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This reminds me of the feeling of calm that survivors have reported when they are dying of hypothermia or drowning. I wonder what the evolutionary advantage of
by jnovek 3y ago
This reminds me of the feeling of calm that survivors have reported when they are dying of hypothermia or drowning.
I wonder what the evolutionary advantage of these things is?
- rich_sasha 3y agoIf you're at the point of dying, probably not much you can do to pass on your genes.
- OJFord 3y agoThe argument would be that people who don't have strokes have more time to spend passing on genes.
- Brian_K_White 3y agogenetics isn't that simple. You share genes with people who do have children, and so genes which cause you to somehow benefit others, or even just yourself, are still selected over ones that don't, even if you don't have kids ypurself. Not that I see how a head trip while dying can be any part of this process, just saying that "pass on your genes" is not all there is to genes.
- jncfhnb 3y agoWhat’s the evolutionary advantage of having a stroke? Nothing. It’s something breaking and having arbitrary consequences.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoThere could absolutely be an evolutionary advantage to genes that kill some % of individuals, depending on who/when/where/why, since genes also work at the species and even ecosystem level, not just the individual level. Just like there are genes to kill individual cells.
- jncfhnb 3y agoSure But not in the immediate short term of failing organs. Those are unhandled exception errors
- Brian_K_White 3y agoYou lack imagination. A failing organ could absolutely be genetically evolved to fail in a given set of conditions.
- jncfhnb 3y agoA vital organ could be designed to fail. It’s incredibly unlikely that the side effects of this vital organ failing, which almost inevitably leads to death, are advantageously evolved. There’s no gameplan for the headless chicken.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoYes, they are advantageously evolved, just like programmed cell death, because that is more advantageous than cancer. Evolution doesn't just work on the individual and simple level.
- awb 3y agoThis is true, but I also find it hard to believe that everything in nature is intentional towards a positive evolutionary outcome. For example: sharks being incapacitated when they’re flipped upside down, or any number of genetic diseases. It looks more like something that nature hasn’t optimized yet rather than something beneficial to the species.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoNo one said intentional. Nothing about the process requires anything like intention or purpose. The process is nothing more than "That which works, works." That's it. Even "works" isn't a value judged or decided by anyone, it's just what happens, or doesn't happen.
- wenebego 3y agoJust watched a veritasium video yesterday about breath holding, and they mentioned that as your co2 levels increase your urge to breath increases up to a point, but when you stop feeling that urge thats when you need to go up, because youre nearly out of oxygen