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Why do we die?

ColonelGadaafi

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Cell decay, major organs unable to recover. Once we figure out how to transfer our inner conciousness , our invidual entities into sustainable solid synthetic bodies, repairable. We will no longer fear death.
 

BlueScreen

Fail 2.0
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I think death is not inevitable. There is a belief, which has probably been mentioned already in this thread, that once medicine reaches a point where it is increasing length of life faster than 1 year of life/year of research, then man should not die. Of course there are still car crashes or spaceship crashes or whatever we have by then, and other forms of accidental death though.
 

CrystalViolet

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I want to die (not until I lived a very full and rich life though), I personally could not face immortality. I've known this since I was a wee one. Although in a way we are (circle of life, any one). I think the physical plane is one we must pass through, to get to the next, and yes, pass into the unconscious collective. Don't ask me me to explain that one logically though.
 

Feops

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I don't think that entropy is an inevitable outcome in biology. There are a few species that do not die of age (albeit rare and simple), and there are various cell types that manage themselves fine right up until death.

Rather, I think that evolution has favored the "live hard, die young, screw like bunnies" path. While not beneficial to the lucky individual this does seem a stronger choice for the species. Most species are going to die anyway by a given age. Take humans for example. As recently as a couple thousand years ago people lived until 30ish. 30 is only the very start of physical decline, so disease, war, famine, accidents, etc., would kill most people far before simple entropy claimed them. Therefore there was little biological advantage to maintain the body for countless decades but there was biological advantage to develop and mate quickly, even at the expense of hardships later on. This also seems to agree with the average life expectancy of various species - mice for example only live a few years at best in captivity, because there's little point in living beyond this age in the wild. Humans living until 80+ under ideal circumstances speaks to how well we were over-engineered - humans that die in their 40s, 50s, 60s are stark reminders that we're on borrowed time.

Also, immortals would be at a strong disadvantage for a few reasons. If child raising ability wasn't stunted somehow, human overpopulation would be rampant. Humans would be perpetually fighting one another for resources and to continue their families, until society learned to keep their populations firmly in check, which is something we're struggling with now. If child raising ability WAS stunted somehow, this reduces the ability for society to adapt to certain hardships, or for the population to recover after being cut down.

And regardless of the reasons why, this is the hand we were dealt as a species and we've done pretty good with it. The science to watch here will be genetics, because it will be genetics that starts to tinker with our building blocks. Sufficiently advanced genetics will remove birth defects, certain illnesses, tweak certain traits more in line with modern demands, and ultimately achieve longevity and even immortality. People living even twice as long as they do now would be a significant challenge to society - I'd love to see how it works out.
 

yenom

Alexander the Terrible
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Cell decay, major organs unable to recover. Once we figure out how to transfer our inner conciousness , our invidual entities into sustainable solid synthetic bodies, repairable. We will no longer fear death.

thats pretty N about what you said. How can esfps come up with that kind of post?
 

Nocapszy

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Our bodies don't make the decision to weaken and die, they do everything they can do to maintain, until they can't anymore. It's the outside environment combined with the physical matter our bodies are made up of that causes it to eventually die.
All of the things that we use to maintain can be regenerated in the same way they were generated in the beginning, so obviously they can be recreated to replace the expired ones.

Think of it like a second puberty (talking about eating habits). When you run low on supplies, you grow a new psychological compulsion to gather the necessary materials to fix yourself up.

We don't have that phase in our lives so there must be a reason. It's possible that rearing children dooms us: Self neglect in the face of caring for the vulnerable young pushes us past the point of no return.

That is to say, the degeneration that inevitably happens during child-rearing and the acceptance of it (which might even have been ingrained parallel to young-nurturing drives as we evolved) probably do enough damage that regeneration of maintenance systems becomes too difficult -- a maintenance growth spurt is just too exhausting to acquire the resources for after all the compromised systems.
After all, the physical faculties are quicker to go than any internal systems, thereby making an overhaul more expensive than profitable in terms of energy input and output.

Imagine, by analogy, a dying company who's run themselves out of the means to purchase new equipment which happens be the only potential salvation of the company.

They can't save themselves.

The only other explanation I could come up with for why we die hasn't happened yet, so it doesn't make sense but it will happen and it makes me laugh.

Overpopulation is a good evolutionary reason to avoid living forever.


Huh... when I started writing I thought I agreed with Jock, but I don't.

'Course I wasn't really... there... when we evolved so there's undoubtably something in the chronology that I missed, but I imagine the story went something like this.

The thing is though, my impression is that it only originally began this way, and as we evolved, it became more of a psychological acceptance of death, which blocked reason to ever develop a drive to survive to an overhaul.

So I guess I kind of do agree with him.
 

redacted

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If people don't die, gene pools change much more slowly, which means if environments shift, the species would be less adaptive.

I'm betting someone else said that, but I'm not gonna read the replies.
 

Synarch

Once Was
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Immortal beings lend nothing to the vigor of the species. Species level adaptation takes place with each generation. If immortal generations persist they have the potential to interfere with the success of later generations through interbreeding and competition. That being said, lifespan seems linked to size and metabolic rate. The higher the metabolism, the lower the lifespan. Things that live very slowly, age more slowly. And, there is research that radically lowering your food intake, which slows metabolism, increases lifespan.

We are all flowers. We are just meat flowers. We bud, bloom, and wither.
 

Shadow

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Because the earth wouldn't hold everyone otherwise. But then again, surely we'd all die as a result of the overcrowding anyway, so that doesn't really answer your question... Hmm.
 

Eagle

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*Skips reading the posts for now and just comments*

What adventure would life really be if there was no end? Death is the end of one grand adventure; the beginning of "exploration" into the "unknown." Would we really live if we didn't die?

I might choose to converse about the biological aspects and things later, but I am rather tired.
 

professor goodstain

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Has something to do with cells loosing their ability to regenerate themselves with the same strengths they had previuosly. In a gerund kind of way. Then we also have environment, accidents, premeditations, suicide, ect. Those i believe are induced by ourselves. and so also could the 1st sentance due to diet. So givin we don't kill ourselves and each other it's definately cell weakening due to their natural genetic programs. Aw. Did we find a link to justify any connection between psychology and physics?
 

yenom

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I think the degernartion of molecules is one of the important factors. The loss of energy, but I am just specuating. There are process that fuel life, and when those process exhaust themselves , life cease to exist.
 

mlittrell

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because, like any other object, we break down slowly over time. i forget what that is called. im sure there is some physics term i learned my first semester but i frankly dont care that much.

EDIT:

for some reason entropy comes to mind
 

deepthought

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It's something about how everytime the cells in your body copy themselves to make new ones(through mitosis) you lose a strand of DNA(not sure about this). Then after years and years of cell reproduction they run out, and thats when you naturally die.
 

Fluffywolf

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I'm sure biology will someday come up with a solution to rejuvenate cells and make us biologically immortal (force trauma aside ofcourse.).

But we better already be colonizing space if that happens. There is a limited amount of space on this planet!
 
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