We are all issued with a body that's good for 70 or 80 years. It'll just keep running along by itself.
Factors along the way will determine how long it actually lasts. That might include nutrition, climate, lifestyle, environment, fitness, type of employment, attitude (especially toward risk), and so on.
Then there are faulty components which may breakdown due to exposure to wear and tea, illness, hazardous situations, and so on.
By and large the design engineers did a pretty good job and there's no need to think that they built in a timing mechanism. Built in obsolescence would have been so unworthy of such a task.
I disagree. I am surprised that I asked this question. Tis evident that we all are on a timing mechanism. Our very own life cycle is the answer to my question.
This post was edited by O-uknow at March 23, 2017 9:26 PM MDT
But...if you smoke, drink alcohol regularly, have an unhealthy diet of mostly deep fried carbs, have a strong family history of cancer and heart disease, you don't get enough sleep or exercise, and you're also addicted to illegal class-a narcotics, then you will probably die young.
The average life expectancy in Glasgow is 55. I wonder why.... ;p
In researching a Q for aMug, I came upon the intriguing idea that we all (humankind, anyway) have about three billion heartbeats to work with, in our lives...
Actually, however, I think there is a lot more choice involved in biological death than usually recognized; not conscious choice as such, but more some deep unawares motivation of whether to continue, or call it a day and move on...
That was such a stunning figure that I tried working it out myself.
Allowing 70 bpm, every minute (and that's a low average) multiplied by 60 minutes, 24 hours, 365.25 days, and 70 years, a 70 year old person would have used 2.58 billion heart beats. Sheesh, I'd love to own the patent on a piece of machinery that was so reliable and just keeps on running.
I hope I didn't use up more than my share during the triathlon years.
3 billion heartbeats? Even if we take take that as truth it is still dependent on oh so many factors. What if we can trick the heart at beat 2.99 million into beat one?
This post was edited by O-uknow at March 23, 2017 9:27 PM MDT
Oh wait, O-uknow, that has already been tried! It is Turritopsis dohrnii medusa, the eternal jellyfish...lives in the Mediterranean and the Sea of Japan...whenever it begins to feel a bit long in the tooth or rather sickish, it just pulls a cord somehow and reverts back to its polyp stage, starts the whole process over again, theoretically can live forever!
Didge asked a question about reincarnation once, and so I chose this as the form for my return...
Benedict Arnold 