What causes death?

[dejitaru]

The mysterious "brain failure":

Throughout life, cells are created, replicated, and die - it's all squishy fluid and DNA. This copy of a copy...of a copy of a copy may not be sufficient to sustain the organism.

progeria - by some gene/chromosome defect they age prematurely. This could mean that death is a deliberate proces invoked by the system.

Years ago, the life expectancy was half of what it is now, yet "natural causes" were still to blame.

Why even age?

 

[FuriousBroccoli]

Death isn't a deliberate act on the part of our system, it's just the lack of a deliberate act to prevent it. Our DNA just has no reason to waste resources keeping us alive, it only matters how much we breed, not how long we live. Sucks, huh?

One of the main scientific beliefs is quite simply that we usually breed soon after puberty (at least, in the good old days), well before we die from old age, thus natural selection just doesn't get to play a role in favouring genetics of older people. This theory was put to the test with the scientific experiment where fruitflies were only allowed to breed in later life, after an age where X% of flies had died off. After much breeding, the scientists managed to double the lifespan of the fruitflies. Beyond that, it gets a little more tricky...

There are a lot of reasons we break down. Unfortunately, knowing the symptoms isn't enough to know the cause. That's why studying cases of Progeria hasn't lead to any amazing breakthroughs. We know some things, such as the shortened length of telomeres (nucleotides that stop our cells dividing more than 50 times) in Progeria patients, but it's not that simple. Hayflick's limit (the 'biological clock' we have) is not the reason we grow old. At one point scientists got pretty excited in thinking it might be, but it just doesn't correlate (mice have longer telomeres than us).

We've come a long way in the last century in improving lifespans. Unfortunately the advances in living standards in relation to our lifespans have diminishing returns -- we aren't going to live twice as long over the next century from simply taking our vitamins. The body just can't live more than about 120-150 years without fighting the fundamental problems of aging itself.

 

[SoylentGreen]

Originally posted by: FuriousBroccoli
Death isn't a deliberate act on the part of our system, it's just the lack of a deliberate act to prevent it. Our DNA just has no reason to waste resources keeping us alive, it only matters how much we breed, not how long we live. Sucks, huh?

One of the main scientific beliefs is quite simply that we usually breed soon after puberty (at least, in the good old days), well before we die from old age, thus natural selection just doesn't get to play a role in favouring genetics of older people. This theory was put to the test with the scientific experiment where fruitflies were only allowed to breed in later life, after an age where X% of flies had died off. After much breeding, the scientists managed to double the lifespan of the fruitflies. Beyond that, it gets a little more tricky...

There are a lot of reasons we break down. Unfortunately, knowing the symptoms isn't enough to know the cause. That's why studying cases of Progeria hasn't lead to any amazing breakthroughs. We know some things, such as the shortened length of telomeres (nucleotides that stop our cells dividing more than 50 times) in Progeria patients, but it's not that simple. Hayflick's limit (the 'biological clock' we have) is not the reason we grow old. At one point scientists got pretty excited in thinking it might be, but it just doesn't correlate (mice have longer telomeres than us).

We've come a long way in the last century in improving lifespans. Unfortunately the advances in living standards in relation to our lifespans have diminishing returns -- we aren't going to live twice as long over the next century from simply taking our vitamins. The body just can't live more than about 120-150 years without fighting the fundamental problems of aging itself.

That's a cool explanation. More!

 

[FuriousBroccoli]

Heh, thanks, I could ramble all day, but I was hoping someone with more expertise might want to jump in...?

 

[stebesplace]

When i think about death, i try not to think about a constant growing of cells, plasma, nerons(spelling), an other factors playing vital roles with the groth of our body. Forgive my spelling, its still early at work for me.

Death is like a stack of pancakes. When you start to eat them, their really good, warm, tasty. But by the time your done, your frikin sick of em. If you place this analogy into your body, you can see, that the body, like your mind on pancakes, is good to go from the begining, but by the end, end being a pre determined length where parts wear out, your body's just plain worn out.

Anyways,

Death is one of those mysteries. Your body is like a car. You can buy a new car, treat it like a baby, but you will always need to replace parts in the end. Have you ever seen a model T that has all original parts, in pristine contition? I havn't. This is my point; Until human evolution develops cures for so many diseases, and or, developes the means to build parts for us, arms, legs, lungs, brains? heh, then we will always break down eventually.

I mean, when you buy a car off a lot, it depreciates its value by a few grand just like that, sooo. . .like a baby being born, its value goes down since its parts are already wearing out. Know what i mean?

So many avenue's to take with this one. I happen to like cars, so i put it in these analogies.

did i mention its early and i can't spell. . .

-Steve

 

[J5im8yo]

You die because you cease to function! Wait whats this mean, I am repeating the same thing. Oh nvm

 

[charrison]

life is the simple cause of death.

 

[TresLunas]

Haha, "death is like a stack of pancakes". Next time I get into a conversation about death, I'll tell people this, and refer them to this post.

 

[ant80]

know some things, such as the shortened length of telomeres (nucleotides that stop our cells dividing more than 50 times) in Progeria patients, but it's not that simple.

While this is true, there are ways to fool the cell into beleiving that it has not replicated enough times yet. These cells are... guess what... cancer cells. Unregulated growth of cells.

For example, HeLa cells replicate a few times and die off. But a variant of these cells dont die regardless of the number of times they divide. Its been a long time since my mol.gen. lab. So I dont remember the names of each cells.

But I assure you one thing. Death is a boon. Deathlessness will be total misery.

 

[TMS]

It's O2 thats killing us. We all are burning slowly
The aging of our bodies is like a steak being fried, only much slower.
Watch what happens to iron over the time, the same reaction happens inside us too, slow
corrosion. If our bodies were perfect to remove all the damaged material from our bodies, we would live much
longer (I think telomeres would limit our lifespan next).

From all the above we can then see why eating less will make our life longer (more eaten ->more oxygen used
-> more damage).

 

[stebesplace]

Well since i am deteriating as it is, i guess i will get something to eat. . .maby some pancakes.

-Steve

 

[FuriousBroccoli]

You won't live longer by eating less, unless you are overeating, and then the danger is from obesity, not free radical ("oxygen") damage. Your body is bobarded with free radicals when you breath too, so try breathing less, and let me know how that works out for you ;-)

 

[beatniks3]

this thread seems dangerously off topic, but it is a fun subject to think about no less...the study of death has to be broken into two halves; death of the body and death of the mind. we must make this divide because we want to be sure to consider our compromised position of analyzation in relation to the death of the mind for the mind offer's its own delusions of immortality whereas our bodies offer constant reminders of their functional mortality in the form of pain, aches, sickness, etc.

currently this thread seems to be about the death of the body, and likewise it is much easier to talk scientific talk and bring up what work has been done on the subject.

i don't think it is accurate to say that DNA or genetic replication plays a role in the natural death of the individual human being....although FuriousBroccoli is correct that it is not playing any benifical role either to prevent death at old age.

the death of our animal body completes the cycle of life...life on this planet is the process of turning one thing (the external world) into another (cell mass, energy) into another (waste products, lifeless body mass) and over and over and on and on...so in this sense, death is the breaking down of one life system into the start of another. the cause for death is simply the collaspe of critical life operations such as breathing, filtering toxins, digestion, etc.

interestingly enough, there were tribes of primitive warrior cultures that believed that the only true, natural death was on the battlefield. all other deaths were considered to be the result of witchcraft or voodoo by enemy forces. they reason this because, if for example, John Q. Warrior dies of malaria, they would say that there have been other people that have had worst symptoms then John Q. and survived, so he must have been cursed by the enemy's medicine man or something. anyone interested in this topic should read carl jung's modern man in search of a soul...when he was a young man he studied tribes in africa...cool read

so what about the other half, the death of the mind?

try to think about death for a second, try and get real close to those final few moments...what did you imagine? did meaningful memories flow by? whenever we perform an excerise like this we induce the phantasy of death....we call this transparent ghost before us and we shudder and feel an electrical flow down our spines, but often forget that all we have in front of us is the illusion of the thing that will one day most certainly come in concrete form.

the best analogy i can think of for the death of the mind and body is the powering down of the your computer after you have used it for hours on end....the body (tower and monitor, laptop, whatever) ceases to hum and buzz, the monitor is blank...the mind (all the work you have done, everything virtual stored on the harddrive, etc) gone save for some ones and zeros etched on a harddrive platter somewhere// but it doesn't top the pancakes one!

(sorry to lazy to spell check...)

 

[dejitaru]

Originally posted by: TMS
It's O2 thats killing us. We all are burning slowly
The aging of our bodies is like a steak being fried, only much slower.
Watch what happens to iron over the time, the same reaction happens inside us too, slow
corrosion. If our bodies were perfect to remove all the damaged material from our bodies, we would live much
longer (I think telomeres would limit our lifespan next).

From all the above we can then see why eating less will make our life longer (more eaten ->more oxygen used
-> more damage).

"Preheat oven to 98.6 degrees. Sprinkle steak with seasonings, bake for 60-70 years or until dead."

Maybe not.

 

[Shalmanese]

Originally posted by: FuriousBroccoli
You won't live longer by eating less, unless you are overeating, and then the danger is from obesity, not free radical ("oxygen") damage. Your body is bobarded with free radicals when you breath too, so try breathing less, and let me know how that works out for you ;-)

Actually, stuides in rats and, more recently, humans have indicated that eating very little can significantly increase your life expectancy (note: NOT anorexia type starvation) . Its all to do with metabolic rates and such.

 

[stebesplace]

well crap

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: stebesplace

Death is one of those mysteries. Your body is like a car. You can buy a new car, treat it like a baby, but you will always need to replace parts in the end. Have you ever seen a model T that has all original parts, in pristine contition? I havn't. This is my point; Until human evolution develops cures for so many diseases, and or, developes the means to build parts for us, arms, legs, lungs, brains? heh, then we will always break down eventually.

Evolution among humans is no more. Those with weak genes are free to reproduce. My body wouldn't have been strong enough to keep me alive more than a few years - when I was toddler, I got an infection, and I couldn't keep anything down, including water. My parents told me this story; they had me to the pediatrician, and her advice was to get me to a hospital, otherwise I'd probably be dead by the next morning. I was in the hospital pretty fast then - on IV's. So there, my genes weren't good enough to give me a robust immune system. My parents would not have even made it that far; they had bacterial infections when they were very little. More genes that would have been gone.
As long as the "weak" can reproduce, the survival of the fittest that evolution relied on no longer exists. Any 'evolution' we may undergo will need to be artificially introduced, and as anyone who's seen the movie Gattaca can see, this can cause problems. (For those who didn't, it was in the future, where the privelaged ones in society got genetic enhancements; those who didn't receive these enhancements were considered the low-rung of society.)


I saw something in Discover magazine I think it was, about turtles and how they can provide insights into aging. The scientists in this article noticed that turtles don't seem to age, or even slow down. In fact, their fertility actually increases as they get older - the number of eggs per clutch increases, and more of them are healthy. They seem to die by predators or disease, but not old age. Could be interesting to study their cells and see how they're able to keep regenerating without degenerating at the same time.

 

[irwincur]

There is a good deal of truth to this. I have read in science journals that by allowing more and more weak genes to survive we are basically poisoning the supply. While it may not sound right, death is a natural process to control evolution and genetic mutation. So the more weak people that are around, the more problems everybody will have in the future - especially if the weak genes are dominant traits.

Take bad eyes for example. There are many people that need glasses or contacts, in the past this was not as prevalent. Because these people (with the defects) typically would die of accidents sometime before old age and usually before reproduction. There is not much you can do when you can't see crap. Now that glasses have been invented these people can see, and they can contribute to society, safely - but, they are also breeding and spreading this defect to the next generation. The tough part of all of this is to justify not letting people live to protect the species, very thin ethical ice.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: irwincur
There is a good deal of truth to this. I have read in science journals that by allowing more and more weak genes to survive we are basically poisoning the supply. While it may not sound right, death is a natural process to control evolution and genetic mutation. So the more weak people that are around, the more problems everybody will have in the future - especially if the weak genes are dominant traits.

Take bad eyes for example. There are many people that need glasses or contacts, in the past this was not as prevalent. Because these people (with the defects) typically would die of accidents sometime before old age and usually before reproduction. There is not much you can do when you can't see crap. Now that glasses have been invented these people can see, and they can contribute to society, safely - but, they are also breeding and spreading this defect to the next generation. The tough part of all of this is to justify not letting people live to protect the species, very thin ethical ice.

Bad eyes - something else that we've got here; both my parents have bad eyes; my mom even has astigmatism. I've had glasses since 2nd grade, and my sight is just getting worse; I'm nearsighted, but not very much so - if normal sized text is farther than 1 foot away, I can't read it at all without glasses.

"very thin ethical ice" - heck yeah. Anyone who's deemed to be "unfit" to reproduce - which would probably be a LOT of people, as the "supply is poisoned", to paraphrase what you said, irwincur, and has been for quite some time - would likely be very pissed off, and question the authority of the person/people making that call.
Hmm, interesting thought - is the right to reproduce guaranteed in the Constitution?

 

[kt]

Originally posted by: TresLunas
Haha, "death is like a stack of pancakes". Next time I get into a conversation about death, I'll tell people this, and refer them to this post.

haha, "death is like a stack of pancakes" and "life is like a box of chocolate".

 

[jarsoffart]

I saw in Scientific American Frontiers suggesting the claim previously mentioned here that eating less, but with high nutrition will extend your lifetime. One of the scientists that strongly supported this was Roy Walford. He looks quite crazy though. Here is his website for all who are interested. Supposedly he's been eating these "salads" for a few decades. He was in Biosphere 2 and discovered this, then tested it. It was also mentioned that vitamin supplements don't help at all, but that was for rats.

 

[bizmark]

Originally posted by: irwincur
There is a good deal of truth to this. I have read in science journals that by allowing more and more weak genes to survive we are basically poisoning the supply. While it may not sound right, death is a natural process to control evolution and genetic mutation. So the more weak people that are around, the more problems everybody will have in the future - especially if the weak genes are dominant traits.

Take bad eyes for example. There are many people that need glasses or contacts, in the past this was not as prevalent. Because these people (with the defects) typically would die of accidents sometime before old age and usually before reproduction. There is not much you can do when you can't see crap. Now that glasses have been invented these people can see, and they can contribute to society, safely - but, they are also breeding and spreading this defect to the next generation. The tough part of all of this is to justify not letting people live to protect the species, very thin ethical ice.

On the topic of eyesight, I've come up with a possible reason why we associate glasses with intelligence. Those in the distant past who had bad eyes, would likely not survive for long -- unless they had other beneficial traits that they could use to benefit their society. If you're smarter than everyone else, and do a lot of inventing or planning or something, then others will take care of you and your poorer eyesight won't matter as much. Thus the 'poor eyesight' gene gradually became correlated with intelligence.

It's funny how the glasses/intelligence thing is one of those stereotypes that we just can't get away from. That's why I think that there may be some underlying truth to it -- people with poor eyesight tend to be smarter. Of course there's tons of variation, and no genetic correlation is ever perfect, but you understand what I'm trying to say....

On the topic of improving the gene pool -- there are ways to jump-start further human evolution that aren't negatively constructed. It's easy to suggest making it so that the 'worst' people can't reproduce, but obviously that has very negative overtones. The better policy would be to make it so that the 'best' people reproduce a *lot*. Give subsidies -- hell, even pay the most intelligent people to do nothing other than have kids. That would be their job. We need to reverse the current situation of welfare, where we're actually encouraging dis-evolution by allowing the laziest and least productive to reproduce at the expense of the state, at the same time that the best and brightest (in business, academia, etc.) wait until they're 40 to have kids, if they ever have kids at all.

This positively-oriented policy -- don't keep the "bad" people from having kids, just encourage the "good" people to have more -- would fly a lot easier politically. Of course it's not going to happen anytime soon, so I guess we'll just keep devolving until then

On both topics -- humanity has reached the point where eyesight does not matter at all. Vision can be artificially enhanced, and it's almost to the point that it can be artificially replaced. Intelligence is the key thing that we'll have to breed for in the future, not any physical attribute.

 

[SuperTool]

A lot of this bad eyesight is a result of reading too closely, using all sorts of computers, doing stuff which eyes weren't designed for.
Death happens because death happening doesn't prevent human species from reproducing, which in turn allows us to ask what causes death. There isn't anything inherently bad in death. I mean cells and organizms die all the time without even knowing or caring. Like some bacteria doesn't care if it dies, it doesn't even care if it reproduces, or even if the whole bacterial species disappears tomorrow. It didn't ask to be created, and it wouldn't care if it never existed. The only reason we humans care is because it's in our software to want to preserve our life at all cost. If it wasn't in our software, we would probably live very short lives, and we wouldn't be having this discussion, because we wouldn't be here.

 

[Jeff7]

This positively-oriented policy -- don't keep the "bad" people from having kids, just encourage the "good" people to have more -- would fly a lot easier politically. Of course it's not going to happen anytime soon, so I guess we'll just keep devolving until then

And one of the last things we need is for people to reproduce faster.

Intelligence is the key thing that we'll have to breed for in the future, not any physical attribute.

Yeah; Stephen Hawking's Universe In a Nutshell discussed this. Something interesting he mentioned though, as we become able to retain more information, our ability to think faster will decline - they're inversely proportional - speed, storage space, or a balance of the two, but not both. He says that this is so simply because of the way that neurons work, and the speed at which they can transfer messages.

The only reason we humans care is because it's in our software to want to preserve our life at all cost. If it wasn't in our software, we would probably live very short lives, and we wouldn't be having this discussion, because we wouldn't be here.

It's in any life form's software to want to preserve its own existence, and reproduce, thus preserving the existence of the species. It's just that things like bacteria really can't do too much to preserve their own existence, and so they devote themselves to reproducing rapidly. Humans are able to do far more than that to preserve our individual lives, and so we try our best to use whatever means we have at our disposal.

 

[FuriousBroccoli]

We're not devolving, evolution is too slow a process to matter either way any more. In the time it takes for our IQs to go up or down 5 points we'll have life extension and genetic engineering down to a 'T'.