time. It all comes back to the original sin though. If you want an evolutionary answer, it's because we're not fully enough evolved. Yay.

I actually almost died of laughter after reading that :laugh:

 

[Rock Hydra]

Cancer cells are "immortal". With proper Nourishment, a tumor could grow forever.

Edit:Also, yes. Death is necessary for evolution, because you need to weed out the ones that have bad or disadvantagous traits.

 

[Xenocide187]

I read somewhere a couple of years ago that the body stops aging after a certain point. Scientists are trying to figure out how, and if it is possible to manipulate it in some way. Not sure if it's true or not, but if it is, imagine being 25 years old forever

 

[pakigang]

Hey how about becoming a cyborg????

http://today.reuters.com/news/...IENCE-MICROBOTS-DC.XML

 

[ReiAyanami]

Tuck Everlasting

 

[ubercaffeinated]

Originally posted by: RockHydra11
Cancer cells are "immortal". With proper Nourishment, a tumor could grow forever.

Edit:Also, yes. Death is necessary for evolution, because you need to weed out the ones that have bad or disadvantagous traits.

Actually cancer cells are not "immortal", not individually atleast. The entire mass, yes, may theoretically grow "forever" with the proper media, but the first cell that became cancerous would have long been gone. Cancer masses continuously grow faster than they die, but cancer cells do die after so many replications.

 

[megataxi]

The heart doesn't last foreveer the body might

 

[Xenocide187]

What is the life expectancy of our organs?

 

[piroroadkill]

Hey guys, I just figured the answer, do not breed, do not attempt de-virginise yourself in anyway, and you will never die

If you haven't bred yet, you are still essential to passing on your genes. Hehe. Well, unless life decides you're just wasting resources like a useless turd and kills you anyway. More likely.

Oh well, it was a worth a shot.

 

[SagaLore]

Everything about our body consists of a "refresh" because our organic makeup is constantly decaying. In the process of rebuilding cells, there are mistakes as well as a side effect of this constant renewal process. I just finished reading the last book of the Red Mars trilogy, and Sax talks about the calcification of the pineal gland in the brain which leads to memory loss and the "quick decline". I don't know how much fact that came from but I think that's the case for every organic process in our body. It's like refinishing a hardwood table, you can do it for a 100 years, but eventually the table won't look anything like the original because you can't ever renew it 100% and you end up with residual problems that don't help.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: RichPLS
We don't live forever because in the design of life as it is, there would be overcrowding and lack of natural resources.

Nah, that's what war and starvation is for.

In past centuries, if people hadn't been limited to a ripe old age of 40 and been inflicted with so many diseases and health issues, at lifespans of 300, families wouldn't have had 12 kids just so 4 could make it and live long enough to have 12 kids of their own... And since wisdom tends to grow with age and agressiveness subsides, I think society would be very well off with such lifespans.

 

[ubercaffeinated]

Originally posted by: Xenocide187
What is the life expectancy of our organs?

Off the top of my head I can't remember the expectancy of each organ, but the brain (which I imagine is the most important) has an expectancy of 150-200 years, barring injury or disease. After a while it just simply starts to breakdown and disintergrate.

 

[el burninator dapeoples]

i havent read the entire thread so i dont know if anyone else has mentioned this, but alot of why are bodies can not sustain life for too long is oxidation. thats right, the stuff we all know and love called oxygen is a toxin. its really amazing that we adapted to the environment at all really. oxegen is what turns butter bad, rusts metal, and eventually decomposes our own matter. some years ago in the world of the very very small, bacteria got the bright idea to figure out a way to use oxygen rather than hide from it, since after all back then the atmosphere was abundantly full of it. the process was slow, but as we are now testement, it paid off rather well. im sure we in future evolutions our bodies will learn to utilize oxygen more efficiently, but until then, its dirt nap city for all of us.

 

[SagaLore]

Slashdot - do you want to live forever?