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Aging as a feature doesn't make sense to me. It seems more likely to me that immortality simply hasn't been 'cracked' yet, intelligence that could create immort
by vinceguidry 10y ago
Aging as a feature doesn't make sense to me. It seems more likely to me that immortality simply hasn't been 'cracked' yet, intelligence that could create immortality would seem more likely to evolve first than immortality itself.
You have to get so many things just right for immortality to 'work', i.e. to actually be useful in a survival context. It does no good for creatures to not age if they lose a significant amount of viability.
But real immortality in the complete reversal of aging, I think would be an immense advantage. Instead of having to teach your young over a very short period of time the tricks they need to be viable adults, creatures could super-specialize. One creature could supply all the food needed for a huge colony. They'd just get better and better at exploiting their niche and other creatures could find other niches.
I think if intelligence hadn't 'gotten there first', immortal creatures would be running the show.
- throwanem 10y ago> One creature could supply all the food needed for a huge colony. We call this a "single point of failure".
- vinceguidry 10y agoOther creatures could provide security.
- throwanem 10y agoAgainst a really clever predator, perhaps with wings? Against accident and illness? Against a change in circumstance such that those overspecialized strategies no longer work sufficiently well or at all?
- vinceguidry 10y agoA colony could stockpile food for the interrim period where the backup could be trained up.
- throwanem 10y agoTrained up by whom? All that's left of the colony's institutional knowledge on the subject of provisioning is an owl pellet's worth of tiny bones and hair.
- vinceguidry 10y agoWith immortality, institutional knowledge doesn't have to go away. Everybody can know everything, and the specialist that has all the experience dies, then a new one can just be selected, and the whole colony can pick up the slack until the new specialist is experienced enough to do it all himself. Everybody becomes T-shaped.
- throwanem 10y agoSo immortality implies perfect recall, such that skills not exercised cease to grow rusty and fade with time?
- PetoU 10y agoYour experience could serve as limitation to your view of the world. Younger ones without the baggage of experience, has greater chance of discovering new approaches. Due to this, population with changing generations, might be more intelligent than one without these clean slates.
- namlem 10y agoImmortality has been cracked. There are a number of "immortal" species that do not age.