Aging may be a program, not a breakdown

Posted by elo2000 2 hours ago

Aging may be a program, not a breakdown(www.quantamagazine.org)

47 points | 67 commentspage 2

silverFork 2 hours ago|

Not surprised. Some sort of optimization program to terminate the aged in order to reduce the maintenance issues for the next generation I suppose..

SoftTalker 1 hour ago|

And the mandatory need for replacement keeps mixing the gene pool, occasionally producing improvements.

bilbo0s 1 hour ago||

This is the real answer. Nature only cares that the old already mixed their genes. So, from an evolutionary biology perspective, it's good to clear out the old stock at the end of every generation. Nature already got whatever it was gonna get out of us at that point. To allow that set of genes to stick around actually yields negative returns, ie - less chance of producing improvements, at that point. (Again, just from the perspective of "Mother Nature" so to speak. Obviously the animals themselves would rather not die.)

asdff 1 hour ago||

Mother nature has no perspective. There are no improvements either, only things that are and are not. Everything is dependent on local context at the present point in time and framing whether it is "good" or "bad" (e.g. one could frame our intelligence as good or bad given how it resulted in anthropocentric climate change that may doom us in time, while 'dumber' species have existed for millions of years without wiping themselves out).

What works today may not work tomorrow. What didn't work yesterday may work today. Evolution is not linear. It tends to happen in bursts almost like a dam busting loose. A constant cycling between periods of genetic diversity (i.e. big resetting just happened, no winners taking all quite yet), and what is known as allele fixation (a winner emerged, oh god no...).

bilbo0s 1 hour ago||

>What works today may not work tomorrow. What didn't work yesterday may work today.

All the more reason for variety. Which stops happening when only one set of genes is mixing. (Assuming that set of eternal genes would have any motivation to mix at all.) If you want a higher chance at producing the genes most resilient in a given context, aging and death are a necessary part of that process if you're stuck with sexual reproduction. You need motivation, and you need maximum mixing.

pavel_lishin 2 hours ago||

Any Larry Niven fans nodding along?

Thoreandan 14 minutes ago|

Had to go look it up ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_(novel) ) but now the 'upgrade pak' joke in the next comment makes sense :)

addaon 2 hours ago||

You could even say it's an "upgrade Pak."

onesandofgrain 1 hour ago||

It’s an accumulation of damage. End of story.

jdw64 1 hour ago||

In the end, can aging itself not be cured, and is the only option to prevent the program that causes it? I'm curious

AndrewKemendo 2 hours ago|

>when he became acutely aware that his grandparents and parents were not going to live forever…Cao turned to science. Finding a way to slow aging became his lifelong goal

Nothing is supposed to persist forever it doesn’t even make sense to try

geodel 2 hours ago||

I wonder what Cao would've done once he learned that his great-grandparents are already gone. Perhaps at that point nothing less than time machine invention will do.

the_af 2 hours ago||

> Nothing is supposed to persist forever it doesn’t even make sense to try

"Supposed" by whom?

bilbo0s 1 hour ago||

Entropy.

the_af 1 hour ago|||

"Nothing is supposed to <something>" is a meaningless assertion for entropy. Entropy doesn't suppose things. "Suppose to" implies intent.

Also, entropy might not be directly related to the biological process of aging. I mean, that's the point of TFA.

AndrewKemendo 1 hour ago|||

Indeed exactly this. No system persists or could persist

the_af 1 hour ago||

We're not discussing geological or cosmic eras, just shorter biological processes. Systems can persist for enormous (but still human bound) periods of time.