NOTE FOR BOOK VI of ANTIFRAGILE – HOW TO SEEK FRACTAL IMMORTALITY

I find it insulting to nature that a single individual would seek immortality (a follow up to Jean-Louis Rheault’s posts here and my statements of revulsion at Kurzweil’s “singularity”). Immortality is not only unethical; it is even unnecessary.

My genes can be immortal; they are the ones that should seek immortality. And they tend to do.

We continue our lives, our genes diluted at every descendant, but at every generation there are more descendants that offset the dilution. Simply, if one has 2 descendants who in turn have 2 descendants, at the 2nd generation I duplicate myself in two halfs (so stay immortal in 2 parts), and as the fractal tree shows, at the 7th generation, I am present in 1/128th of each of the 128 individuals.

(I am simplifying. More technically, one needs a bit more than 2 decendants to stay “whole”, owing to genetic drift from the replication errors of the DNA. So no wonder we have historically had ~ 2.2 children per woman. Further, I am not counting the fact that my genes also survive through indirect descendans, such as nephews, etc. And I am not counting re-combinations, i.e. descendants marrying each other).

We are fragile; our genes are antifragile.

via Timeline Photos | Facebook.