Is Aging an Accident of Evolution?

Originally posted by liveandlearn
Anyone else on the blood type diet who has seen a slow down in the aging process?

It's genetic. I eat whatever I like, and people assume I'm about 10 years younger than I am. I act about 10 years younger, too.

My dad, at 89, can pass for 78. Many of his contemporaries look a lot older than he does.

Originally posted by daniel_g
If we 'turned off' aging so that we wouldn't die from it, then we would start starving to death since the world would soon be over populated.

Of course, this assumes we wouldn't arrive at a better solution in the course of extending lifespan and youth.

Many people would decide on their own to not have any children.

And, we can't negatively assume there will be problems of overpopulation. Future technology will no doubt be able to mitigate these supposed problems. There's plenty of land mass to house billions more. And with upcoming breakthroughs in nanotechnology, poverty and famine will be a thing of the past...even with 20 billion more.

Also, you're assuming we'll always be chained to the Earth. I believe we'll eventually inhabit other planets, so radical life extension won't be a problem, in the long run. Fill up the planet you're on...time to colonize the next one.

I'm starting to believe I don't really exist... do people just skip over my posts every time because they don't warrant a response, or am I truly a figment of someone's imagination...

reply to post by Byrd


My parents looked and acted their age in their later years. Still there may be something to what you say in that I look, act and dress younger than the stereotypical older woman. That may be part of the key to appearing younger than you are...an unwillingness to give in to age.

I still believe the answer lies somewhere between with genetics playing perhaps the larger role. This diet has greatly improved so many lab values (for what they are worth) that I choose to stay with it.

i read a very interesting study on againg and emotions. . . .

it said in short that when your brain releases the chemicals that cause emotions many of the cells in your body become addicted to those chemicals and thus the cells gain more receptors for the emotional chemicals and less receptors for other important chemicals

so you have decreased ability to get the good chemicals because of the increase in emotional chemical recepters and lack of other important receptors causing the cells and to function at a healthy rate

and that is the main cause of aging. . . .

ill look for the study but in the mean time heres a great video of one of the pioneers of acheiving true immortality

Google Video Link

hope you enjoy


[edit on 27-5-2009 by constantwonder]

Originally posted by Avarus
I'm starting to believe I don't really exist... do people just skip over my posts every time because they don't warrant a response, or am I truly a figment of someone's imagination...

i havent ready your post yet but i will and try to respond but. . . . there is a very good possibilty that you dont exsist. . . not as a bored member but as a real physical being

Google Video Link

Originally posted by Praetorian Guard
It's never been the case that there's been no aging in the world. [Your] post is founded upon fantasy.

Go here and learn different.

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Originally posted by DaMod
Hmmm. Aging is not an accident of evolution. It is a product of modern medical technology. The average human lifespan in biblical times (the time period) was around 43 years old.

That doesn't mean people died of old age in their forties. In Biblical times, far more people died in youth or childhood, of violence (war, personal quarrel, accident) or disease, bringing down the average lifespan.

It's true that better nutrition, health care, etc., have raised the natural lifespan, but the improvement is small: five years or so above the Biblical threescore and ten, a relatively small contribution to the near-doubling of the average human span in the last thousand years or so.

Originally posted by Astyanax
I think ageing was naturally selected for.
. . .

Brilliant post.

Aging was not an accident of evolution.
Aging is an achievement of evolution.
Mortality is part of what makes us human.

If we ever find a way to prevent or reverse aging, that technology will not be made available to the hoi poloi.
It won't be made available to the good, the wise or the ethical.

It will be grabbed by the least ethical and most powerful on earth and kept for themselves.

Think of your most hated power-mongers in this world. Do you want them to be immortal, forever growing in wealth, influence and power?