Death, why do we die?

[Deleted]

It should be noted that overpopulation only happens in less developed countries where having as many children as possible is a pure necessity. In the "Western World" population growth has leveled out.

[Deleted]

Just a little design flaw the almighty Architect didn't notice. Nothing that can't be fixed in the relative short future.

~ Infracted

Omfg, this is religion these days on MMO? Where I live, people just call it a bit of sarcasm to cheer up. Hell I could've even meant the guy from the Matrix trilogy (what a fucked up scene it is).

Too much knowledge would kill you anyway if age didn't catch you first....

You can't enjoy life when you know too much.

Like they say, ignorance is bliss.

Right, and where on earth did you get this idea from?

[rahdek]

every rich person out these is has the aging disease

We need to stop thinking this way, that aging is a "disease," that with money and medication can be eradicated.

[shise]

No matter how much supposed "science" we put on here, we simply don't know what happens afterwards, if something happens at all.

About "why do we die?", i am with OP, still we really don't know if that's it all.

However, i have a theory:

The day i die i'll see the truth, but if i can't see it, that'll only mean that the entire world was a fantasy of my mind.


If you think about it, it's true because if you die everything else stop existing at your eyes, the only eyes that really matter afterall. Yet, i would ask something else, is it even possible not to exist? even if you are dead, there's always something (we call it "nothing"), but nothing is something, it must be over/on/in something. What is it?


No matter how much you talk about this, no matter how diferent you formulate it, you'll always end up asking the same questions that none has yet been able to solve, at least that we all know ; )

[Comby]

We die cus of the spagetti monster wants us to come join him in spagetti heaven or spagetti hell, where spagetti satan lives.

Hail Spagetti.

Do not mock my beliefs.

[hiimjoe]

As we lose brain cells, there's no replacing them, and that's why we get disorders like Alzheimer's in our old age.

Im sure that makes alot of sense to you, but that is wrong, the loss of brain cells does not contribute to the development of Alzheimers, it is actually the build up of a protein on our brain cells, like a plaque, that hinders how they function, its being treated in mice with drugs that essentially wash the plaque away from the cells.

[Deleted]

We need to stop thinking this way, that aging is a "disease," that with money and medication can be eradicated.

Though quite frankly, it's only a matter of time before it will.

Wrong, everything is alive... stars, planets, everything in mouvement, all the UNI-VERSe is alive . It is like saying a tree is a dead thing with dead roots but his flower are alive because they are so colorful, skinny and sweet hihihi. ( Evolution on Earth is dead coz of humanity )

This all depends on what you're definition of life is. For me a star or a planet isn't something alive.

[Deleted]

It ends up that we just wake up and life was just a damn long dream :<

.... maybe its time to start living the "life" once it lasts *runs away*!

[Deleted]

Omfg, this is religion these days on MMO? Where I live, people just call it a bit of sarcasm to cheer up. Hell I could've even meant the guy from the Matrix trilogy (what a fucked up scene it is).


Right, and where on earth did you get this idea from?

If you have a problem with an infraction, you're free to appeal it, just PM me and I will bring it up with all the other mods. If you have a specific problem with a mod, PM Sunshine and she will take care of it.

[kendro1200]

It would be fun to see the communities opinion on death, mine is purely material and relies on a simple belief. I believe that the reason we die is because our bodies decay beyond the point of being able to function, I believe when I die it is because some part(s) simple break down. This means, to me, that death is a technical problem, in the sense that if we are able to stop the decay there is no reason to die. This belief makes sense (to me, probably a counter-argument) if I consider evolution, procreation is unnecessary in old age, thus our bodies simply don't care once we get old and start decaying.

I also hope (in my vanity ) that we can reverse the process (eventually we will be able to if I stay alive long enough), I sure as hell wouldn't want to be stuck @ 70 for life.

You have the general concept right. The fact of the matter is that our body has a ton of fail-safes to prevent all sorts of bad things from happening and that does attribute to aging and eventual death. By the time we reach our sixties for the most part most humans begin to lack a lot of general optimal organ function which then puts additional stress on the few remaining good organs and in general the system just spirals down to an end. The best correlation for the first sets of organs starting to perform below a passable spec is due to genetic decay from mitosis. All sorts of fun things are triggered due to the amount of wear done on chromosomes throughout the lifespan of an individual that we are still learning about and trying to figure out.

You also have to look at death from the viewpoint as a whole and not just the individual. Humans are biological creatures, that in some form or another were brought about through the genetic mutation of other creatures. Biological creatures have only two ultimate goals: survival and breeding. With breeding comes genetic variation and the guarantee of slight genetic mutation that will eventually lead to a new species emerging somewhere millenia down the line. To add onto that, for the most part, as far as raw resources go, Earth is a closed system, the Earth isn't gaining anymore mass. That means that all elements have been re-used by all sorts of things all over the place. Death and decay is needed to help redistribute resources to other biological systems to keep the food chain fluid in a manner of speaking. If humans didn't die, or animals in general didn't die, then we'd be running out of food soon, as we'd eventually run out of soil for plants that are edible.

The list can really go on, but yeah, just some general thoughts. Death and aging aren't fun for the individual, but a requirement for the species to survive.

[Mihalik]

You guys made me a very happy mod, but I will still need to remind people not to bring up religion here, at all.

---------Life is about evolution, evolution requires mutation, mutation requires frequent generations, that means death.

The only reason we are afraid to die, is that evolution quickly killed out those who didn't have the trait of self preservation - so we are left now being strongly afraid of death at a fundamental level. ------This first and foremost, telomers etc whatever are all there as an evolutionary safety mechanism to ensure the renewal of the gene pool.

Okey I'm soooo gona get banned for this.

I think you cannot make such an arbitary exclusion. This is a simple Off topic thread, not the peer rewiev section of a scientific journal.

Humanity spent most of it's history asking the same question of -Why do we die?

Religious explantions tend to esoteric and none sensical in some peoples eyes, but regardless it has answered imporant philisophical questions about death. Even the Judeo-Christian creation myth is a philisophical answer to this question. Why cant we live forever? Because we are flawed and where flawed from our first breath. This is what it really resumes down to. All the rest of the story with tempation and whatever is fluff to explain the subject matter.

The people who came up with the flawed conclusion lived thousands of years before scientific method so the fact they came up with any sort of logical conclusion based on available information is in it self amazing.

Altought they essentialy failed to understand that we are pretty much the best nature could come up with and our in built flaws are actualy strenghts for the total population.

Other mystics fared better to explain why we die. Like Hindus who came to believe in the eternal cycle of reincarnation. Death is a part of the process of constant renewal. Sort of evolution to perfection, altought not physical but rather spiritual.

Science today can give us the accurate reasons why we die. And why we should continue dieing. While immortality is tempting, it would not be beneficial to the human race as a whole. We must learn to live with the fact that we will eventualy die. And that we must die so life can continue. Here sometimes spirituality can give solice in face of our fear of death.

[Deleted]

Bad code just like windows , fucking bugs lead longterm to bluescreens aka screen of death

code =dna

and don't forget all the malware
code injection (virus), trojans (aids) or the brute force hacks (radiation, radicals)

[Deleted]

Science today can give us the accurate reasons why we die. And why we should continue dieing. While immortality is tempting, it would not be beneficial to the human race as a whole. We must learn to live with the fact that we will eventualy die. And that we must die so life can continue. Here sometimes spirituality can give solice in face of our fear of death.

So it's not wrong to constantly invent and improve medicine for example, or cooking methods, or hygiene etc. because those all contribute to our already massively expanded lifespan.

While a realistic form of immortality would surely cause problems in our society, problems are there to be solved. As many times happened before.

[Wildtree]

I don't see overpopulation as too much of a problem.
After all, we are human. Leave it to us to kill each other.
History teaches us, that once we've reached our ratio limit of population/supplies needed to survive, we start taking the supplies we need from those who have them. If it means to kill them for it, we do not hesitate doing so.
That was the case at the beginning of mankind, and persists until today..... The only progress here is that we became more subtle in masking the the reasons why we fight others..

[Deleted]

I think you cannot make such an arbitary exclusion. This is a simple Off topic thread, not the peer rewiev section of a scientific journal.

This simple off topic thread still has to abide the same rules as any other off topic thread. We just don't allow religious debates as it tends to stir up a flamewar quite quickly because it's such a sensitive topic. We would rather prevent that than having to waste time on damage control. Your points are valid, but not appropriate for these forums.

[Beeflord]

The OP is probably pretty close but doesn't answer his own question completely.
The actual reason for dieing is more complex...
Obviously dieing has worked so well on this planet in the past that it's still around.
I assume evolution through birth and death is more efficient or makes it more likely for the species to survive than living beings only changing while being alive (for example through culture or mutations).
Since everything is changing constantly you can't expect fixed entities to last forever.

[Medivhe]

You realize you can still die from non-natural causes right? What about that death? Can you prevent your brain from being splatted from a shotgun?

[Darsithis]

You realize you can still die from non-natural causes right? What about that death? Can you prevent your brain from being splatted from a shotgun?

I don't think anyone is talking about any other way to die than natural causes. Obviously if someone shoots you, you die, regardless of how flawless your DNA is.

[Deleted]

Its funny how no one has said anything about dieing from unaturel causes, like being shot etc

[Mihalik]

So it's not wrong to constantly invent and improve medicine for example, or cooking methods, or hygiene etc. because those all contribute to our already massively expanded lifespan.

While a realistic form of immortality would surely cause problems in our society, problems are there to be solved. As many times happened before.

What you are talking about are quality of life improvements. To make live healthier, longer and more productive lives. Regardless of that we would continue to eventualy decay beyond help and die. As we should naturaly.

If you remove that element, you remove the chance to renew things. You would have the same old politicians, same old rich people, same old musician, same old actor, same old mail man, same old criminal etc.

The renewal is not purely genetic and resource wise, it is also social. If there is no new, no drive for new things our society would become forever static. No social mobility and no aestethic stimulation. So in reality we would do more harm to society then good, not just the gene pool. There are limitations to human nature that you cannot overcome with any amount of social engineering. Does not matter what you do, the old eventualy never create anything new.

So while it is reasonable to expand our lifespans to their maximum potential, we should not exeed that.