Does the human lifespan have a limit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#31

Post by allisdust » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #18

Madmallard wrote: post #8

Doesn't DNA have a halflife of like 512 years? I imagine if every cell in the body affected by that there isn't a way to prevent it all from destabilizing by that point.

Presumably that doesn't apply if your cells are continuously reproducing creating new copies of DNA. In some sense your DNA comes from your parents and extending back through those lineages has lasted vastly longer than 512 years.

Wow that's actually quite insightful. There are theories on cell death after some generations, dna damage etc. But I'm not sure how they explain the refresh during birth/zygote formation.

Could it be that birth is nothing but a glorified error correction with two unrelated dna to ensure probability of damage is low. If so, can the same be done with two unrelated dna pairs again again and the result applied back to a living human.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#32

Post by edflsafoiewq » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

okl wrote: post #7

FL33TW00D wrote: post #3

Whenever this topic comes up, I’m always reminded of the fact that the bible knew of this long before any statistician. 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Gen. 6:3). As a non Christian this always baffles me.

Funny, because there are many bible characters older than 120 years. One of many contradictions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk

An alternative interpretation is that 120 years is the period of reprieve before the Flood.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#33

Post by vmception » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:24 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #5

FL33TW00D wrote: post #3

Whenever this topic comes up, I’m always reminded of the fact that the bible knew of this long before any statistician. 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Gen. 6:3). As a non Christian this always baffles me.

So if we get a single human who, without dispute as the oldest woman has some controversy as to the validity of her age, lives past the age of 120 will that be proof the bible is untrue and all it’s writings are false? Because I have a funny feeling now that people are much more documented we will pass the 120 year mark any time.

Goalposts, if you want to know what they will move to:

“It wasn't literal [, where convenient]”

“The New Testament retcons this, ignore inconvenient or contradictory things in the Old Testament”

“It was translated wrong in ye olde English from Greek and Hebrew”

and finally conclude “it’s open to interpretation”

there, I saved you the whole conversation.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#34

Post by darkerside » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

jlkuester7 wrote: post #17

lawlorino wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

I think the GP just means that the tail of the age bell curve seems (surprisingly) short to them. The implication being that when doing statistics with a large number of data points, you often see several outliers that are way outside the curve. In the case of age, the tail of the curve falls to 0 very quickly.

We've done a lot to shift this away from a normalized curve, which feels very unfair to us as humans, to one where more people have a chance to live to a longer age. We've spent much less effort trying to extend the longest lifespans. This seems totally rational to me.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#35

Post by coffeefirst » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

james-redwood wrote: post #4

FL33TW00D wrote: post #3

Whenever this topic comes up, I’m always reminded of the fact that the bible knew of this long before any statistician. 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Gen. 6:3). As a non Christian this always baffles me.

That’s an incredible verse: we underestimate the wisdom of the ancients sometimes.

This is downvoted but it's also true. It's really impressive what they were able to build and figure out with the tools available too them. (This isn't a great example, but let's put that aside.)

Now, they also believed the mind was porous and spirits could flow in and out of your head, that you could predict the future by looking at bird patterns, and other nonsense. But then again, have you talked to any Wellness enthusiasts lately?

So yeah, this is pretty cool, but it's also a warning. Everything people did a few centuries or a millennia ago is still in human nature.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#36

Post by inglor_cz » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:28 PM UTC

mongol wrote: post #2

If we consider the average lifespan as say 80 years old, I find it quite interesting that no single human ever has achieved even close to twice that age.

Well, we already have a lot of medical interventions that skew our species' "normal", pre-civilizational population tree towards something never seen in nature.

In a Stone Age society you would definitely find people twice as old as their group's average lifespan. But that average lifespan would be rather low.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#37

Post by forinti » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

allisdust wrote: post #31

ALittleLight wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably that doesn't apply if your cells are continuously reproducing creating new copies of DNA. In some sense your DNA comes from your parents and extending back through those lineages has lasted vastly longer than 512 years.

Wow that's actually quite insightful. There are theories on cell death after some generations, dna damage etc. But I'm not sure how they explain the refresh during birth/zygote formation. Could it be that birth is nothing but a glorified error correction with two unrelated dna to ensure probability of damage is low. If so, can the same be done with two unrelated dna pairs again again and the result applied back to a…

I think it was in Lynn Margulis' book What is Life that I read that sexual reproduction occurs more where there are more parasites, which gives strength to the idea that sex is error correction.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#38

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

allisdust wrote: post #31

ALittleLight wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably that doesn't apply if your cells are continuously reproducing creating new copies of DNA. In some sense your DNA comes from your parents and extending back through those lineages has lasted vastly longer than 512 years.

Wow that's actually quite insightful. There are theories on cell death after some generations, dna damage etc. But I'm not sure how they explain the refresh during birth/zygote formation. Could it be that birth is nothing but a glorified error correction with two unrelated dna to ensure probability of damage is low. If so, can the same be done with two unrelated dna pairs again again and the result applied back to a…

There are clonal trees that have lived much longer than 512 years too with the same DNA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#39

Post by theodorejb » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

FL33TW00D wrote: post #3

Whenever this topic comes up, I’m always reminded of the fact that the bible knew of this long before any statistician. 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Gen. 6:3). As a non Christian this always baffles me.

Consider another translation: “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” (Genesis 6:3, KJV).

This verse is not specifying a maximum human lifespan, but the period of probation in which God's spirit would strive or plead with mankind before their judgment by the Flood. This is the period during which “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing” (1 Peter 3:20).

Genesis records numerous descendents of Noah who lived longer than 120 years (see Gen. 11:10-25). Lifespans did decline rapidly after the Flood, however, and it was recorded in Psalms that “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (Psalms 90:10).

Even today with our advanced medical knowledge and technology, life expectancy is still typically between 75-85 years.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#40

Post by temp0826 » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

If you haven't experienced it yet, I highly recommend you check out 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future [0]. It explores what happens if humans stop aging/dying/being born, narrated by a few cheeky, sentient space probes.

[0] https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football