Why do we ultimately die? Is there a specific reason other than random wear and tear?

Question

People who are using insults in their answers are degrading themselves. Someone is watching you baby!

Answer 1

This is a remarkably good question and one we have been pondering for centuries.

One of the best answers we have now is that cells lose their ability to reproduce, to divide. They seem to have a limited number of times each cell may make a copy of itself. This is known as the Hayflick's Hypothesis (after the scientist who first figured it out). I think the current number is about 20 divisions for most end-line cells.

Your chromosomes have a tiny bit called a telomere on the end of them. The telomere shortens with each cell division. It is sort of a score keeper.

When a cell can no longer divide, the wear and tear bit becomes the problem. Just like your shoes, you wear them out and you cannot afford new ones. Same thing with your lungs and heart and liver and kidneys. Sooner or later, one or all malfunction.

Some cells do not seem to mind the telomeres shortening and are immortal. Unfortunately those cells are cancers. We have a cancer line living in the lab, the HeLa line, that came from the cervix of a woman (Helen Lane or Lang, no one remembers for sure). Helen died probably 30 years ago but her cervical cancer is still alive. Strange immortality.

Answer 2

If we do not have individual death, eventually we will have a "collective" death. Nature programs every organism to die so that new and improved organisms can take over. Organisms that are a little bit different from previous generations so that any change in the environment, some at least have a chance of surviving.

Now that humans are not governed by Nature's "survival of the fittest", the question is will humans witness a collective "death" in the near future? How long will civilization and human (animal) nature keep each other at bay?

Answer 3

At the end of each chromosome in our cells is a length of DNA called a telomere. Each time a cell divides the telomere shortens. Once it gets too short the cell can not replicate and eventually dies. This means that the cells in our body can only replace damaged cells a certain number of times. Mutations caused by cosmic rays and other mutagens also affect our DNA and hence all of us will eventually fall victim to heart disease or cancer if we don't die of something else.

Nematodes have been genetically engineered to produce an enzyme that maintains the length of the telomere after each cell division and hence the cells can keep on dividing indefinitely. These transgenic nematodes lived much longer than ordinary nematodes.

Answer 4

We age and we have goals that we realize as we work on them. Being with people we love keeps us happy to be alive, and our habits and desires and activities and diet cooperate with our important priorities up to a point. A mate dies and we may find that our health changes, that accidents intervene, that suddenly we age drastically.
Professional astrology is a mathematical subject. Prophecy and math work together. It is possible for an astrologer to work backwards and find the exact moment of birth (to go with place of birth)--a factor being certain progressed aspects, progressed Midheaven aspects and other calculations having to do with the death of a parent. Such aspects work enough of the time that they can be used with other factors to go back and discover the time of birth for a person. It's not hard and fast but works a lot.. In other words some people die because its the path of least resistance when their time has come. And yet people can be in death's clutches and pray their way out of it into something else. And invisible influences can magnetize people to a place earmarked for destruction and they go under together.

Answer 5

We ultimately die because the powers that be declared that there is a limited amount of time we can live in one body.

Answer 6

Look it up. There is a specific gene in your dna that triggers the degenerative condition that we call aging. once we achieve genetic manipulation on a total level it will cease to exist... for rich people.

Answer 7

We were born to die, you idiot. Because that's how long life is. Example, you die at 11, then you were meant to die at the time. So thank yourself that you're still alive!

Answer 8

Because life cannot exist without death. Energy needs to be recycled. The energy contained in one life form, ie, the plant or animal I need to consume to survive, has to be converted so that I can use it to exist. Without the life/death balance nothing can exist at all.

Answer 9

Because the immune system fails over time and you get cancer...and other diseases. Some scientists believe that our DNA is programmed to kill us at a certain age.

Answer 10

(in my opinion.. before I recieve insults) Because this is our "practice round" before we move on to our final destination... being heaven or hell. Our souls live forever, but this body eventually breaks down.... but if you want a less religious answer.. every living organism breaks down, we aren't an exception.