Ask HN: Is mortality a bug, a feature, or a hardware limitation?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544089

by classicsnoot • 11 years ago

8 13 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am sitting in Hospice with a family member and i cannot decide. If you feel the need to make a defense of your answer, please be objective and respectful.

onion2k• 11 years ago

Interesting question.

Not really sure a bug is even possible in a system that wasn't designed. Any 'bugs' would have resulted in iterations that failed. Death has been there in every iteration including the ones that were successful. So I don't believe it's a bug.

It could be a feature because there could well be an evolutionary advantage for iterations of a species where the older, frailer generations die more quickly, thus leaving more resources for the younger generations.

It could also be a hardware limitation but everything we've learned so far about how we die gives us hope to being able to overcome the problems, so in that regard it isn't really a hard limit but more of a natural limit that we might be able to work around.

To that end, I'm going to go with 'feature'. But it's an old feature, and one we won't necessarily use in the future.

Thoughts are with you.

dudul• 11 years ago

"Feature". It is the fear of death that has pushed humanity forward.

olalonde• 11 years ago

Age related/involuntary death is a bug like any other disease. I suspect people who think otherwise are just rationalising. If it's any consolation, dead people can't suffer. What distinction do you make between bug and hardware limitation? I believe that the only real limitation is the "heat death of the Universe" and anything else scientists will eventually fix (barring an extinction event).

classicsnoot2• 11 years ago

I guess, and i have limited understanding of software philosophy, that i perceive a 'bug' as an unintended flaw or occurence that flows from the interconnectedness of different systems.

Hardware limitation, to me, is like limited rack space or ports.

tobylane• 11 years ago

Telemores. It's a feature which may be a necessary arbitrary limitation. Or it saves us from a much uglier ending that would risk the lives of people who care for us. Maybe we shouldn't read anything into species that don't have telemore limited lives, like lobsters.

classicsnoot2• 11 years ago

I know i am a stranger, and i realize i am probably alone ITT, but she has begun to slide inexorably towards the cliff. She looked in my eyes and did not recognize me.

I know i am supposed to be sad, or angry, but i feel excited. This is such a special thing that is happening. I guess this is why i will always be on The Fringe. Everyone else is questioning god or questioning fate. I just wish i could question her; get back as much data before she slips into the singularity. I am sure this all seems pretty fucking insensitive, but i guess i just dont care anymore how it seems.

I want answers. I want data. But i guess I'll just have to wait until it is my turn to jump.

To anyone here, to anyone that may read this: what an epic fucking ride. What a gift life is. What an adventure death must be.

What a wonderful world.

mrcold• 11 years ago

Neither. It's bad design riddled with technical debt. The body is inefficient and a resource hog. It was built fast and in harsh conditions. Nothing was planned or structured, it just went with whatever was needed at the moment.

This is why your life is like the bell curve of a company. Start. Gain traction. Adapt and grow. Solidify your position. Admire the view from the top for a while. Start losing touch with reality. Start going on a downwards spiral. Become irrelevant. And then have a sad and lonely death.

Mortality is the inevitable result of our actions. We could fix it. But we're too busy thinking like a business.

dzdt• 11 years ago

Mortality is a feature: without it evolution wouldn't work and we wouldn't be here. Evolution requires offspring which are not identical to parents, and with a bias where more the more fit are more likely to survive and reproduce. Without death you have no selection, and no passing to the next generation to keep ratchetting the process forward.

DanBC• 11 years ago

without death you have no selection

Hang on. Birds that have evolved ludicrous tails aren't doing that because it helps them not die, but because it helps them breed.

dozzie• 11 years ago

But without death you wouldn't need breeding at all.

Vaskivo• 11 years ago

IMO it's a feature.

My reasoning takes into account mortality and reproduction (and is totally simplistic.)

If there is no mortality but there is reproduction, we would soon reach a point where our environment wouldn't be able to support us (not enough resources). This could lead to a catastrophic collapse of the population.

If there is no mortality and no reproduction, we, as a species, would lose our adaptability to changes in the environment. We would "stop evolving" and it would be a matter of time until we got extinct.

If there is mortality and no reproduction, well... There would be only a single generation of individuals.

This way, we can conclude that for "life", the best characteristics would be mortality and reproduction.

brudgers• 11 years ago

Death is all those things and more and atomicly less. It is part of any healthy life and how we handle it, in those cases where we have time to handle it, will reflect who each of chooses to be.

Cheri spent more than 20 years as a hospice social worker helping people cope with quality of life by discussing death, and what I know I know mostly through osmosis as "a hospice spouse." Hospice is usually better than the alternatives. Too many people in the US are discouraged from enrolling until the last ounce has been squeezed from their insurer. This means that palliative pain treatment is weighed against the textbook possibility of addiction and other long term effects as well as the risk of an audit for prescribing opiates. Hospice doesn't prevent suffering but it does prevent a lot of needless suffering.

Yesterday I was thinking about my friend Ryan who endured the four horsemen of the oncology apocalypse for just a few extra moments with his son. I am saddened to learn of your grief.

armored• 11 years ago

Father: What ... what seems to be the problem.

Son: Death.

Father: Death, well I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction.

Son: I want more life, fucker.

Ask HN: Is mortality a bug, a feature, or a hardware limitation?

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