5 ms·

> "If this interpretation of the data is correct, then aging is a natural process that can be reduced to nanoscale thermal physics—and not a disease. " (my ital

> "If this interpretation of the data is correct, then aging is a natural process that can be reduced to nanoscale thermal physics—and not a disease. " (my italics). To me this is the main problem with this article. The (ever more common) notion that aging is a disease should be combated with philosophical arguments, not shaky physics such.

vanderZwan 9y ago
Half-serious, half-joking, but I think that procreation and death are nature's way using the "have you tried turning it off and on again?" approach to evolving multicellular life. It's probably the most cost-efficient, all things considered.
- fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  Most cost-efficient for what purpose?
  - imtringued 9y ago
    Increase entropy.
    - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
      No one has the purpose of increasing entropy. And you're not the person I was asking anyway.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    For change and adaptation to new contexts. Unless you know of a way to turn an elephant into a fly and back. I mean that literally. For battling decay. It can be easier to grow a new body from a single cell, than to keep patching up a running one. A desire for immortality is the individual point of view. In the big picture of things, there is little to no selection pressure for immortality. There is plenty of selection pressure for adaptation and change, and death and rebirth are effective tools for that.
    - majewsky 9y ago
      > For battling decay. It can be easier to grow a new body from a single cell, than to keep patching up a running one. And we do the same in IT. Sometimes the old system has piled on so many hotfixes and customizations that in order to upgrade, you can only build up a new system next to it and transfer your data to it. Then you shutdown the new system. That's procreation, learning, and death.
      - vanderZwan 9y ago
        That's my line of thought too: look closely and see indirect empirical evidence of this happening in all kinds of other systems. Life is no different.
    - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
      > A desire for immortality is the individual point of view. In the big picture of things, there is little to no selection pressure for immortality. There is plenty of selection pressure for adaptation and change, and death and rebirth are effective tools for that. Yes there is... an individual that does not age will have many more offspring than one that does.
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  Yea, could be. Maybe there is research out here to support that. But you don't really have to be a researcher to realize birth, aging and death are fundamental pillars of all life since a few billion years back. It is human nature to try and live forever, granted. But it was always hubris, and will forever be.
  - 282883392 9y ago
    Fundamental pillars of all life except for things that don't die? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligible_senescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligible_senescence
    - stareatgoats 9y ago
      That some extreme outliers exist, doesn't change the fundamental fact. And the idea that you can somehow graft parts of the DNA of aspen groves, hydra or similar into humans to make them live longer is grotesque (to me, I should add. I accept that I might be a relative lone voice in the science-optimistic desert here)
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        With enough study, we could conceivably engineer better cells. If we can then implant those cells into our tissues, then we could slowly replace all the 'faulty' cells in our body with the immortal version 2.
- taneq 9y ago
  Well yeah - if you 'compress' an organism down to a single cell, then it has far less entropy, far fewer degrees of freedom in which to go wrong, and a much more pass/fail manner of doing so. Changes are much more likely to cause a 'checksum failure' and terminate the offspring early before it's used a lot of resources rather than allow mutant offspring to grow. Things like cancer, where a small group of cells decides to go off the script, are trivially eliminated.
  - RobertoG 9y ago
    >"Things like cancer, where a small group of cells decides to go off the script, are trivially eliminated." And viruses and parasites, probably a very hard problem to crack otherwise. Reboot from a fresh image.
    - vanderZwan 9y ago
      Now that you mention it: many viruses stay with you your entire life once you have been infected by them, and are simply continuously suppressed by your immune system.

vanderZwan 9y ago

Half-serious, half-joking, but I think that procreation and death are nature's way using the "have you tried turning it off and on again?" approach to evolving multicellular life. It's probably the most cost-efficient, all things considered.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago
Most cost-efficient for what purpose?
- imtringued 9y ago
  Increase entropy.
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    No one has the purpose of increasing entropy. And you're not the person I was asking anyway.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  For change and adaptation to new contexts. Unless you know of a way to turn an elephant into a fly and back. I mean that literally. For battling decay. It can be easier to grow a new body from a single cell, than to keep patching up a running one. A desire for immortality is the individual point of view. In the big picture of things, there is little to no selection pressure for immortality. There is plenty of selection pressure for adaptation and change, and death and rebirth are effective tools for that.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    > For battling decay. It can be easier to grow a new body from a single cell, than to keep patching up a running one. And we do the same in IT. Sometimes the old system has piled on so many hotfixes and customizations that in order to upgrade, you can only build up a new system next to it and transfer your data to it. Then you shutdown the new system. That's procreation, learning, and death.
    - vanderZwan 9y ago
      That's my line of thought too: look closely and see indirect empirical evidence of this happening in all kinds of other systems. Life is no different.
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    > A desire for immortality is the individual point of view. In the big picture of things, there is little to no selection pressure for immortality. There is plenty of selection pressure for adaptation and change, and death and rebirth are effective tools for that. Yes there is... an individual that does not age will have many more offspring than one that does.
stareatgoats 9y ago
Yea, could be. Maybe there is research out here to support that. But you don't really have to be a researcher to realize birth, aging and death are fundamental pillars of all life since a few billion years back. It is human nature to try and live forever, granted. But it was always hubris, and will forever be.
- 282883392 9y ago
  Fundamental pillars of all life except for things that don't die? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligible_senescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligible_senescence
  - stareatgoats 9y ago
    That some extreme outliers exist, doesn't change the fundamental fact. And the idea that you can somehow graft parts of the DNA of aspen groves, hydra or similar into humans to make them live longer is grotesque (to me, I should add. I accept that I might be a relative lone voice in the science-optimistic desert here)
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      With enough study, we could conceivably engineer better cells. If we can then implant those cells into our tissues, then we could slowly replace all the 'faulty' cells in our body with the immortal version 2.
taneq 9y ago
Well yeah - if you 'compress' an organism down to a single cell, then it has far less entropy, far fewer degrees of freedom in which to go wrong, and a much more pass/fail manner of doing so. Changes are much more likely to cause a 'checksum failure' and terminate the offspring early before it's used a lot of resources rather than allow mutant offspring to grow. Things like cancer, where a small group of cells decides to go off the script, are trivially eliminated.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  >"Things like cancer, where a small group of cells decides to go off the script, are trivially eliminated." And viruses and parasites, probably a very hard problem to crack otherwise. Reboot from a fresh image.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    Now that you mention it: many viruses stay with you your entire life once you have been infected by them, and are simply continuously suppressed by your immune system.