What is the evolutionary advantage of death?
>>7835919
It gives us hope that some day we will have peace from all this suffering.
>>7835919
Less cancer and weird genetic anomalies
Being able to mutate over generations? Not overpopulating the earth?
Recycling.
>>7835919
Gets rid of the old, shitty, uneeded and unevolved genes.
Lets the new genes reproduce
>>7835969
Reproduction among immortal beings usually occurs asexually (parthenogenesis ~ cloning)
>>7835919
The process is thus : we want to be happy, we notice that we are not, we wonder why, we notice that it is because mundane hedonism [=taking seriously our desires/ideas/self/what we feel] is poorly effective to be happy [we must work hard to get riches, then we must keep our riches, then we get a bit of pleasures from them, then they disappears (since we spend them), so we work hard anew to get new riches. Even worse, there is, sooner or later, a lassitude towards the fruits of our hard work (everybody in relationship knows this). Why do we get bored from all the entertainment we buy thanks to we hard work ??], we notice that everybody around us does the same and are not really happy. this mundane life is full of woes....
Plus we have faith that we will die, because we look around and see hundreds of people being miserable perishable pricks like us. people are us and we are people.
=> we abdicate before the lack of results from hedonism, we want to leave this lack of relevance forever (and we know how to).
we know thus that it is not worth it to go into the same hedonistic quest day after day, week after week, up to year after year; that we are not different, nor better than others in our misery.
It clicks. we understand that there is no point to continue to envy; once we understand this, we want to do the contrary of what we have done so far in our pathetic existence : do the contrary of being agitated.
we want to be still, even though we are not so still (otherwise we would be happy), yet we have no doubt about this new perspective on life [we clearly see that other hedonists are sad just as we were before, and we know why].
>>7835992
**Stillness**
What happens when you do not move, when there is nothing to do, when boredom happens ?
First we try to do not move, physically, but we notice that we fail. as soon as we try to stop moving, we dwell in the fantasies of our mind, we move physically, as if we despise being still. This hate of being still is interesting...
Why do we hate being still, to the point of doing the opposite most of the day, that is to say, exciting things all day long and when facing the sterility of excitations, we try to justify our behavior thanks to the manufacture of a faith in rationalization-objectification, so that ''we gain knowledge when things are excited '' ?
We try anew to be still. We try to keep our consciousness [=the thing which knows] [not mind!] on the object whereof we are conscious, as still as possible : we no longer dwell in the speculations of our mind, we try to be still towards our 5 other senses.
We stop moving physically: we sit and do not move, we lay down and do not move, we stand-up and do not move. Our body does not move.
when our body no longer moves, the sense of touch disappears, just like when we ''smell nothing'', when there is a neutral odor, just like when ''we hear nothing'', when there is less noise than regularly. Our body disappears, to better leave our consciousness (and the object whereof we are conscious).
[as an aside, consciousness alone does not exists, feelings does not exists, reality alone does not exist: you have these three things always tied with one another, and if you suppress one, you suppress the other two]
>>7835994
**breath**
Then we notice that the breath keeps moving. but at least the movement repeats itself: the breath moves in cycles; the small cycles in which we can decompose the breath is in-breath, out-breath.
The new question becomes: how can we be still towards the breath, since the breath moves in cycles? Well, to be still towards an do object which moves, we must move with the object. we will thus be still with respect to this object, no matter what movement of this object.
to be still towards the breath means that :
-when we breath out, we know that we breath out, WHEN we breath out [not an instant before, not an instant after]
-when we breath in, we know that we breath in, WHEN we breath in [not an instant before, not an instant after]
[there can be other things moving in cycle, typically the heart beat, but it is faint and far to speedy for most people to be conscious when heart beats happen. the breath is what is in the foreground, therefore, the breath is what matters]
there it is: we are still towards the breath, we are still towards the other senses which disappears, since THINGS DISAPPEARS when we keep being conscious of them and nothing happens.
Once your senses disappear, we are conscious of ''our consciousness'', and things happen: the jahnas arrive !
The method to study the consciousness, by the consciousness itself, is to get rid of as many displeasure as possible. this is what the buddhists do in their meditation. **the point is that there is no longer a distinction between epistemology, ontology, ethics and happiness.**
The jhanas are hedonism of the consciousness, while ordinary hedonism is materialistic, of the body; but even the jhanas are hard to get and their effects disappear, once we are no longer in them, sooner or later ! just like with mundane hedonism ! another deception... which leads you to know that, sooner or later, you will get rid of those jhanic fruits...
Thanks to the jhanas you study the consciousness itself and see before your eyes what you knew since the day it clicked: that your consciousness is not as permanent, nor as personal as you expected before leaving your pathetic hedonism, just as you understand that the body, the mind, the emotions, the tastes, the ideas are not you and and that the attachment to them prevent you from being happy.
Why this method leads to result worthy of being called ''knowledge'' ? because the results:
-transform us
-transform us without reversibility [you cannot go back to a previous state, the good news is that these states make us happier than before] (and this is the whole point of the endeavor : to escape the impermanence which is the weakness of induction)
Happiness is thus the destruction of the avidity towards pleasures, the destruction of the aversion towards pains, the destruction of the ignorance of the sterility of hedonism of the body and hedonism of the consciousness.
What replaces the things destroyed ? equanimity, benevolence, charity, certainty that you are no longer an hedonist, certainty that you are happy and that nothing remains to be done in this life.
The results which are the certainty in this perspective of being still, is called ''stream-entry'' by the buddhists.
>>7835919
Just because something exists, doesn't mean it has an evolutionary advantage.
>>7836006
But when something persists, it probably has.
Death is the default state, and the entire point of evolution is adapting to put it off as long as possible.
>>7835919
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
>>7836063
so scientists WANT WW3 to happen?
>>7836010
Not at all. Maybe death is simply a hard problem to solve evolutionarily.
>>7835969
>if there was no death then people would be more inclined to fix/prevent the cause of all this suffering
What does that have to do with evolution?
>>7835919
There is none. We didn't evolved to gain ability to die, it was part of life from the start.
It's not a result of any evolutionary process.
>>7835919
Thermodynamics
>>7835919
What is the evolutionary advantage of OP's faggotry?
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~jkwerfel/prl15.pdf
>We show that in spatial models with local reproduction, programed deaths instead robustly result in long-term benefit to a lineage, by reducing local environmental resource depletion via spatiotemporal patterns causing feedback over many generations.
>>7836509
>collectivism is cuckoldry
This is by definition.
>>7836602
xDDDDDDD le le le lelelel xD
>>7835919
>parasites
>diseases
>genetic damage
Renewing the human form through a process of birth->death->birth preserves purity of the body and the genetic code.
People living to the year 2000 years of age would look like abominations.
I'm surprised no-one has given the obvious answer:
Adaptability. If death didn't exist, the old would take up too many resources for the young to survive well, and the species would struggle to evolve and thus struggle to adapt to changing environments.
>>7835998
*The end of the cycle*
In stillness you have found a mountain to clime.
In breath you have found pearls of wisdom.
The funny thing is, thous things have renewed your hunger.
You thirst for more knowledge, more power over mind.
You crave that illusive happiness as you once craved satisfaction.
The time is ripe for a new transformation.
Liberate yourself from liberation.
you devote yourself to movement.
As it is impossible to return you pick a new rode.One that follows both the spirit and the flesh. And as you can already feel the cold clutches of said death you know this cannot be just a project.
It cannot be just a side mission.
It cannot be a self assuring 45 minute's a day.
Death is knocking at the door and you are to play the last card.
It is at this point that you finely see that being happy is an obstacle in your way to fulfillment. So you refuse to be happy, you let go of the last things you had,
your lover,
your house,
your books,
your memory's,
and finely your pride.
and on that last breath you are truly happy.
>>7836650
but some type of jellyfish never die. they keep replacing damaged DNAs with fresh DNAs and reverse their aging process. Some jellyfishes are old as 1300 years old
>>7836696
And that makes sense because the jellyfish design is one of the oldest (that is they really haven't evolved in over 100 million years). If you no longer need to evolve in structure, it makes sense that evolution would favor longevity.
If there was no death, there would not be evolution at least nowhere need the speeds that it actually happens. Sure there would be mutations but ultimately Earth would be left with primitive single cell organisms only even today if there was no death.
What really drives evolution in species is high infant mortality, those with traits that are best suited to their current environmental niche will survive passing on their favourable traits to their offspring, and their genes as well.
NO death = no mechanism to select against inferior organisms. Which would mean no animals on Earth today (singled celled organisms never die so no incentive or mechanism for them to improve)
>>7835983
>cloning in nature does not have mutations
really? no, really I dont know.
>>7837194
There is a chance of mutation in cloning. Since a new copy of the DNA is made, there's a chance of an error being made during the copying.
What the other anons may be thinking of is recombination. Recombination occurs in sexual reproduction, but not in asexual reproduction.
>>7835919
If you didn't die, then you would compete with your offspring for resources. This would endanger your offspring's chances to thrive, or even their survival.
>>7836048
That's not true at all... Many species literally die after mating for no reason. Evolution is all about passing along genes most effectively. That means living until a certain point.
>>7837404
why does that mean living until a certain point?
how does dying ensure that genes are passed down most effectively?
>>7835919
In nature, you would die from predators, disease, or accident by your 30s. Therefore, there was no evolutionary force to evolve methods to live much longer than that. Just be glad that you can potentially push 100 years with your body that's been decaying for half a century.
To put it short. Natural selection is less likely to remove trait or fix issues that are only evident after producing offspring e.g (cancer and Alzheimer). While being immortal will greatly increase your fitness as you can produce an infinite amount of progeny, I theorize that the selective pressures minimize much faster than does the fitness increase. This means that natural selection is not sufficiently able to promote immortality.
>>7837518
>While being immortal will greatly increase your fitness as you can produce an infinite amount of progeny
This may or may be true for men, but for women who have children later in life there is a much greater chance of birth defects. I suppose menopause could counteract the negative selective pressures from that though.
>>7835919
>evolutionary advantage of ____ thread
Thus shit is about as scientific as Aboriginal fables. Bunch of smug faggots asspulling to make themselves feel smart.
save resources
>>7837539
You've summed up all of /sci/ and yourself. Congrats.
>>7835919
>evolutionary advantage of death
it gives the possibility of evolution, at all
Immortal marry sues are bad for biodiversity.
>>7835919
>What is the evolutionary advantage of shitposting?
it conveys the illusion of an increased likelihood of survival to reproduce
>>7838052
But what's the evolutionary advantage of evolution?
Checkmate darwinists
Mother Nature is a whore. She kills her own children and reproduces different kind of shits from their elements. This is that bitch's advantage. She wastes nothing. But if you are dead that means you are eliminated. Being eliminated is not an advantage for you. Life is similar to being a sheep that stands in queue in a slaughterhouse. This is not an advantage evolutionary or philosophical.
>>7835919
There is none its just a side effect of biological matter not having an endless supply of energy.
>>7841060
An individual can have an endless supply of food, which is converted into an endless supply of energy. But that individual will still die.
Not as much cancer
>>7835919
In most cases it's bad but in few cases such as the male antechinos die to provide less resource competition for their offspring
>>7835919
Equilibrium state. Life is useless anyway.
>>7835919
The genes have been passed and the evolution has already happened, after that they have no use in the evolutionary sense but to take resources from others. There is some altruistic behavior towards children (surviving machines) with similar genes as parent. So this could be just one natures way to make sure children are better off. In nature competition from food and living space has always been more intense than in the urban world.
So all of these arguments about how an immortal person would use up too many resources, get in the way of the youth, etc...
...they're all arguments that could be made against transhumanism? Shouldn't humanity be trying to stop Google's Calico project and others like it?
http://www.calicolabs.com/
>>7835919
Would you want to live through being an old rotting corpse and do you think your grandchildren would want to procreate if they saw you consciously degenerate like that?
>>7836048
golf clap
>>7842662
if nobody dies for sure the resources will become a problem, unless birth rate is also controlled. There are ways around these limitations, like grow food in space pods or live entirely in the space.
These scientific programs are only studying the subject, not executing them. They will just increase our knowledge from a matter in hand. Only when something actual is found, we can make an informed decision from how to put that invention in use.
>>7836692
thanks for sharing, anon.
>>7842663
You have little bit misunderstood the subject. The cells replicate themselves many times over the lifespan of man, so there really are no biological reason for them to lose the ability to do that and man become old. Of course errors in cell replication will accumulate but if we could change this and few more bugs.
>>7842679
>The cells replicate themselves many times over the lifespan of man
However, like directly copying anything, it degrades a little bit every time and not only do mutations and errors accumulate, but they increase in frequency over time because entropy exists.
>>7842688
This is false. This is the exact reason we are using the term replicate and not the term copy. Copy of the molecule is the exact replicate from the original. It is true that the mutations will accumulate but there is natural fixing mechanism for this. it needs to be improved for sure for eternal life to be possible but even if its hard its not impossible.
Human is not an isolated thermodynamic system so entropy is not limiting factor except in universe level which is believed to be an isolated system.
>>7842688
Well, I have to give you that in the end of DNA strings there are these things called telomeres which get shorter with every copy but it is pure mechanical problem and might be fixable.
>>7842696
Yes I should have said attempting to directly copy anything because in realty, only near replication is even possible.
Besides the telemeres problem >>7842700, there is also the issue that cellular division has a sort of scaring that increases lipids and causes a build up of lipfuscin which generally makes metabolism and oxygen extraction much more difficult causing additional loss of vital mass that leads to eventual atrophy that causes organ failure unless the lipids build up too much and cause an overgrowth or hypertrophy that leads to the other organ failures like prostate problems or even cancer.
>>7837532
Men who have children later in life also have a risk of producing children with defects.
>>7842710
That membrane scaring sounds interesting haven't get that far in my studying. But by the definition "getting old" is not solved before these problems are solved, so the principle behind the idea is solid. It doesn't need to be easy.
Death is a needed feature to an extended ecosystem.
>>7842734
Why?
>>7842745
Just take the information I give you at face value and don't question any of it.
>>7835919
Your question is poorly posed.
Death isn't a result of the evolutionary process. It's a result of the biochemical happenings in organisms that are subject to obvious degradation over time.
The question you need to ask is that if a species reaches immortality, what would the advantage be?
>>7842747
That is not how this works. You make an argument and give your justifications and then we argue and I will show you why you are wrong.
>>7842756
That is not how this works. Just take the information I give you at face value and don't question any of it. You're already failing an incredibly easy task.
>>7842769
Oh, you are so cute! Nothing to say at all, no one single original thought in your mind. Thinking that trolling makes you feel better but at the evening you are as empty inside as you were at the morning. It is known fact that trolls are likely to be narcissist, psychopaths or sociopaths, so it's not likely you can feel anything worth living for. Therefor death is very good option for you, we wouldn't wan't you to suffer more then needed.
>>7842783
>more then needed
than
>>7842789
Thank you! Learning English is the most important reason I'm writing here. Granted, I have a lot to learn.
>>7842791
I know when I'm learning a new language one of the smartest things to do is to have a scientific argument in the language I'm trying to learn. There's nothing like an uphill battle squared.
>>7842802
Oblicatory: https://xkcd.com/386/
>>7842817
>unable to post an image on an image board
gtfo fgt pls
Diversity, population control.
>>7835919
Reduces competition
checkem>>7842977
>>7835919
Evolution doesn't care about death. If you can pass on your genes it's absolutely irrelevant what happens after.
>>7842999
>Evolution doesn't care about death
then why do things die? checkmate
