Is aging natural? Or normal? And even if it is, does that mean we shouldn't try to beat it?

I think that part of this is people falling prey to the naturalistic fallacy, and mistakenly assigning a good/bad value to "normal."

My concern with aging is that we may be at a local optimum in human design space, and that addressing fundamental causes may require heroic intervention at the subcellular level. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, or work to ameliorate consequences (like the arthritis mentioned in the article), but don't be surprised if the core problem resists easy attack.

We prefer not to accept many other things that are allegedly 'natural,' (such as those things that cause infant mortality, and later non-man made threats that may keep us from getting old to begin with) which fly in the face of our desires and sense of self-preservation. There's no reason for aging to be an exception.

I support Wilford Brimley's assertion to his wife (as nearly as I can remember it) near the end of the movie 'Cocoon:"

"Considering what nature's done to us, I say the hell with her."

Interestingly, I'm currently reading Robert Sawyer's 'Rollback,' a novel that considers some of these longevity ideas, in combination with a successful SETI contact...

There's no reason for aging to be an exception.

Actually, there is a reason, or at least an argument: if there were an easy way for evolution to have increased our lifespans, it would have done so. So any intervention we might find has to be something that would have been hard for evolution to also try, or for which there is some countervailing cost that negates the advantage. For example, aging may be a failsafe mechanism that retards cell division, delaying the onset of otherwise inevitable cancer from accumulated somatic mutations. We might inhibit this mechanism and stay 'young', only to die of cancer sooner.

My best hope for prolonging lifespan is freezing of stem cells soon after birth, so later in life one could be injected with cells with a low mutation burden. This would be no help for me personally, of course.

Actually, there is a reason, or at least an argument: if there were an easy way for evolution to have increased our lifespans, it would have done so.

You know, Paul, I don't always agree with your arguments, but they're usually smart. This is a rare exception.

Assuming that you believe in evolution (and I'd like to think that's a valid assumption), what is the benefit to the genotype for the phenotype to have a longer life, once it's successfully passed on its genes?

what is the benefit to the genotype for the phenotype to have a longer life, once it's successfully passed on its genes?

Passing on more genes?

Though, having the same individual contributing to the gene pool even after several generations of its offspring have begun doing the same, could pose problems with the evolutionary process, now that I think about it.

...what is the benefit to the genotype for the phenotype to have a longer life, once it's successfully passed on its genes?

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 11, 2007 03:16 PM

Very good question Rand. I for one should re-read "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins.

we could always outlaw having babies until the parents were in their 70's. That would certainly help evolution along, healthy enough to have kids at that age means quite a few of the aging genes would be fairly weak. Face it, the earlier we have kids, the less likely we are to make aging un-natural. I think a better question would be what should we do with all the years of retirement we already can look forward to, let alone making it even longer.

Lordy Brad, how about doing the things you currently enjoy? Living longer doesn't mean living bed-ridden. I would love to think I could do a 5.12 climb at the age of 80.

Hey, I just finished Rollback myself! Great story.. one major theme is the loneliness an 85 year old man rejuvenated to 25 feels. Nothing in common with his contemporaries biologically or chronologically.

My own business spends a probably unhealthy amount of time dealing with the visible consequences of aging, and ameliorating those effects. So I am exquisitely aware of what I need to do to stay looking 30 for another decade or two, by which time I'm hopeful that my colleagues will have worked something out.

I don't believe that naturalism is necessarily a fallacy, but I don't think biology is normative either. Cholera is natural; I'll happily do without it. In the same way I think that there's a moralistic fallacy we can fall victim to as well. But at the end of the day, in the absence of a choice (senescence or no?) there is no fallacy possible - it's just the default situation we all have faced.

So I personally have no plans to go gently into that good night. But I go to great lengths (diet, exercise, skin care, etc.) to avoid it. Is my life less rich as a result? I don't know - it is what it is. I'm skeptical that calorie restriction is a wise strategy for life extension in and of itself, but it may be a minimally acceptable coping mechanism if you refuse to exercise enough. Better, in my view, is to both consume and expend a large amount of energy, and if anyone's interested, then by all means email me.

So, if you think about it, we're all engaged in beating aging when we do routine health maintenance tasks. Even trivial stuff like flossing has an effect on life extension. We're all trying to defeat aging, we just have clumsy tools at the moment.

Assuming that you believe in evolution (and I'd like to think that's a valid assumption), what is the benefit to the genotype for the phenotype to have a longer life, once it's successfully passed on its genes?

Evolutionary success is measured not just by a binary pass-on/not-passed-on choice, but by gene frequencies. Genes that enable an organism to successfully produce more offspring become more frequent in the gene pool. So, if it were easy for evolution to let someone live and reproduce for much longer, such genes would be selected for, all else being equal.

You might argue that females don't remain fertile forever, but males do, so why don't they live longer than females?

The naturalistic argument is hokey. Lots of things are natural, like cancer and small pox. The fact that something, like cancer or aging, sucks donkey dicks is good enough reason for me to try to get free of it. I don't care if it is "natural" or not.

I like this speculation from Dawkins:

"we can simply make the general prediction that the more you can simulate or mimic the properties of a young body in an old one, however superficial these may seem, the longer that body should live."

i.e. trick the body into thinking it is young and delaying the effects of "bad" late acting genes that may be switched on by perceiving an "old" environment.

This I think should bypass Paul's observation
(if true)and allow one to work with evolution rather than against it.

So do your stretches Iyengar fashion, eat organic food, reduce pollution, play a lot, and keep your sex drive up, even if your wife seems uninterested since she has passed on her genes.

I've said here...

http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/005890.html

...and elsewhere that we may find ourselves on a path to longevity that doesn't come out and admit that we want to 'cure aging,' but will instead nibble away and fix each of its components (symptoms, if you wish), individually.

There are several commercials for certain cosmetics and pain relievers with people who almost apologetically assert; "I 'don't want to be 20 again, but I *would* like to do ____ better." Fill in blank with your favorite age-related condition. Do them all, and you *would* be physiolgically 20 again. For example, when we learn to undo the various forms of tissue cross-linking that causes skin wrinkling, you have something that will benefit many *internal* tissues as well. (Because such things happen more readily to diabetics, most research on such cross-link breakers has been done for their benefit. Will we limit it to diabetics, if it also happens to have the 'side effect' of improving one's appearance? Remember, Minoxidil for hair re-growth was originally a 'side effect' of the blood pressure medication.)

Just today, here's something from the rather mainstream source of the MSN home page:

http://health.msn.com/womenshealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100162017>1=10008

And note this particularly relevant assertion in the story:

"Remember that no one dies of old age; we die of diseases."

...and the whole point of medicine is to treat/cure diseases. If 'normal aging' slowly becomes treatable in the process, that works for me. (Except that it *might* be too slow to benefit some people, compared to a targeted effort.)