[FRIAM] death

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I think the topic of death in it's broadest sense is very apropos of an 
Applied Complexity discussion group, here is what came up for me off the 
cuff:

Life itself is nothing if not "complex" by any measure or meaning of the 
term?  Even me, trying hard to live "a Simple Life".

Certainly the biosphere in it's totality has a fascinating complexity in 
quantity as well as quality and despite orders of magnitude in quantity 
(organisms as well as species, organs/organelles, etc) most entities 
would qualify for the same.   I find estimates for the number of species 
today on the order of 10M and over the history of the planet, perhaps 3 
orders of magnitude larger (5B?), beginning around 5B years ago, with 
plenty of variation *within* a defined/identified species.  This doesn't 
even consider the sheer *count* of individual organisms over that time.  
And within a single organism (e.g. human) there might be 10-100 trillion 
cells with dozens of major cell types (and thousands of sub-types?) and 
order 100 million proteins, 1 trillion molecules, or 100 trillion atoms 
per cell.  Estimates of the human microbiome are as high as 10x human 
cells representing a minimum of 1000s of species of bacteria, fungus, 
archae and virii!   The proteomic/molecular/atomic numbers above may or 
may not include the full microbiome.  And this doesn't include the 
myriad possible protozoa, worms, lice, scabies, etc that might inhabit a 
human body.   And amongst all of this quantitative complexity, there is 
a staggering qualitative complexity.   Not only are the human cells 
linked in a dance of anabolic and catabolic metabolisms, of hormonal, 
histamine, and immunological processes, but the full biome insinuates 
itself in this inner "ecology".

Not only is this a lot of LIFE, but also a lot of DEATH.   Clonal colony 
species (such as Aspen trees, various fungii) might have lifespans of 
many tens of thousands of years and some microorganisms have been found 
to have much longer lifespans, though often through long-term dormancy.  
Some endoliths might have been actively metabolizing (albeit slowly?) 
for order 10,000 years?   Individual plants (trees most notably) are 
known to have lifespans of several thousand years, and some individual 
animals might have lifespans of hundreds of years.  There are a few 
organisms with apparent (or relative?) immortality.   Some bacteria and 
yeast can apparently divide forever, as do hydra, some flatworms, and 
some jellyfish.  The most complex organism to appear to have 
self-regenerating/repairing telomeres is the Lobster but they eventually 
die from size...  the metabolic demands of moulting eventually kills 
them (tens of years) if they don't get eaten first.   Germ Cells, STEM 
cells, and some cancer cells are effectively immortal as well.   
Everything else dies of senescense and of course, everything is subject 
to death from outside causes as well (mechanical, thermal, chemical, 
radiative, or biological insults).

And death of an individual is *fairly* abrupt... comas, suspended 
animation, and similar aside.   Cessation of neural activity , autonomic 
functions like cardio pulmonary circulation usually stop abruptly.  Even 
cell metabolism endures for only a few minutes. But other processes 
(especially among the human biome) continue all the way into full decay 
unto composting (if allowed).

Natural Selection would appear to require ubiquitous death (although 
simple separation of population is another mechanism, think radical 
diaspora like star-seedships) but that only makes it "useful" not 
"necessary"?    In any case, Death of the individual appears to be 
inevitable, along with Taxes (or in the NM tourism industry, Texans).

Spiritualists would suggest that "life exists in the spirit or the soul" 
and when it leaves the body, death ensues (or vice-versa).  Few agree on 
where said "soul" or "spirit" resides when not in the body.   Like 
Phologiston or Aether, the Soul and it's various out-of-body residences 
might well be just a familiar construct to make the unexplainable 
familiar?   It appears to be a key to religions to explain the miracle 
of death, even more critically than the miracle of life?  Life 
after/beyond/outside-of death is a common thread...  reincarnation, 
heaven/hell/purgatory, valhalla, elysian fields, etc?   It appears to 
exist to relieve the individual from having to contemplate EL FIN.

When we consider "birth" or "conception" or "embryology" it isn't clear 
to me where the "Emergence" happens (if any?), but death is intuitively 
the *opposite?* of emergence?  When two gametes meet (sperm/ova pollen) 
there is a clear progression of self-organization into a 
(mostly)scheduled diversity.  Similarly biomes exist in a diverse, 
self-organized complexity of their own.   The boundary of "self" for a 
given organism (or organ or organelle) is probably more clear than that 
of a biome or ecosystem, but that might be a subjective observation?  
Senescense is the (presumed inevitable) decline of life toward death and 
appears to be pervasive, even ubiquitous if not entirely unavoidable.

The Singularians, most notably (IMO) Ray Kurzweil, believe that in a 
*transcendent* singularity where individual human 
intelligence/consciousness can become immortal through technological 
advances, in particular in AI, but also in bio/nano technology.   It 
seems like a natural (if not noble?) enough fascination, to imagine that 
personal death itself is not an absolute.   Are there philosophical ( or 
even moral )reasons NOT to seek immortality?  We already exercise quite 
a bit of life-extension, is there some logical (ethical?) limit to be 
found in this?  Is this movement just /Manifest Destiny/ revisited on 
cosmic scale?

The question of death (and life?) is inextricably tied to *identity*.   
Is a clone of me, me  (Michael Keaton's Multiplicity)?  If the Starship 
Enterprise's matter transmitter fails to dematerialize the source "me", 
is the target "copy" still "me"?    Do I live on through my extended 
phenotype (my estate of wordly possessions), through my progeny, my 
academic/professional/personal legacy?   If I have a brain trauma 
yielding amnesia, do "I" still exist?

What is Identity in a (non-living?) Complex System?  Do 
hurricanes/tornados birth, live and die?  Attractors?   Solitons? Do 
they have identity?   Will we all mourn the passing of Jupiter's Great 
Red Spot (if we outlast it?) and does Saturn's (apparently) recurring 
Great White Spot have identity?  Is it the same spot?

Is life itself somehow dependent on/defined by the "punctuated 
equilibrium" of birth, life, senescence, death?

When does life/consciousness/??? "emerge", or is it just a "bounce" 
through sexual reproduction similar to the imagined "bounce" of which 
our "big bang" is the most recent?

Inquiring minds want to know...

- Steve


On 10/28/17 11:23 AM, glen wrote:
> 2 interesting essays on death, the first with some of our obligatory buzzwords.
>
> Not nothing
> https://aeon.co/essays/if-death-comes-for-everything-does-it-matter-what-we-kill
>
> Welcome the reaper: Caitlin Doughty and the 'death-positivity' movement
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/27/caitlin-doughty-death-positivity
>

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