Ever wondered why we die? Here are some thoughts on the matter. Excerpt:
It’s not that living things die; it’s that multicellular organisms die. But why?
Every single-celled organism alive today has been in existence since life began over 3 billion years ago. This is because individual cells do not give birth, they divide. After cell division, the two cells that result are each as old as the single cell that preceded them. The cell does not become younger by dividing. (Although this may not be exactly true, see: [1])
Thus every cell in your body is over 3 billion years old.
The strategy that multicellular organisms such as humans use to project themselves into the future is to create new cell colonies from a single undifferentiated cell rather than maintaining existing colonies indefinitely. The main reason is that reproduction is more flexible and robust than maintenance, and it provides a way of starting over with a “clean slate” and slightly different genes. Complex organisms accumulate billions of errors and problems over their lifetime. Most of these errors are fixed as fast as they happen, but life takes a toll and not all problems are reversible. Just as reinstalling Microsoft Windows every so often fixes accumulated system issues, so does generating a new organism every so often from a single cell.
Given that biology has selected this strategy, evolution has optimized for producing the most successful offspring. Once the individual has reproduced, its only evolutionary role is to support the success of its offspring. Aging longer is just not something evolution has had a reason to optimize. And in fact given limited environmental resources, the offspring often do better if the older generation doesn’t stay around forever competing with younger generations for scarce resources.
Interesting as this is, the article only covers the biological and evolutionary mechanisms behind death, not the philosophical ones. Robert Heinlein, speaking through his recurring character and (pehaps) avatar Jubal Harshaw, said “going to the showers is the best part of the game.” I’m not so sure about that, although when my own time comes, I’m hoping for something dramatic – a knife fight with a grizzly, perhaps, or maybe being shot by a jealous husband – both when I’m well into three figures, of course.
But the fact is, we generally don’t get to choose.
Atheist I am and atheist I will remain, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate good poetry, and here’s some – from Ecclesiastes 1:4:
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
I guess that says it as well as I could. Everything has it’s time and place. This is mine. I’m not going to worry about why or how I die. How you die isn’t important.
It’s how you live that matters.
