3 ms·

The article paints death in a very black and white, good-vs-evil picture, but I hold that it's a much more complex mechanism. And I don't mean to suggest that

by Taek 10y ago

The article paints death in a very black and white, good-vs-evil picture, but I hold that it's a much more complex mechanism. And I don't mean to suggest that we should accept death or not pursue the escape of death, but most species (with some notable exceptions) who have enjoyed evolutionary success have death hardcoded into their genome. Which suggests to me that over a sufficient timescale (probably dozens to thousands of generations), death is beneficial to a species. Death means that there are more resources available to younger generations, and means that you get more cycles of genetic optimization. That makes the species more successful as a whole. Humans may find some way to get optimization cycles that don't involve death, but I hold the opinion that if we don't continuously pursue optimization cycles, we'll eventually be out-competed evolutionary by something that does. We have a huge head start, but in the fable, so did the dragon.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> Humans may find some way to get optimization cycles that don't involve death, but I hold the opinion that if we don't continuously pursue optimization cycles, we'll eventually be out-competed evolutionary by something that does. We have a huge head start, but in the fable, so did the dragon. I think we're pretty safe. Evolution works really, really slowly. Even the earliest humans recorded optimized their lives much faster than evolution. That's our advantage - a brain that can do the iterations in abstract, many orders of magnitude faster than nature does in matter.
nullc 10y ago
Something doesn't need to be beneficial to be conserved, being not too harmful is enough. Or even being harmful but pointlessly crosslinked with something essential such that it's hard for evolution to escape the local minima. More over, human values are not the same as the objectives of evolution, nor should they be. > but I hold the opinion that if we don't continuously pursue optimization cycles We can undermine the optimization of evolution just fine, without ending death from aging-- I seem to recall that both of us wear corrective lenses, thus largely excluding the selective pressure for naturally better eyesight that we might otherwise be subjected to. :) With that in mind, it's something of a false choice that you present: It's not like mankind is subject to the full force of evolutionary pressure with aging and completely free of it without. Besides, I seem to recall the the rate for accidental death in adults suggests that we'd end up with a roughly 500 year life span even if we completely cured all aging related issues. A lot longer in human terms, but hardly anything for evolution. Another perspective would be that the biggest threat to mankinds survival isn't anything evolution is well equip to protect us from-- us killing ourselves with phenomenal weapons and bad policy. Because our bad decisions could wipe our mankind worldwide evolution has no real chance to fabricate less problematic future humans. ... But perhaps humans acting in their own perpetually immortal interest might just behave a little more prudently.

by Taek 10y ago

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> Humans may find some way to get optimization cycles that don't involve death, but I hold the opinion that if we don't continuously pursue optimization cycles, we'll eventually be out-competed evolutionary by something that does. We have a huge head start, but in the fable, so did the dragon. I think we're pretty safe. Evolution works really, really slowly. Even the earliest humans recorded optimized their lives much faster than evolution. That's our advantage - a brain that can do the iterations in abstract, many orders of magnitude faster than nature does in matter.

nullc 10y ago

Something doesn't need to be beneficial to be conserved, being not too harmful is enough. Or even being harmful but pointlessly crosslinked with something essential such that it's hard for evolution to escape the local minima. More over, human values are not the same as the objectives of evolution, nor should they be. > but I hold the opinion that if we don't continuously pursue optimization cycles We can undermine the optimization of evolution just fine, without ending death from aging-- I seem to recall that both of us wear corrective lenses, thus largely excluding the selective pressure for naturally better eyesight that we might otherwise be subjected to. :) With that in mind, it's something of a false choice that you present: It's not like mankind is subject to the full force of evolutionary pressure with aging and completely free of it without. Besides, I seem to recall the the rate for accidental death in adults suggests that we'd end up with a roughly 500 year life span even if we completely cured all aging related issues. A lot longer in human terms, but hardly anything for evolution. Another perspective would be that the biggest threat to mankinds survival isn't anything evolution is well equip to protect us from-- us killing ourselves with phenomenal weapons and bad policy. Because our bad decisions could wipe our mankind worldwide evolution has no real chance to fabricate less problematic future humans. ... But perhaps humans acting in their own perpetually immortal interest might just behave a little more prudently.