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I think death is probably a selective evolutionary advantage for a species. A species is basically self perpetuating genetic code stuck somewhere in an evoluti
by fossuser 11y ago
I think death is probably a selective evolutionary advantage for a species.
A species is basically self perpetuating genetic code stuck somewhere in an evolutionary local maxima. In our case there may be an advantage in adaptability by having individuals die and genetic code mix/change more frequently.
This still sucks and if we could figure out how the brain actually worked to prevent it that would be cool, but we'd start getting into identity issues (what makes you you? how does consciousness actually work?).
Sleep is interesting to think about here since it likely has something to do with re-calculating weights in a neural net, garbage collection, persisting memories etc. Though we don't consider going to sleep dying and waking up new because of the sense of continuity. If a copy of you was made and the original then killed though we wouldn't like that.
Sense of purpose difficulties still exist in our relatively brief lifespans, but at least we get an easy out with the biological one - we'd have to think more about this with death out of the way. Also the drive to have sex and reproduce would probably still be around since it's core to our existence, not sure how we deal with that.
Though I'd still prefer a star trek future where we're colonizing the galaxy and the goal is to learn.
Mostly rambling thoughts.
- Houshalter 11y agoThe evolution selects for death idea is a hypothesis, but I don't' think it's very strong. Evolution works at the level of genes. Genes that cause more copies of themselves to spread will spread. Even to the detriment of the group or the species. An organism that lives longer will have time to have more offspring, and those offspring will carry it's longer living genes. An organism that lives shorter will have fewer offspring, and so fewer organisms will carry it's genes. Very rapidly these genes would be selected for or against. A simple alternative explanation is just that evolution doesn't care. 90% of organisms will die of other causes long before they reach old age. Evolution will end up devoting almost all of it's resources on improving survival rates there, and none on fighting aging. >This still sucks and if we could figure out how the brain actually worked to prevent it that would be cool, but we'd start getting into identity issues (what makes you you? how does consciousness actually work?). Identity Isn't In Specific Atoms: http://lesswrong.com/lw/pm/identity_isnt_in_specific_atoms/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/pm/identity_isnt_in_specific_atoms/
- ams6110 11y agoEvolution doesn't care about reaching old age. It cares about reaching the age of reproductive maturity.
- Houshalter 11y agoWell obviously. And the longer the reproductive age lasts, the more it can reproduce.