David Lucifer
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #15 on: 2005-02-05 13:28:36 » |
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Quote from: subdermal on 2005-02-05 00:29:02
Interesting the way different people interpret the same question. I have not read the article referenced, so perhaps that is why I understood the proposition differently, but I assumed that in this game immortality would be a strategy employed by very few within a much larger society of average-life-span competitors, in which case I would consider it a very good strategy...
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True, but would the same strategy be any worse if most people adopted it? What if everyone else was (essentially) immortal and you had a choice, what would be the best strategy to adopt?
Technically I think the immortal strategy fits the definition of an ESS in that a different strategy cannot invade a population of immortals. Well, maybe it isn't obvious. So let's ask a question instead. Say a mutant gene makes the host immortal to the extent that it doesn't age past maturity (but it can still die due to injury). Will the gene spread in the population?
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subdermal
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #17 on: 2005-04-05 14:47:21 » |
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Quote from: David Lucifer on 2005-02-05 13:28:36
Technically I think the immortal strategy fits the definition of an ESS in that a different strategy cannot invade a population of immortals. Well, maybe it isn't obvious. So let's ask a question instead. Say a mutant gene makes the host immortal to the extent that it doesn't age past maturity (but it can still die due to injury). Will the gene spread in the population?
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If the host does not age, then s/he will be fertile until accidental death. As such, they will have the option of breeding many many more times than an unaffected competitor. However, during the time period available for breeding, many generations of unaffected people will have their normal amount of opportunity - so perhaps not. If the score is the percentage of the total population that is affected, I guess it depends less on how often the carrier can breed in their lifespan and more on how often they can breed in the average breeding-lifespan of a 'regular' person.
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David Lucifer
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #18 on: 2005-04-06 17:37:42 » |
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In my back of the napkin diagrams and calcs I figure that being immortal is equivalent to having one additional offspring more than average (all other things being equal).
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subdermal
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #19 on: 2005-04-08 12:16:55 » |
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how so? and is that one more in their entire life, or one more per generation?
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David Lucifer
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #20 on: 2005-04-11 16:36:13 » |
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One more in their entire life, because remember the extra offspring will on average have an average number of offspring too. Another way to think about it is that being immortal is (roughly) equivalent to dying giving birth to a clone at the end of a normal life.
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subdermal
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #21 on: 2005-04-18 11:14:42 » |
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Ah I see now.
Normal human lifespan: (x= 'average number of offspring', be that 2.1 or whatever)
+1(birth)+x(kids)-1(death)=x
Immortal lifespan:
+1(birth)+x(kids)=x+1
Which is equivalent to:
+1(birth)+x(kids)-1(death)+1(rebirth/clone)=x+1
BUT looking at it from a genetic perspective,
Table of likelihood of genetic representation, assuming one offspring per generation and that each offspring contributes to one offspring of their own in the next generation:
| Genestream | Generation 0 | Generation 1 | Generation 2 | Generation 3 | | Mortal Man | 100 % | 50% | 25% | 12.5% | | Immortal Man | 100 % | 50% | 75%(50 from the source + 25 from gen1's breeding) | 87.5%(50 source + 25 gen1 breeds again + 12.5 gen 2 breeds) |
I'm not at all sure I explained that well :/
My point is that if mortal humans have a certain number of years to breed (let's call that a standard mortal breeding period p), and produce on average x children in that period, we can logically assume, I think, that a being with many times the length of p at their disposal would produce, on average, the same ratio of immortal children:x as immortal breeding period:p. The fact that not only are the offspring carrying forward the genes into future generations (as is the case with mortal reproduction) but that also the original progenitor is still 'in the game;' as it were, should add greatly to the long term viability of that strain.
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David Lucifer
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Re:Immortality
« Reply #22 on: 2005-04-18 20:27:35 » |
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Good point. I should have recognized it myself with the analogy of giving birth to a clone at the end of life, obviously (I think) adding one clone to your offspring should tip the scales from the genetic perspective. Another factor that I neglected is that immortal will presumably be able to have children at any time which differs somewhat from the clone-at-the-end scenario. Maybe a computer simulation would be helpful here.
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