4 ms·

If it's an imperfect mechanism, then look back at the huge chain linking you to the first living creature: adult body / sperm & egg / adult body / sperm & egg /

If it's an imperfect mechanism, then look back at the huge chain linking you to the first living creature: adult body / sperm & egg / adult body / sperm & egg / adult body / ... How come that chain hasn't failed? Basically, you're just rephrasing the "aging through accumulation of errors" hypothesis. The problem is, errors should accumulate along the chain mentioned above, too. Yet they don't.

crystalis 16y ago
The chain gets to weed out errors by starting with cells that got through functionally unblemished courtesy functioning error correcting mechanisms. Each new cycle gets a fully functional error correction mechanism, and is fault tolerant to the theoretical point of repopulation from a small point of individuals. An individual human body has error correcting mechanisms that do not benefit from being renewed every cycle- they deteriorate over time, Individuals suffer from problems larger systems don't - a few cancerous cells can poison the whole individual, but a few cancerous individuals are likely to die with few offspring, and their offspring are also more likely to die with few offspring. If an individual is left with only a few correctly functioning cells, they have no recourse for rebuilding themself. Species get a constant influx of fresh water, as it were, and individuals have to make do with a set quantity.
- FlorinAndrei 16y ago
  Where does the fresh water come from? Your assumption is that sex cells are magically exempt from the accumulation of errors.
  - crystalis 16y ago
    It's not that they are magically exempt, but that the error filled ones are less reproductively viable, and die out. That contrasts directly with e.g., cancer cells, that become more prolific and lead to the death of the organism. (There's several points of 'selection' for sex cells- error free ones are, loosely speaking, more likely to successfully fertilize/get fertilized, and more likely to create viable offspring that themselves reproduce.) Edit: It's like the difference between being able to select the top 10% and selecting those with a score above 90%. The chain gets to "select" only those that perform above a set threshold, but the organism has to play out every hand it's dealt.

crystalis 16y ago

The chain gets to weed out errors by starting with cells that got through functionally unblemished courtesy functioning error correcting mechanisms. Each new cycle gets a fully functional error correction mechanism, and is fault tolerant to the theoretical point of repopulation from a small point of individuals. An individual human body has error correcting mechanisms that do not benefit from being renewed every cycle- they deteriorate over time, Individuals suffer from problems larger systems don't - a few cancerous cells can poison the whole individual, but a few cancerous individuals are likely to die with few offspring, and their offspring are also more likely to die with few offspring. If an individual is left with only a few correctly functioning cells, they have no recourse for rebuilding themself. Species get a constant influx of fresh water, as it were, and individuals have to make do with a set quantity.

FlorinAndrei 16y ago
Where does the fresh water come from? Your assumption is that sex cells are magically exempt from the accumulation of errors.
- crystalis 16y ago
  It's not that they are magically exempt, but that the error filled ones are less reproductively viable, and die out. That contrasts directly with e.g., cancer cells, that become more prolific and lead to the death of the organism. (There's several points of 'selection' for sex cells- error free ones are, loosely speaking, more likely to successfully fertilize/get fertilized, and more likely to create viable offspring that themselves reproduce.) Edit: It's like the difference between being able to select the top 10% and selecting those with a score above 90%. The chain gets to "select" only those that perform above a set threshold, but the organism has to play out every hand it's dealt.