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> ... no one understands why it’s true. That's an unwarranted claim. Various quantities of interest of complex systems more often than not follow certain stati

by fizixer 12y ago

> ... no one understands why it’s true. That's an unwarranted claim. Various quantities of interest of complex systems more often than not follow certain statistical distributions. This is especially true about natural systems. Flip 100 coins, call it one trial. Perform such trials a large number of times, a few hundred let's say. For each trial count the number of heads. In the end create a histogram (frequency of N-head trials, N ranging from 0 to 100). It'll look like a gaussian distribution! The emergence of such distribution feels strange, even though we pretty much know everything about the system. (Incidentally this is related to the Central Limit Theorem). Similar idea applies to human mortality distributions. The best you could say is that these are very counter-intuitive observations/facts.

emn13 12y ago
In that case we understand what causes the Gaussian to emerge - lots of individual coin flips. However, in human mortality, the underlying "coin flip" - i.e. the death-causing event - isn't so easily found. Particularly when you consider that apparently the underlying cause seems to happen more frequently as you age, which is kind of interesting when you consider that the physical laws haven't changed - there's obviously some kind of emergent process going on - but what and why? That's the question. It wouldn't suprise me to learn that it's basically planned obsolescence - i.e. that there's an evolutionary advantage to a species that cycles through individuals as rapidly as possibly (while leaving enough time to produce a lot of progeny).
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  > but what and why? Iron and heavy metals accumulate in tissues over time. The tissue membranes accumulate an increasing share of polyunsaturated lipids, which in turn interfere with efficient metabolism. Many ways that biological tissue wears out over time are well understood. It's not just some mystery.
  - emn13 12y ago
    That doesn't really ring true - after all, they're going to be passed to newborns too. "Gunk" collects in tissues that are never replaced, but why does that occur in the first place? Clearly, growing new tissue isn't a biologically hard problem - when there's evolutionary pressure to do so, several species evolved means to replace surprisingly large parts of their body. Some insect metamorphose; crustaceans rebuild complete skeletons - energetically, it's almost certainly hell of a lot cheaper to occasionally replace bad bits than it is to procreate and lose the previous generation. There's something else going on there.
- Retric 12y ago
  It's less about planned obsolescence that's built into multi celled organisms. The choice is how much energy you spend fighting it. EX: A fruit fly needs far less cancer defenses than a squirrel. And, 2 fruit flies can become 2,000 fruit fly's a lot faster than 2 squirrels can become 2,000 squirrels. But, fruit fly's can't eat nuts so as long as trees produce nuts there is a nitch it takes something with at least the mass of a squirrels to fill.

by fizixer 12y ago

emn13 12y ago

In that case we understand what causes the Gaussian to emerge - lots of individual coin flips. However, in human mortality, the underlying "coin flip" - i.e. the death-causing event - isn't so easily found. Particularly when you consider that apparently the underlying cause seems to happen more frequently as you age, which is kind of interesting when you consider that the physical laws haven't changed - there's obviously some kind of emergent process going on - but what and why? That's the question. It wouldn't suprise me to learn that it's basically planned obsolescence - i.e. that there's an evolutionary advantage to a species that cycles through individuals as rapidly as possibly (while leaving enough time to produce a lot of progeny).

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
> but what and why? Iron and heavy metals accumulate in tissues over time. The tissue membranes accumulate an increasing share of polyunsaturated lipids, which in turn interfere with efficient metabolism. Many ways that biological tissue wears out over time are well understood. It's not just some mystery.
- emn13 12y ago
  That doesn't really ring true - after all, they're going to be passed to newborns too. "Gunk" collects in tissues that are never replaced, but why does that occur in the first place? Clearly, growing new tissue isn't a biologically hard problem - when there's evolutionary pressure to do so, several species evolved means to replace surprisingly large parts of their body. Some insect metamorphose; crustaceans rebuild complete skeletons - energetically, it's almost certainly hell of a lot cheaper to occasionally replace bad bits than it is to procreate and lose the previous generation. There's something else going on there.
Retric 12y ago
It's less about planned obsolescence that's built into multi celled organisms. The choice is how much energy you spend fighting it. EX: A fruit fly needs far less cancer defenses than a squirrel. And, 2 fruit flies can become 2,000 fruit fly's a lot faster than 2 squirrels can become 2,000 squirrels. But, fruit fly's can't eat nuts so as long as trees produce nuts there is a nitch it takes something with at least the mass of a squirrels to fill.