Because the world as we know it didn’t contain complex organisms like ourselves in the very beginning, the definition of aging is hard to apply to all living things.

Bacteria and viruses can reproduce in a matter of minutes, living endlessly as they mutate into hardier and hardier strains. As they reproduce, the parents become the offspring due to cell replication, and thus the parent remains active, never reaching maturity, aging, or dying.

Viruses, bacteria, and other small organisms can stay dormant for thousands of years – an existence that is a lot longer than our own, needless to say.

The origins of aging and the endless theories that followed weren’t simple. As soon as more complex living creatures came around, the concept of aging took shape. It was initially believed
that aging and death were only imminent after an organism was sexually active. If it hadn’t
fulfilled the function of reproduction, the subject wasn’t ready to die.

Theories also suggest that the way genetic material was initially replicated in the beginning was due to organisms eating each other, thus interchanging and doubling their inherent chromosomes within the body.

As a result, the cells would replicate into an offspring, and the organism would then reach maturity to deteriorate and die. In this scenario, parent organisms go through aging and maturity, as opposed to the original occurrences when cells remained as offsprings themselves.

The theory of natural selection revolves entirely around this last hypothesis. But it was a lot more advanced, and accounted for the variables associated with our habitat shaping our skills, intelligence, and abilities.

It suggested death was not only a result of reproductive fulfillment, but also of a subject not actually fulfilling their purpose either by choice or circumstance. Thus the term “survival of the fittest.”

See you next time,

Your Life After 40

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