10 Steps to Understanding Life, Aging, and Death

1. Life, what is it? (A Special Volume)

Life is a volume protected from the variances of the outside world by a barrier that allows homeostasis of the volume over time.

2. Life, how is it constructed? (With Barriers)

Life’s volume is protected from the variances of the outside world (due to Second Law of Thermodynamics) by a barrier that informs the volume of the outside world allowing it to mitigate the effects of the outside world. This is made more effective by multiple nested volumes with barriers.

3. Life, what is the limited key ingredient? (Energy)

The key, limited ingredient for life is energy. Energy is needed by the volume to compensate for the effects upon itself from the variances of the environment derived from the dictates of the 2^nd Law of thermodynamics. Energy is difficult to obtain and could not be obtained in reliable and sufficient quantities during the construction of life forms on earth by evolution. Evolution had to thus design life forms for this limitation.

4. Energy, where does one get it? (You Take It, from …)

It takes time, resources, and energy to get energy; the human brain’s main function (intelligence) in evolution is to calculate energy in vs. energy out to make sure energy does not run out, since this is death. So the brain does not do, or order anything to do that expends energy unless there is a probable chance of gaining more energy than the energy costs to get. This simple statement describes a key element for understanding biology (since it started near the thermal energy vents) including humans.

A) Lactation (in mammals)

This is where the original energy comes from for mammal life (babies). Producing this milk is the most energy intensive processes for the female mother producing the milk. There is a cost to the mother: the more lactation energy she’s able to expend (i.e. larger breasts) the less energy she has to fight viruses (i.e. she gets more colds).

1. This milk produces nutritional ingredients like NMN, NR, and NAD+ and this NAD+ ( an energy molecule) is actually timed because it affects the baby’s circadian rhythm, so the baby can be in sync with the mother.
2. The milk also includes immune ingredients to fight invaders (energy for defense) that may kill or injure the baby.
3. The milk also has food (energy for energy efficiency) for the baby’s new microbiome organisms, so good ones flourish and bad ones vanish.

B) Use of energy from other organisms (food)

Plants (eating vegetables, thus giving up their life for yours)

1. They produce toxins so animals do not eat them
2. They produce stress molecules (polyphenols) that humans can use as indicators that their food source is in trouble (xenohormesis) and plan for it.
3. Farming of plants has caused lower diet variability and lower health than gathering of plants from nature to eat by ancestors; leading to smaller brains and decreased health. Farming is also more energy intensive and leaves less free time than hunting mega fauna, but the mega fauna was hunted to extinction by humans so that option vanished, pushing humans into farming.

Plants (eating fruits, the eater is expected by the plant to spread it seeds / children). When you do not you are using its energy for yourself at the plants expense.

Animals (eating them, thus giving up their life for yours)

1. They do not want to be eaten so are hard to catch in the wild and fight back
2. Sialic acid (is not made in humans which protects against animal viruses, but is made in animals) signals non-self and causes immune stimulation when eaten by humans.
3. Farming of animals has cause cross-over infections from animal pathogens
4. Cannibalism happens in animals including humans¹

Animals (drinking their milk, you are taking energy meant for their children, thus using them. Only a small fraction of humans are able to digest lactose in milk after 5 years old.

C) Use of partial energy from Microbiome (need secondary immune system, of vertebrates, to synergistically use the microbiome). Humans have 4 separate complex microbiomes communities of bacteria, fungus, and viruses.

1. Upper digestive tract
2. Lower digestive tract
3. Skin
4. Vaginal tract

D) Use of partial energy from Humans (they get to keep living, but give part of their life to you)

1. Slaves²
2. Servants
3. Employees³

E) Use of energy by females from male mate (to help raise children to reproductive age)

Besides good genetics women look for traits to help with child rearing (strength, wealth, power) and the strength of the bond to deliver these over time (love)

F) Use of partial energy from animals (they get to keep living, but give part of their life to you). These animals were subjugated by humans by substituting a human in for the alpha individual of their species.

1. Dogs, helped in hunting and other activities
2. Horses, helped in transportation and other physical labor
3. Elephants, helped in heavy labor in Asia

G) Use of Energy from natural energy sources (some energy sources are more available and renewable than others)

1. Sun
2. Wind
3. Nuclear
4. Water (steam engines and water fall generators in rivers)
5. Organic fossil fuels (wood, coal, oil, and gas to run engines)

5. What is the goal of energy use? (Many desirable grandbabiesⁱ⁴)

A) From Natural Selection: A control of the environment, which is mainly control over people that effect your environment. Environmental control is wanted so control of the interior volume (of life) is more probable and possible. Environmental control is mainly controlling other humans that impact that environment which is mainly done by controlling the information that goes to those individuals brains that then internally controls their actions on the environment. Global warming is due to the lack of control of the human species in aggregate.

B) From Sexual Selection: The quality (mate value) and quantity of Grandchildren is the determinant of evolutionary success for animals including humans. Example: Genghis Khan’s (1162 -1227) descendants are 0.5% of the human male inhabitants today (or about 16 million men): a quite successful quantity of descendants.

6. Energy, how does one use it? (Miserly)

One needs energy especially during physical and mental development prior to age 25 as well as during female pregnancy and breast feeding of the young. After age 25 and when not rearing young; enough nutrients can be gained by only eating in a 4 to 8 hour window each day. Evolution has not had time to adjust to excess availability of food now experienced by many in western civilization. Given excess availability and predictability of food, evolution could have left repair systems on in somatic cells leading to sexual organisms that did not age (asexual organism do not age). Now even with some humans having excess energy these pathways for repair do not turn on due to lack of signaling to do so, the signaling is instead towards growth leading to an overweight and unhealthy population.

An ‘either-or” biological switch governs the switching between these two (a& b below) uses of energy:
a) Growth and Reproduction
b) Maintenance / Repair and fighting invaders (viruses, bacteria)

Energy used for immunity is decreasing with modern civilization as seen by the drop in body temperature of 0.03 degrees Centigrade per decade since the civil war, due to the continually lowering need to fight viruses by our immune system that creates body heat when activated. Basal immunity has been correlated to rate of aging in humans.

Aging is the accumulation of things that were damaged and not (yet) repaired.

Maternal eggs, living in the mother over time since her birth, delivered to her children to start their lives decades later, are a demonstration that human cells can repair all types of damage extremely well.

7. Information for how to use energy, how do you get it? (Very Difficult)

The human brain is a multilayered pattern recognition machine trained on the fly [with only the available information (it likes stories / exemplars) available to the brain] by emotion (in the body) and homeostasis (in the cell) rewards.

A) The types of information from humans to other humans (this is how humans control other humans)

1. Correct (truth) [Correct information is quite difficult to get (especially in the “information age”, which more correctly is the disinformation age, see b and c below), most information is biased by the teller of the information (the teller, tells the story that benefits the teller most), so individuals often listen to many sources to try to take away the bias of each source.
2. Incorrect (lies) [all humans tell but lies of the powerful have greater effect on humanity. The powerful gain power through energy expenditure and seek a reward for that expenditure, which is to be able to make the choice. Making the choice that serves themselves best, is often not the choice that serves those that gave the powerful their power, so the powerful often feel the need to tell those they should be indebted to for their power a lie or keep a secret to be able to keep the beneficial power to keep making the choice for themselves]
3. Withheld information (secrets) [A secret is in essence a lie]

Information is quickly increasing (too much for a human to process without assistance)

B) Larger groups of humans sending information (so more information in the world)

1. Total human population (approximately 8 Billion individuals)
2. Cities are large populations centers (where culture start)

C) Information more efficiently sent (so more information arriving to each human)

1. Radio
2. Telephone
3. TV
4. Internet

D) Information more efficiently processed (but not easily corrected for veracity)

1. Computers
2. Data analysis (computer chip)
3. Pattern recognition (neural networks, deep learning)
4. Automation (no human necessary)

8. Energy conservation, how is it done? (Don’t Do Stuff)

It takes time, resources, and energy to get energy, the human brain’s main function in evolution is to calculate energy in vs. energy out to make sure energy does not run out, since this is death. So the brain does not do, or order anything that expends energy unless there is a probable chance of gaining more energy than it cost to get.

Human traits to conserve energy
A) Self-serving (due to selfish DNA, does not spend energy for other’s DNA)
B) Lazy (due to decreased physical energy use)
C) Stupid (due to decreased mental energy use)⁵
D) Corrupt (due to decreased social energy use)
E) Turning off of sexual energy to decrease energy use for procreation

1. Pre-puberty (no aging prior to puberty, asexual animals do not age either)
2. Menopause in older females (this elongates the lifespan of women and gives them more energy to help grandchildren)
3. Castration of males (these males live 14% longer on average)

F) Aging (decreased cellular repair energy used in somatic (non-germline) cells, thus cellular damage accumulates which is what aging is. Cellular repair systems can use large amounts of energy, especially if repairing the cell to pristine conditions. This decrease in repair of somatic cells looks to be due to signaling (orders) from germline cells to somatic cells. Germ line cells keep their repair systems on (a division of labor).

9. Energy efficiency, how is it done? (Have a Plan based on Understanding)

A) Speciation, used in evolution: animals only have the abilities they need to succeed in evolution. (division of labor in evolutionary biology)

B) Cell differentiation, used in evolution: cells only have the genes activated (via methylation) that they need to succeed in their appointed tasks. (division of labor in organisms)

C) Circadian rhythm, used in evolution: Cells only do tasks during certain time periods to increase energy efficiency of these tasks. Example: cells make compounds and break down compounds at different times since they are opposing functions. All cells do these things so differentiation cannot be used. Separation of these events in time means the cell is not doing opposing tasks in the same space as well as in the same time, since they would tend to cancel each other out. This is why one needs to not eat during a large part of the day, since when you are digesting your food (up to 6 hours after eating) you cannot be repairing your cells, i.e. making things) (division of labor with respect to a day, 24 hours of time)

D) Energy use plan for time periods longer than one’s circadian rhythm.

1. Grow and reproduce (in good energy times)
2. Repair damage and defend against (viral) invaders (in bad energy times)

E) Detect (sense the future), an understanding of, whether your environment will be good to you or bad is very important in biology and evolution.

1. Ingredients in nature, such as the polyphenols in plants are used to predict if the environment is going to provide more or less food for you in the future (xenohormesis). If the plants in your diet have these stress induced polyphenols, then the food sources you depend on may not be there in the future and you need to turn off your grow-and-reproduce plan and exchange it for your repair-damage-and-protect against invaders program.
2. Long term plans are implemented by emotions (both by whether they are positive or negative and by their strength, i.e. how positive or negative. Example: when one is happy, you are planning for a future, and have the available energy and are in cellular homestasis, that is able to sustain growth and reproduction, when you are unhappy this turns your intentions, to expending as little energy as possible to get ready for the bad times and to turn on your repair-and-defend long term plan. All positive emotions have been correlated to a longer and healthier life and all negative emotions have been correlated to a shorter and less healthy life. Example: Exercise can make you happy, and exercise is correlated to a longer and healthier life. It may be that if you exercise this is signaling the future is good, and this is assimilated in the brain and the brain rewards you with the feeling of happiness.

F) Extensions of the body (how to extend energy efficiency to outside your own body)

1. Simple machines (levers)
2. Complex machines
   For physical help: Engines (see fuels for these)
   For mental help: computers (see information for these)

G) Controlling your own brain and the brains of others (how do you get a larger portion of the energy reward)

Information asymmetry (of truth, lies and secrets) leads to power asymmetry which leads to power over the environment asymmetry which leads to energy reward asymmetry which leads life asymmetry which leads to evolutionary outcome asymmetry which describes human civilization and history. A meritocracy (promoted by Thomas Jefferson) leads to a different civilization human reward structure than hegemony.

H) Human group structure (what part of the energy reward do you get) this is the incentive landscape that each individual has that determines the amount of energy needed by the individual to get a given amount of energy reward.

Type:

1. Government / Religion
2. Business
3. Tribes (selfish DNA)
4. Families (selfish DNA)
5. Friendships (trust over time)

I) Specialization with more trade (more reward, more risk) / Generalization with less trade (less reward, less risk)

J) Competition (outside group) / Team member (inside group) Cortisol changes this dynamic.

K) Take (war, theft) / trade (what split of reward do I get?)

10. Death, how does it happen? (The Barrier Does Not Hold)

Death happens when the barrier(s) that protect the volume cannot hold. This is true for cells as well as organisms. In the cell, the cell membrane has dominance for survival over the other intracellular membranes, when the cell membrane ruptures the cell is dead. Death of an organism is best described when the gut lining cells cannot hold their barrier to the outside world, when this rupture happens these gut cells die in a zipper like fashion.

At puberty total repair is turned off in somatic cells (non-sexual cells) by evolution and death starts. How long this death process takes is the important question. The brain’s main function in evolution is to calculate energy in versus energy out. The brains ability is quite important since when you have no more energy to use you are dead. Aging is the accumulation of damage over time that is not repaired by the cell. Although the cell would be able to repair all damage if the repair systems were left on at full blast (like they are in pre-puberty and a woman’s eggs before they are used to start a child) this repair system is turned off by evolution so this considerable amount of energy (previously used in repair) can be used for other evolutionary reasons that have a greater chance of allowing the individuals to be successful in evolution (having children that can then in turn have their own children). Some humans have been shown to age at a rate that is 3 times the rate of aging of others. This means they are accumulating damage at a faster rate or they are repairing damage at a slower rate, or both. The main important damage in this equation is the methylation of the DNA in one’s cells. DNA is the information that is important in-between generations. The methylation of DNA is the important information within one’s life. Methylation of DNA tells which piece of DNA is being used. This in turn determines RNA, proteins, and chemicals that will be made in the cell. It is this Methylation that gets damaged over the lifetime of the individual not the DNA itself. Recently it was determined that this methylation can be reset to what it was following puberty and thus human age reversal is possible.