Originally Posted by Petrakan

There is no such thing as dying of old age. The problem is that, just like trees, humans become more susceptible to problems when we age. Trees grow too large, or their weight becomes unbalanced and they fall, or they can't transport water through their whole system, or they can't create enough nutrients, or they get diseases. Humans have all the same problems. As we age, we have more trouble supporting ourselves, our veins get clots, we have trouble digesting, and we get diseases easier. As we improve our medical techniques and learn how to eat healthy diets and exercise, our life expectancy increases. As we munch on fast food, our life expectancy decreases. The same is true with trees. If they get good nutrients, they are healthy and live longer. When a human who is over 100 years old dies, we say they died of old age, but no one actually dies of old age. They die of complications. Just like trees.

Wear and tear model? Good but no cigar. We do get old naturall. It's programmed into our cells. An example - yeast. Any yeast cell can divide up to about twenty times, but every cell produced from that division can then go on and divide a further twenty times. Why? Each of the two cells has exactly the same level of accumulated damage as the progenetor, but they can divide more. Why? Programmed aging. When the chromosomes seperate and the cell divides, one cell gets all the viruses. These, I should stress, are not the cause of the cell's death, but the yeast accumulates the viruses in a cell it is going to kill anyway, so only the 'older' cell has viruses. That cell then ages and dies.

I totally doubt it for a different reason. First of all, scientifically speaking, we and trees are totally different beings. Different family, different class, order, etc. Although we're the same in that we're both living organism, but the way we are built structurally makes the uniqueness. Everything must die, yes I agree with what Gossy said. Trees, I honestly don't know if they die or not. My guess would that they DO die, but becasue they live very long and their cell structure enable them to keep their shape even after their "death", we can't actually tell.

Humans being imortal? I personally wouldn't want that. Imagine all the bad things that will happen (in my case, the good things will turn bad in the long run anyways) Immortality, if people wants it, I think there is a way. There are researches nowadays about altering the DNA to "fix" the diseases, which will help you live longer because you wouldn't need to take medicine. Taking medicines actually wore out your body. Why some people live to 100? I notice that most of them are Japanese. Why is that? Their lifestyle is different from ours. Look at how they live. Although I think that a little "shock" in life now and then it's good for health, but the ideal peaceful living is what grant these old japanese people longer lives. and their food is very nutritious. We humans have be cheating nature for a long time with medicines and such. I don't totally believe in Darwin's natural selection theory, but I do know that the better cells comes first. If we are all immortal, then what's the point of babies? We would populate the world! Then we move and trash mars too? I mean, even with reproduction, the better cells gets the biggest chance.

i personally don't support immortality. we are born to die. we cheated death for too long. asking for immortality is again cheating. we are born to die, it's life. :( sorry if i blab too much.

Originally Posted by Berginyon

Suppose we did become immortal. Wouldn't it follow then that we'd either have to render ourselves sterile to avoid overpopulation, otherwise end up killing each other off anyway in competition for resources?

Well maybe not ALL of us need be sterile. Maybe just like one tenth of the population should remain fertile, just in case some mondo biblical death plague swept over the population and we had to get our numbers back up.

But do the few fertile women really want to be saddled with the responsibility of repopulating the Earth? No, that's not fair... hmmm...

We'd just have to ban sex. Now tell me, is eternal life worth it if you never get to get laid?

Alright maybe I'm being a little fatuous :P

I suppose immortality would be nice to have, but it'd be difficult to deal with. There are alot of elements of human behavior that would have to change; for instance, long term perspective. Which means that people who drive gas guzzling vehicles will actually live through the time period when our climate goes to shit, and the continents are all covered in ocean, like Waterworld. And then everyone else will be going "told you so" for the rest of their eternal existence. They'd probably end up lynching themselves. If they didn't drown first.

And you know many couples are going to have issues with the idea that they can't have a baby. That's one of the traditional joys of marriage is being able to raise your own kids. If we kept on doing that, the world would begin to seem like a very small place. Eventually we'd either have to kill each other off, or migrate into space and form new colonies in order to have enough resources to survive.

Also, what happens after you live 100 years or so? Things might start getting a bit boring. At some point all nuance would probably fade away, and any excitement you ever derived from being alive would go with it. Maybe it would then be ideal if you could choose whether or not you wanted to die and when.

But hey, if we can alter our perspective to fit the immortal lifestyle, I'm for it.

haha you raise such interesting points x3

Youre right about people having sex. That could turn out weird. Resources shouldnt be too bad of a thing if we just change our way of living.

I think age comes with knowledge. If we look at history people make the same mistakes over and over again. If people would live longer that could prefend wars ;)

Being old shouldnt be too boring. You live long enough to do anything you ever wanted. Through many era's, seeing many changes in technology, culture and maybe even beliefs. Sounds pretty exciting to me XD

Originally Posted by Intoxicate

Hm, I would only want to be immortal if those who I love get to come along for the ride, so to speak. Also, I would probably hope for a slowed aging physically or a halting point in physical appearance. xD Picky me. :3

If the entire species was immortal... Hm.
Would we be immortal only as long as we continued to
supply the body with food? Would be still get injuries?
Immortality can seem like a utopia-- by definition, a utopia is an idealistic community whose nature cannot ever truly exist.

Remarking on the vegan diet, their claims are completely false. If anyone bothered learning about cancer cells, they would know that cancerous cells are missing the gene that causes cells to fully mature and stop going through the cell cycle(which involves mitosis, duplication of cells). Therefore, cancer cells continue to multiply until they are killed, which is why chemotherapy is used despite its risks.

Uhuh, Ive heard about that. Still it is strange that something like laughter therapy is capable of curing cancer.

Originally Posted by Yarrian

Wear and tear model? Good but no cigar. We do get old naturall. It's programmed into our cells. An example - yeast. Any yeast cell can divide up to about twenty times, but every cell produced from that division can then go on and divide a further twenty times. Why? Each of the two cells has exactly the same level of accumulated damage as the progenetor, but they can divide more. Why? Programmed aging. When the chromosomes seperate and the cell divides, one cell gets all the viruses. These, I should stress, are not the cause of the cell's death, but the yeast accumulates the viruses in a cell it is going to kill anyway, so only the 'older' cell has viruses. That cell then ages and dies.

How does a baby get born by the worn out chromosomes of their parents though? That would give a newborn less energy to grow up with to begin with.. Right?

Originally Posted by sad_girlformat

I totally doubt it for a different reason. First of all, scientifically speaking, we and trees are totally different beings. Different family, different class, order, etc. Although we're the same in that we're both living organism, but the way we are built structurally makes the uniqueness. Everything must die, yes I agree with what Gossy said. Trees, I honestly don't know if they die or not. My guess would that they DO die, but becasue they live very long and their cell structure enable them to keep their shape even after their "death", we can't actually tell.

Humans being imortal? I personally wouldn't want that. Imagine all the bad things that will happen (in my case, the good things will turn bad in the long run anyways) Immortality, if people wants it, I think there is a way. There are researches nowadays about altering the DNA to "fix" the diseases, which will help you live longer because you wouldn't need to take medicine. Taking medicines actually wore out your body. Why some people live to 100? I notice that most of them are Japanese. Why is that? Their lifestyle is different from ours. Look at how they live. Although I think that a little "shock" in life now and then it's good for health, but the ideal peaceful living is what grant these old japanese people longer lives. and their food is very nutritious. We humans have be cheating nature for a long time with medicines and such. I don't totally believe in Darwin's natural selection theory, but I do know that the better cells comes first. If we are all immortal, then what's the point of babies? We would populate the world! Then we move and trash mars too? I mean, even with reproduction, the better cells gets the biggest chance.

i personally don't support immortality. we are born to die. we cheated death for too long. asking for immortality is again cheating. we are born to die, it's life. :( sorry if i blab too much.

Of course we are born to die. But we can choose to live longer right?

I know trees and human are comparible in no way. But comparing them may give insight in what is good for an organism's life, since trees seem to live so long.

Yeah, D-Yoop is right. Trees have the potential and natural ability to live past 1,000 years old, whereas people would never...well maybe in the future obtain. Of course we can choose to live or to die, but we live not to die, but to accomplish something in life.

See, death and life are two very different doors. You go out one, you can either not come out or decide to switch. Of course if you're dead, you don't have much of a choice to stay alive. Because you're not.

Actually, I think that there are certain plants or flowers that have a lifespan of only a couple of years. Not sure though.

I don't believe in Immortality, because I believe that death is necessary for life to exist. Without one, the other would not exist. Just like without evil, there can be no good..heaven/hell..light/dark..etc.

If we cracked the code, and could live forever..well the Earth would become even more overcrowded than it already is, food would run out, and then people would die from lack of nutrients and such. Just like in the wild, when a predator goes missing, and that animal thrives, but there are too many of them and not enough food.

I do think, that we have extended the human lifespan with all of our technologies and medicine, but I also think that we are only making a more fragile race. We preserve our weak and sick, by giving them medical treatment and vaccines. This goes against the theory of the survival of the fittest. In the wild, if an animal gives birth to a deformed or sick baby, they eat it x_x lol

Originally Posted by +lieforrenn

Yeah, D-Yoop is right. Trees have the potential and natural ability to live past 1,000 years old, whereas people would never...well maybe in the future obtain. Of course we can choose to live or to die, but we live not to die, but to accomplish something in life.

See, death and life are two very different doors. You go out one, you can either not come out or decide to switch. Of course if you're dead, you don't have much of a choice to stay alive. Because you're not.

I believe that when you're dead, you can pick the door to be reborn. But I'm sure there are people who think differently :3

Originally Posted by jelachu

Actually, I think that there are certain plants or flowers that have a lifespan of only a couple of years. Not sure though.

I don't believe in Immortality, because I believe that death is necessary for life to exist. Without one, the other would not exist. Just like without evil, there can be no good..heaven/hell..light/dark..etc.

If we cracked the code, and could live forever..well the Earth would become even more overcrowded than it already is, food would run out, and then people would die from lack of nutrients and such. Just like in the wild, when a predator goes missing, and that animal thrives, but there are too many of them and not enough food.

I do think, that we have extended the human lifespan with all of our technologies and medicine, but I also think that we are only making a more fragile race. We preserve our weak and sick, by giving them medical treatment and vaccines. This goes against the theory of the survival of the fittest. In the wild, if an animal gives birth to a deformed or sick baby, they eat it x_x lol

That's right, but I wouldnt call our medical treatments life extending at all. To me it's just a way to avoid a soon death because of disease. Sooner or later a medical treatment like chemo might be the cause of an earlier natural death. Most medical treatments damage the virus/cancer aswel as the body.

The first time I read this thread I thought you were crazy, but I think there may be something to it.

When you get down to it, oxygen is essentially damaging at the same time it gives us life, so I guess it's lucky that there's not too more of it in our atmosphere than there currently is. So I think there is something in your theory, and the biggest problem may just be that you're too vague in simply saying "air" instead of "oxygen."
I also find it interesting that you brought up trees as an example, as they're exactly the opposite of us. We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, they inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.

So I suppose the only way to stop aging/death would be to stop breathing. xD
Lose-lose situation, I guess.

Originally Posted by D-Yoop

That's right, but I wouldnt call our medical treatments life extending at all. To me it's just a way to avoid a soon death because of disease. Sooner or later a medical treatment like chemo might be the cause of an earlier natural death. Most medical treatments damage the virus/cancer aswel as the body.

Hmm, yes there is that too. It's like no matter what we do, there will always be a downside.

Originally Posted by Violet Lace

We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, they inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.

That's not quite true. Trees need oxygen as well when photosynthesis is not occurring.

Originally Posted by Zen And Tonic

That's not quite true. Trees need oxygen as well when photosynthesis is not occurring.

Ah ha, you're right. I suck at science. xD
Does anyone know, however, if it's true that trees don't die of old age? I'm curious about that.

Hmm, I don't know.
But I'm making a deal with the devil as soon as I can to become immortal. c:

Originally Posted by Violet Lace

Ah ha, you're right. I suck at science. xD
Does anyone know, however, if it's true that trees don't die of old age? I'm curious about that.

Yarrian confirmed that on page 3 ^-^

Originally Posted by Yarrian

1. Plants age and die like everything else. Trees have a natural lifespan and will die after it. Many plants age and die after only a year.