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Reproduction doesn't create whole new cells from nothing (except in the ship of Thesius sense). It's existing cells getting reprogrammed to do new things. Repr
by fluidcruft 1y ago
Reproduction doesn't create whole new cells from nothing (except in the ship of Thesius sense). It's existing cells getting reprogrammed to do new things.
Reproduction does result in new matrix/scaffolding being built but the cells build that (and can rebuild it if so directed).
Of course some things "we" care about exist exclusively in the matrix (configurations of neurons, learned behaviors, memories, etc) so that could well be a limit for those parts of the body where we care primarily about preserving the matrix.
Anyway my point is that "reproduction" doesn't create whole new life, it's just a continuation.
- brabel 1y ago> Anyway my point is that "reproduction" doesn't create whole new life, it's just a continuation. Then you're just arguing that we're already immortal, after all we reproduce, but I don't think that's what we're talking about when we talk about longevity. Longevity is the continued existence of a particular being, not its continuation through descendants.
- fluidcruft 1y agoThe point is that a fundamental assumption that "reproduction" does anything that can't be done by regeneration is just a hunch that so far isn't actually supported by anything in microbiology. The existence of reproduction is irrelevant to the question.