From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 25 2002 - 11:46:58 MDT
On Sat, 24 Aug 2002, Phil Osborn wrote:
[large snip]
> The various
> complex and interconnected control and feedback
> mechanisms of our body may have hierarchical learned
> systems almost as complex as our consciousness itself.
> Are these same problems applicable in some sense?
> Could this be another approach to aging itself?
While I do not doubt that low level stress may play a
role in aging (see Sapolsky's work) I doubt that it
is a core phenomena. Nor is it as complex as
consciousness. We have enough evidence now to
propose "Grand Unified Theories of Aging" which
merge a number of separate lines of thought.
Fundamentally, IMO, the key turns on the problem
of genome corrupting double strand break repair.
As the program becomes increasingly corrupted over
many years it ceases to function in a way that
supports the survival of the organism. Various
organisms have genomes that are tuned to minimize
double strand breaks or promote their "proper" repair
and this tends to result in extended longevity.
It is not necessary to make the problem more complex
than it is (i.e. to do a systems analysis). One can
simply look at the consequences of gradual and increasing
levels of genome corruption and understand what aging is.
Robert
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