Is it a paradox or just a fluke of nature? How could a tiny jellyfish be immortal?
Here are some quick facts about the transdifferentiation process that seem to make jellyfish immortal:
My question is: if tiny jellyfish can technically be immortal, what stops us from being immortal or being able live forever or at least much longer than 70-85 years ?
If the immortal jellyfish evolved to have the ability to live forever, will we be able to as well?
Or is it possible that we humans already had the ability to live indefinitely and somehow lost it?
Many experts working in the field of anti-aging seem to agree that our bodies should technically continue to live forever…and yet they don’t really know why that doesn’t happen… For unknown reasons… scientist still don’t really know why we age and die while there are many contradictory theories…
Why the tiny jellyfish evolved the ability to be immortal and we didn’t, even though many scientists think we should be able to be immortal or at least have the ability to rejuvenate our bodies forever?
Well, this is just one the many mysteries of evolution…but this one is more puzzling than the previous 4 I have posted…at least to me…
I’ve written the above a while back… However, in the view of the many tragic events in the world recently, with so many innocent people dead; in Spain, Finland, Charlottesville and many other to come…unfortunately… I have been reflecting on two main issues; death and the possibility of living again (resurrection) in the view of just God who allows evil…
While these issues are probably separate issues, worth separate OP for each, my focus was on the ability of the lowly jellyfish being able to live indefinitely and human’s relatively short lifespan without the ability to revert youthful body…
I was hoping that this post will stay free of insults, hateful and racist speech even if it is borderline…
Both Christians and atheists/agnostics have similar commandments:
“Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.”
The Golden Rule:
“Do to others what you want them to do to you.”
Both golden rules are very similar and yet have been promoted by the opposite world views…
Let’s strive to do the same!
Good question, why didn’t the Designer give us immortality? Now that’s a real problem, for anyone who actually thinks ID should provide explanations (few IDists seem to think so, in fact).
For evolution, the only “immortality” that matters is that of the hereditary material.
Glen Davidson
“…Still other work suggests that cells can divide only a certain number of times. This is because of DNA at the end of chromosomes called telomeres that get shorter with each division. When they run out, the cell dies…”
If there was a telomere repair/extension system in human body, would we be able to live longer or even forever?
“..Work in animals, in particular in worms, has shown that mutating certain genes can increase lifespan about 4-fold. For humans, that would translate to about 300 years old! These results would seem to support that there are genes that determine how long we live…”
http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news10
And that’s because of God?
You don’t understand language that doesn’t conform to your narrow ignorance?
Glen Davidson
No, we won’t.
Our mortality is in our genes.
The population is immortal, at least until it goes extinct. But individuals aren’t and could not be.
Suppose that our brain tissue were continually being regenerated, so that we could be immortal. Then that regeneration would result in the loss of our memories. But our way of life depends on some degree of memory retention. For us to be immortal would require that we have a very different way of life.
Would you like to live the life of a jellyfish?
Pretty sure that I already do.
Good bye! 😉
Yeah, no point in discussing with someone who’d rather word-lawyer than to discuss anything.
When you begin to understand what science is about–like you providing meaningful empirical evidence for your mindless beliefs–you might begin to be able to discuss science. Until then, you’ll just blunder and bluster along.
Glen Davidson
Memories aren’t actually stored at all, as far as I can tell. But our ability to remember does depend on structure. If the structures regenerate, our ability to remember will be lost.
Lol! Are you a pearl diver or something? Or your jellyfish-like lifestyle is more of the mental jellyfish-like lifestyle…you know care free sort of thing…
I’ve thought about that in terms of science fiction. It might be possible, and the results would be as you suggest, Our sense of self would drift and fade
But it does anyway.
This is interesting…You’re suggesting that memories are not stored at all like information is, but we are able to recall them due to some patterns or structures of our cognitive processes?
Then that regeneration would result in the loss of our memories.But our way of life depends on some degree of memory retention.
Is that what you were referring to?
Are you suggesting that our sense of self or self-awareness fades?
I’m not sure if that’s what you meant but I view self-awareness in term of now or present time..
Once my present experience I’m conscious of or aware of moves to the past, my conscious experience moves on to the future experience and so on… unless I’m asleep…
J-Mac,
Glen Davidson,
Forgot to tell you that you are on “ignore commenter” now, which means I don’t see your comments…
Yes. As far as I know, psychologists consider memories to be reconstructions rather than the kind of retrieve operation that we see with computers. And those reconstructions can be faulty (as in “false memory syndrome”).
Yes. My earlier comment was not trying to imply that there is actually a store/retrieve function.
That’s good. I don’t need your tendentious nonsense in “response” to actual truth.
Go off and get an education, for once.
Glen Davidson
Neil Rickert,
Thanks. I gotta look into it as I have not really reviewed any psychology papers on memory and consciousness for that matter…
I’m not sure whether you are interested in the theme, but some experts in the field of consciousness, such as Robert Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, believe that our consciousness is generated by neurons in the brain by synaptic inputs and memory stored in microtubules…
I am aware of Penrose and Hameroff. I am deeply skeptical of their view of consciousness.
Neil Rickert,
Fair enough! So was I…
However, as I have became more and more inclined to be skeptical of the existence of the soul, or any spiritual post mortem existence, I became more interested in their theory or rather in quantum mechanics in relation to the composition of our bodies and life itself…
I’m not saying they are right, but they have definitely opened my eyes on another realm of human existence, the universe and science…
As Steven Weinberg one said: “After you learn quantum mechanics you’re never really the same again.” He was so right! I have gone through similar experience people go through when they have a spiritual awakening… 🙂
It’s about as good as ID, invoking the unknown (that is, they certainly don’t know how QM phenomena would create consciousness, not, of course, that QM per se is unknown) to “explain” the known. Even if quantum calculation were performed in microtubules, what would that have to do with, say, visual consciousness?
Worse than useless.
Glen Davidson
Actually I’ve learned this that many atheists and agnostics are very skeptical of their view of consciousness…They are probably not bias views as Penrose is an atheist and Hameroff is agnostic at best…
Some are skeptical that there is such a thing as consciousness. They say that consciousness is an illusion.
Yes, it is hard to make sense of that view, but many do say that.
I’ve never paid any attention to whether Penrose or Hameroff are religious. I just assumed that Penrose is an honest physicist and mathematician, whose religious views (if any) would not affect his work. Hameroff, I don’t know much about, except what Wikipedia says.
Their quantum consciousness idea seems to me to be a leap to conclusions that is not based on persuasive evidence.
I’ve actually been studying consciousness myself for some time. More skepticism of Penrose has more to do with my own study.
Neil Rickert,
This is even more interesting… 🙂
If you’d ever like to share your research findings on consciousness, this is probably the place to do it. How about an OP on consciousness? I did one on soul vs quantum consciousness a while back…
Is it immoratal? Are some living that have been living a long time? What are the ages? any older then 6000 years?
he said they do die of disease.
God made all life to live eternally. Only the fall brought death. its unnatural.
its from a aggressive decaying. disease is a more aggressive decaying.
All the creature does is drop things off and start again.
Not that much different from lizards that lose a tail and grow one back.
If the population was exploding it would of exploded long long ago.
Its not exploding except possible less predators then before.
We are all immoratal. Its just not on this pRESENT earth.
Problems from the past.
Pretty amazing J-Mac. I loved the explanation of how it evolved.
So, correct me if I am wrong, God made all life forms on earth mortal, involving enduring pain for many prior to this death, just because Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit that they weren’t supposed to? And you argue that this is a God worthy of worship? By that argument, we should worship the Nazi’s.
It doesn’t work.
Philosophers, and people in general, are making assumptions which make it impossible for them to understand consciousness. And they are unwilling to question those assumptions.
Why are you even here, Neil? One site where people are unwilling to questions their assumptions is as good as any other?
Does anyone actually say that? Or is just said of them that they say that?
The view that “consciousness is an illusion” is often attributed to Dennett. But it’s only by people who haven’t read Dennett or haven’t read him carefully. It’s quite clearly not Dennett’s view. Is it anyone’s?
It’s the commonly accepted view among jellyfish. But they would say that, being immortal and all.
Yes, he says even less than that.
It just happens, and it’s physical.
Glen Davidson
J-mac,
I actually didin’t know jelly fish were ageless. Awesome to learn about God’s creation, wisdom, knowledge, and ingenuity.
I think man is not immortal in this life because it’s a powerful reminder to man that he isn’t God.
I have seen people saying that on Internet discussions — usually in discussion of AI and related topics. But perhaps they are just repeating what they have heard or misheard elsewhere.
That may be. It’s still not a view that’s defended by anyone doing serious work in philosophy of mind. Not even Dennett or Churchland take that position.
Where do the dead jellyfish on the beach come from ,they seem mostly dead.
From what I was able to find online just now, the real story seems to be this. There’s one species of jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, which doesn’t seem to age as all other animals do. Instead it seems to have the ability to reverse its life-cycle: free-swimming sexually mature adults can become sessile polyps. This seems to happen because the cells can undergo transdifferentiation. (The human analogue would be if skin cells could become stem cells and then become muscle cells or neurons.) But this process has only been observed in the lab and not in nature. And it only happens in a few species.
For more:
The Immortal Jellyfish
Are Jellyfish Immortal?
Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?
(It’s definitely not the same as plunging your hand into the molten heart of Shou-Lao the Undying and becoming the Immortal Iron Fist!)
Well, it really isn’t all that hard to get the idea that Dennett thinks this from Dennett’s talk The Illusion of Consciousness. His title? I’m guessing not, as he seems never to actually say it’s an illusion, just talks an awful lot about consciousness and how the mind fools itself. Whoever did make the title isn’t really that far off from what’s implied, if not explicitly stated.
I think there’s a transcript somewhere if one wants to know what it’s about without watching. I didn’t look because he never gets to the issues.
Glen Davidson
Dennett may take a certain delight in being provocative, but his central thesis is perfectly intelligible: that the appearance/reality distinction applies to mental phenomena just as it does to physical phenomena; that scientific inquiry gives us a much more adequate grip on reality than ordinary language and practice do; and hence we should not rely on introspection alone (how mental phenomena appear to us) to tell us what mental phenomena really are. To the extent that we do rely on introspection, we’re going to be very surprised that empirical sciences of mental phenomena conflict with our ordinary assumptions about what mental phenomena are.
I am probably a bit more of a realist about science than Dennett is, and also a bit more of an eliminativist about folk psychology (i.e. the ordinary terms in which we describe ourselves as having beliefs, desires, wishes, hopes, fears, assumptions, etc.).
There are probably good evolutionary and cultural explanations for how folk psychology came into being, and they have a lot to do with the social requirements of predicting behavior, generating agreement, figuring out how to work together, how to resolve conflict, etc. But just because we’re good at applying this same framework to ourselves doesn’t mean that this is the best conceptual framework for understanding what mental phenomena really are “in the order of being”.
As for what mental phenomena really are in the order of being, most cognitive scientists would probably say, “neural computations” — or something to that effect.
We have models of social evolution that explain why social primates would develop the ability to predict, describe, and explain many aspects of social behavior. That’s the proper function of folk psychology. I don’t even object to doing epistemology in folk-psychological categories, since the function of reasoning is to argue and persuade, as Sperber and Mercier point out in The Enigma of Reason. I just don’t think that psychology, sociology, and epistemology are reliable guides to what’s causally producing the behavior. For that we need cognitive and affecttive neuroscience.
They are just playing dead.
It looks like I am responsible for unconsciously swaying the theme of this OP to the intriguing subject of consciousness.
I realize that the administration of this blog would probably like us to stay as closely as possible on the intended theme of this OP The immortality of jellyfish…
BTW: For those interested in the subject of consciousness I can tell you that I’m working on a new OP on the theme in relation to afterlife, near death experiences, quantum soul…etc
Mung,
I’m glad you enjoyed it…
Neil Rickert,
Please see comment #36.
I have been reading on both Dennett and Churchland. Others as well…There are some videos on youtube as well… Penrose and Hameroff have good videos too for those interested in the theme…
Comment #36 is about jellyfish.
The comment number changes when you block users. So what is #36 for you is unlikely to #36 for me.
Right! Sorry…
BTW: For those interested in the subject of consciousness I can tell you that I’m working on a new OP on the theme in relation to afterlife, near death experiences, quantum soul…etc
I was thinking that you could share your findings about consciousness on the upcoming OP…
You might be interested to know that Algis Budrys already wrote that story, many decades ago. It’s called The End Of Summer. People DID lose all their memories every day, and had to develop an external memory refresh system.