a WEIRD what if question

Talk about all things Astro Boy!
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Fauna
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Postby Fauna » 14 years ago

This is sort of reminding me of in Dr. Slump, how the robot girl Arale Norimaki stayed nine years old forever while her human friends grew up. Nobody really even questioned it, despite not knowing she was a robot...

And then I picture Astro in a Kenji Murasame-esque situation where he's indestructible and stays the same age for decades, but on the other hand, he has to watch all his friends come and go. Now I want to draw Astro dressed like him...
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Postby HollowWings » 14 years ago

"Dr. Tenma" wrote:Heheheh, I can see Astro a few thousand years in the future as each friend group of his dies off.

"Astro! How many times do I have to tell you to pick up after yourself?"

"Give me a break! Sheesh! You're as naggy as my thirtyfirst wife!"

:P



LOL! Oh poor astro!

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Postby HollowWings » 14 years ago

"Dragonrider1227" wrote:Me Too! ^^ It's one of my favorites.
But anyway, as for the topic, I had the same questions in mind. I kinda figured if he could mentally grow but not physically, then that would make him like Midgets in real life. Short but adults so I could probably work. Some people would look down upon it, but I think some would anyway since he's a robot



It would be odd to be in a relationship to a person in the form of a child. Lol it's impossible for me to imagine astro to be in one, as to why I started this thread.

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Postby HollowWings » 14 years ago

"Laughing Dragon" wrote:I don't think Astro could ever get officially married to anyone, not just because he's a robot, but because he's a child, (or a tween - he's 13 in the movie), and he's going to stay that way. To my mind, the best scenario would be for him to find a companion who's also ageless. Now, in the movie, Astro is very human...he may very well have a human soul, thanks to the downloading of Toby's memories and the mysterious blue core...so to me, his attaching himself to a robot isn't very plausible. He's too human for that, and even if Dr. Tenma built another robot child, that child wouldn't have the core (even if Astro shared the power of the core, the core is his heart, perhaps his soul, and would have to remain with him, otherwise he wouldn't be Astro), and the movie implied that the core made all the difference in making Astro more than a very sophisticated robot.

So in my opinion, a scenario where Cora can't age either, through a specific malady I mentioned in another thread, in which the victim can't grow older (and which actually happened to a real-life little girl - here's the link to the story: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=7880954&page=1) would be the best hope for Astro to have a lifelong companion. I see him and Cora as being eternal children who have a crush on each other, but who would never act like an old married couple. This situation would be both a blessing and a curse...but then many romances have that quality... ;)



i think that little girl will die eventually, even though she hasn't grown up yet. She may last longer than the rest of us, but she too will die, since thats one of the natural parts of life. Our bodies are wearing out every minute, no matter if we are growing up or not.

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Postby fafner » 14 years ago

Maybe not. She hasn't lost her baby teeth yet.

There are 2 ways of aging. The first one is advancing in the development of the body. Obviously she isn't in this part because of her baby teeth. The second one is cell aging, which isn't clearly visible. This is the one that kills. Cell aging is caused by a kind of loop at the end of DNA which becomes smaller and smaller with each cell division. When it is too small, it causes destruction at one end of the DNA, which leads at the destruction of the whole structure, and therefore at the cell's death. The only exception to this are cells whose purpose is reproduction (hopefully, otherwise babies would born with the same cell age as their mother). There is no body wearing (outside of serious injury), it is in fact cell aging.

So the question is whether her cell aging is advancing normally or not. If it isn't, she would probably be immortal (theoretically of course).
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Postby sgupta » 14 years ago

Not to be a downer, and I really hope I'm wrong in this little girl's case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if she ends up having a shorter than normal life span... Usually when the aging process doesn't go normally it doesn't end up a good thing - who knows if there are other factors/malfunctioning processes going on in her body as yet undetectable or simply not understood? Again, I hope I'm wrong and she stays otherwise healthy and lives a long happy life.

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Postby MegaAstroFan75 » 14 years ago

"fafner" wrote:So the question is whether her cell aging is advancing normally or not. If it isn't, she would probably be immortal (theoretically of course).


Immortality is impossible in complex life forms. Humans die and so will that girl. She lacks growth plates and hormones, so she's not going to physically age or grow, but she's going to die like a normal human. In fact as squpta pointed out her lifespan could be shorter than normal.

Laughing Dragon seems to be trying to say that the disorder means immortality. It doesn't. To put it simply, she's what circusfolk would have labelled as a 'freak'. It's an odd condition for sure, but everything on this planet dies eventually, and no matter what condition you have your cells will eventually wear out and you will die.

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Postby Laughing Dragon » 14 years ago

Yes, it's certainly likely that the little girl will eventually die even if she doesn't age. But Astro Boy is fiction, after all, and what I meant to say is that Cora could have a similar condition, but in her case it DOES make her virtually immortal. But not practically indestructible, like Astro, so he still has to guard her carefully. :heart: ;)

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Postby fafner » 14 years ago

Reading further on her case, it now seems obvious to me she will die from aging: in fact, all her organs age at a different rate. Her bones have around 10 years, her brain less than 1 year, all of this while she is physically 16 years old.

However I disagree on the part that complex lifeforms must die from age. Of course it is always the case in everything we see, but remember: all of our cells come from a single one, which comes from one of many cells of our parents, which in turn come from a single one, etc. All of our cells are basically the result of the successive divisions of a single cell accross generations. If cells had to wear and die, we would all be dead since millenia. Remember: individual cells (bacteria for example) divide to reproduce, and you never have one which dies from age while the other one thrives. Complex lifeforms are programmed to die, otherwise the species wouldn't be efficient. Imagine a species were all individuals are genetically immortal and can die only from injury. They always grow stronger as time pass, because they develop skills and experience while not losing from aging, and therefore are most of the time stronger than their offstrings. If we apply the theory of Darwin, old individuals are more likely to survive than their offsprings because of that, and the vast majority of the population could be thousands of years old and a infinitesimal part young individuals. Most of the genetic pool would reside in old individuals, and therefore would almost never change and would be stalled, as opposed to species whose individuals are mortal that would have a very diverse genetic pool. If a big change occurs in the environment (think climate change, such as an ice age which occurred so many times in the past hundred of millions years), the lack of diversity in the first species would have as a consequence that very few individuals would be adequate for the change. In the second species, many individuals would be adequate by pure chance. Guess which species is more likely to survive? ;) I believe that there might have been immortal complex lifeforms at the beginning of life on Earth (by the very reason that individual cells are by nature genetically immortal), which were replaced over time by ones would have acquired genetic mortality. Many theories on aging exist, one of them implying this one.

See also:
- Telomere, the loops that become smaller and smaller at the ends of DNA.
- Hydras and turritopsis nutricula, pluricellular lifeforms believed to be genetically immortal (although it is not clear whether they would be complex lifeforms).
Last edited by fafner on Fri Jan 15, 2010 5:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: stupid typos
The real sign that someone has become a fanatic is that he completely loses his sense of humor about some important facet of his life. When humor goes, it means he's lost his perspective.



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Postby sgupta » 14 years ago

Interesting, fafner. Very interesting stuff indeed. I agree that it may be possible genetically, though I'd imagine to artificially create something like that is and will be well beyond human knowledge for quite some time. Could certainly be wrong tho' - maybe there will be a breakthrough. My head spins at the possible implications though.

Actually, I tend to think immortality via transfer to a machine mind might be a bit more likely in our lifetimes, but that's just my relatively unresearched opinion based on several presumptions. Still, assuming we could create something that could actually hold the structure of a human brain...which is a big stretch in itself and also may be well beyond our understanding...it might be possible. Whether someone would want to "live" as a machine forever is another story, however. Obviously current technology doesn't allow feeling, human mobility, etc. - it's getting there, but still has a long way to go


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