4 ms·

We all die eventually, so far...

• Quarrelsome 4y ago
  you'd figure if biology was capable then it would have found a solution by now. But as far as I'm aware immortality isn't a trait of any multi-cellular organism that has ever lived on this rock. I mean maybe we can stick some pipes in a corpse and get it to move around or make a digital echo of a dead personality and have that rattle around inside a robot. However, I feel like we're drifting into wishful thinking if we figure genuine immortality is a going to be a some sort of scientific given.
  • progman32 4y ago
    Consider that death may actually not be as selected against in nature as you seem to imply. An everliving organism would not as easily adapt to a changing environment, if and until a new mechanism of evolution is generated. We may be stuck in a local minima. Nature doesn't have goals. Humans, as far as I can tell, very much do. Put another way. Evolution didn't find a way to get life onto the Moon. Humans did.
  • yreg 4y ago
    >if biology was capable then it would have found a solution by now It did though.[0] There is likely very little evolutionary pressure for immortality, therefore this kind of thing isn't more widespread. If anything, at population level evolution might generally select for the population that produces a new generation and dies quicker. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii
    • Quarrelsome 4y ago
      Oh cool, thanks for that. I would argue that's not exactly the sort of immortality we have in mind when we discuss it though.