I found out just recently that there is a thing called a "death clock." Don't worry, they're not real and I know they're not real. They're just morbid things on certain websites that you can play with. Death clocks are revolutionary Web tools that tells you when you will die. All you have to do is enter in whatever information it asks you to put in, and it will calculate that exact date of which you're going to die. Now, of course, I don't believe in any such thing as a death clock, nor do I believe that it can actually predict precisely what date I'm going to die. But, just for fun, I went to some of these website and decided to enter in my present information to see what these death clocks come up with. On https://www.death-clock.org, it says that I'm going to die on Saturday, February 2, 2047 (at the age of 72). On http://www.deathtimer.com, it says I'm going to die on Sunday, January 4, 2032 (at the age of 57). On https://www.easycalculation.com, it says that I will die on Friday, September 9, 2050 (at the age of 76). On http://www.findyourfate.com, it's says I'm going to die on Sunday April 1, 2063 (at the age of 88). On deathdate.info, it says I'm going to die on Wednesday, February 26, 2031 (at the age of 56). On http://www.gotoquiz.com, it say simply that I will die in the year 2062 (at the age of 88). Notice that no two death clocks have a common denominator of the exact date of my death. Still, if I were to take all of these ages and average them all out, it would come out to a mean of around 72.83 years (five-sixth of a year or day #304 of a year puts us at around Halloween). But does a a calculated "central" value truly previse the date and age of my death? Can people really predict their own death? Well, that depends on your point of view. Some say: "Oh yes, absolutely! People can predict their own death, down to the day and time. And as it gets closer, they can even tell how where it will happen." Some say: "Yes, they can within reason. People who are close to the end of their life will be able to predict their own death. They can predict their own death when it's not far away." Then, you have people who would say: "Well, maybe to an extent, but maybe not down to the decimal point. Life is pretty random. The only way you can predict your death is if you commit suicide or plan death via euthanasia or have a fatal disease. And even THEN, you can not be 100% certain of death because there are often intervening variables that can affect outcome and therefore it is not an exact science." And then, there are others that may say: "What are you all talking about? Nobody — and I mean nobody — can predict there own death before it happens. When you are seriously sick or injured, you may come to the REALIZATION that death is upon you, but that is less of a prediction and more of an understanding of how the human body works and how much it is capable of handling." So, say you have cancer. Just because you HAVE cancer doesn't mean that cancer is what will cause your death. Benign or malignant, for all we know: you may have cancer, but you may end up dying because you got hit by a truck. There's no way of really knowing, is there? In a previous article, a question was asked: "Does death have a Design?" But are we humans able to precalculate ratios between amounts staked by expected probabilities of life and death? Can we predict our own death by processes or sets of rules to be followed in computations or other problem-solving operations? Does life subtly possess a set of hidden algorithms that, when using heuristic techniques, can be discovered and aid us in prognosticating when our death will occur? Does life inconspicuously have a set of concealed rules that distinctly defines a sequence of operations; a self-contained step-by-step set of operations that could be exposed, after thorough and meticulous calculations, and assist us in ascertaining the precise time (date and year) of our death? Perhaps the more ad rem question is: "Does LIFE have a Design?"
If we were to look at all of this numerically, we, of course, would be using mathematics to see whether death is random or systematic. Now, before we go on, let me inform you that we are not talking about numerology. No no, numerology deals with the occult significance of numbers. We're not trying to crack any ancient codes here. We will be using methods of communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of numbers in a structured and conventional way. This would imply that mathematics is a language. This would imply that there is a the system out there, used by mathematicians, to communicate mathematical ideas among themselves. This language consists of a substrate of some natural language (e.g. English) using technical terms and grammatical conventions that are peculiar to mathematical discourse , supplemented by a highly specialized symbolic notation for mathematical formulas. In fact, many scientists have postulated that mathematics is the universal language. Is mathematics truly a universal language? Well, first, let's see where the word: mathematics comes from... Mathematics is derived from the Latin: "mathematica" and the ancient Greek: "máthēma," which means "that which is learnt," "what one gets to know," hence also "study," "science," "learning," and in modern Greek means: "lesson." It is also derived from the ancient Greek: "manthano," while the modern Greek equivalent is "mathaino," both of which mean "to learn." Mathematics is the study of topics such as quantity (numbers), structure, space, and change, equations, functions, and geometric shapes and their relationships. It relates to science pretty well, doesn't it? The word: science is derived from the Greek: "epistēmē," (i.e. "justified true belief"), "epístamai," meaning "I know," "epistími," "gnósi," meaning "knowing; understanding," and the Latin: "scientia," meaning "knowledge." Science is defined as: a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the Universe. Anybody who has wanted to go into the field of science has to take a lot of math courses and vice versa. And there are two kinds of mathematics. First, there is Pure Mathematics, which may be studied in its own right. It is mathematics motivated entirely for reasons other than application. Then, we have Applied Mathematics. Applied Mathematics is: a branch of mathematics that deals with mathematical methods that find use in science, engineering, business, computer science, and industry. But what one has to keep in mind is that mathematics, in general, is the type of science that exists in thought or as an idea, but not having a physical or concrete existence. It is not a natural or hard science but an abstract science. In a sense, you could call it an auxiliary science. You could say that it is a ancillary science that which serves as a support for another science (e.g. biology, chemistry, or physics) so that it can achieve its purposes and objectives. You could say that it is a scientific discipline that can complement a science in particular cases. Thus, Applied Mathematics is a combination of mathematical science and specialized knowledge. Still, how is mathematics a universal language?
Philosophically, it is not necessarily a universal language but the study of universal truths. This is because many philosophers question whether mathematics is universal and whether it is a language. We know that math doesn't run off theories. Math runs off proven facts. Things in math aren't guesses, they are truths. There is an active field of academic philosophy that deals with the underpinnings of mathematics trying to answer this question, and one of the more alarming notions to emerge from it is Fictionalism, which states that talk of numbers and other mathematical objects is nothing more than a convenience for doing science. Fictionalism is not widely accepted, but so far has proven very resilient to most of the arguments challenging it, so it's not crackpottery, either. So mathematics may not be an absolute, because mathematics may not exist in and of itself outside our human minds. So, why is it considered the universal language? Well, mathematics does not have a clearly defined, universally accepted definition. However, it is safe to say that anything that studies the interaction between quantities, variables, structure, and change, is mathematics. Mathematics is not a tangible thing, but actually an abstract concept. There are a great many ways of expressing mathematics. The base, the symbols, the structure, and the methods used to express mathematics can all be radically different, and yet: it is still mathematics. Math is a universal language because the principles and foundations of math are the same everywhere around the world. Ten plus ten equals twenty. If you write it as Arabic numerals (10 + 10 = 20) or Roman numerals (X + X = XX). The concept of 20 items is the same no matter where you are in the world. And, what about geometry? A circle is always a circle and its circumference is always calculated the same way no matter where you are in the world. The same holds true for any other geometric figure like triangles, squares or rectangles. The principles of probability are the same everywhere as well. The chance of rain in Guatemala might be greater than the chance of rain in the Sahara desert but probability works the same way. People around the world have different genetics but the probability of passing on genes to their children follows the same mathematical formulas. It is involved in the study of the physical, biological, or sociological world. Yes, it's true that mathematics is the most fundamental type of logic possible (in physics, anyway), and, therefore, it is easy to reason that mathematics is the best way of expressing the Universe. Now, this is, of course, if you continue to look at mathematics philosophically. But when we talk of philosophy, we are talking about a pretty broad spectrum. When we talk of philosophy, we are talking about the general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. But we, more commonly, look at mathematics scientifically. A discipline (an organized, formal field of study) such as mathematics tends to be defined by the types of problems it addresses, the methods it uses to address these problems, and the results it has achieved. We can look at it scientifically because, as mentioned in the above paragraph, mathematics is considered to be an "abstract science," rather than a "natural or hard science." And an abstract science is purely conceptual and theoretical.
Mathematics is the only language shared by all human beings regardless of culture, religion, or gender. Pi "π" (a mathematical Constant) is still approximately 3.1415926535897932384626433832... regardless of what country you are in. Euler's number "e" (another mathematical Constant) is still 2.7182818284590452353602874713527... regardless of what year it is. The number i "Φ" (the imaginary unit of the complex numbers, which is a field of numbers that contains the roots of all polynomials that are not constants) is still 1.618033988749894848204586834365836117720309... no matter how many times you work it out. Adding up the cost of a basket full of groceries involves the same math process regardless of whether the total is expressed in dollars, euro, lira, or yen. A simple number pattern, known as the Fibonacci Series, sits at the heart of the marvelous architecture and patterns of life and growth. You see, the Fibonacci Series has a pattern that repeats every 24 numbers and uses numeric reduction. Numeric reduction is: a technique used in analysis of numbers in which all the digits of a number are added together until only one digit remains. For example, the numeric reduction of 256 is 4. Why? Because 2+5+6=13. Then, you take the number 13 and add the numbers that the number 13 contains (i.e. 1 and 3). Sum of 1+3=4. Applying numeric reduction to the Fibonacci Series produces an infinite series of 24 repeating digits: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 4, 3, 7, 1, 8, 9, 8, 8, 7, 6, 4, 1, 5, 6, 2, 8, 1, 9... If you take the first 12 digits and add them to the second twelve digits and apply numeric reduction to the result, you find that they all have a value of 9. Again, this is not a numerology calculation. Interestingly enough, numerologists do use the numeric reduction at times. My Personality Number is: 9, my Life Path Number is: 7, and my Karma or Wisdom Number is: 5. Of course, these numbers have no significance outside the occult line of reasoning. But I digress... Very few people, if any, are multilingual. But virtually all of us possess the ability to be "literate" in the shared language of math. This math literacy is called: "numeracy," and it is this shared language of numbers that connects us with people across continents and through time. It is what links ancient scholars and medieval merchants, astronauts and artists, peasants and presidents. With this language, we can explain the mysteries of the Universe or the secrets of DNA. We can understand the forces of planetary motion, discover cures for catastrophic diseases, or calculate the distance from Boston to Bangkok. We can build computers and transfer information across the globe. Math is not just for calculus majors. It's for all of us. And it's not just about pondering imaginary numbers or calculating difficult equations. It's about making better daily decisions and, hopefully, leading richer, fuller lives.
And since mathematics is also considered the language of God or the language of Creation, mathematics is a vital medium through which we perceive, describe, comprehend, and give glory to our Creator. Firstly, "God" is often used as a metaphor for a creature (or phenomenon) which is perfect, and elegant, and not an actual God. Technically speaking, math IS life. If you break down living organisms to their most basic elements, you’ll have quite a puddle on the floor. You’ll also have biology, chemistry, and physics, all of which are specialized fields of mathematics, which means math is life and life is math. Math is almost like a exploration of creation; of the Divine. You really spend your time thinking in this absolute truth mindset. You think a lot about infinity and complexities beyond your understanding. You get to practice trying to understanding something which you can never fully understand. Math and God can be intertwined. God made math, and in math, people can learn about how God works. Every time you go a little deeper into the math, it's like you get a tiny glimpse into His mind. And the more you learn, the more you realize there's so much more you'll never understand. The human passion for mathematics goes beyond the desire to predict events and to control our environment. We seek to understand the Universe; to see how it all fits together. We seem hard-wired to seek deep, profound patterns that connect the wild variety of things in our world. Again, isn’t it a little too convenient that we have an appetite for wonder; a yearning for understanding and a brain that is capable of achieving both? That being said, mathematicians think that mathematics is perfect and elegant and beautiful. Further, it seems that natural phenomena are intelligible through the use of mathematics, although often at the cost of making the mathematics dirty. Nevertheless, many people believe that the Universe can be described by simple mathematical equations.
Now, we come to a pivotal part in this article. I have expressed and conveyed the importance that math has in our lives. But does math possess ciphers encoded in a set of circumstances that would induce (even hasten) a chain reaction in which we could miraculously unravel the probability of our death? Can we ascertain by computation the odds of us dying within the next year? If so, what external variables would we have to take into consideration? What concomitant factors would we have to take into account? If we know or (at least) discover what they are, how many of them are there? How would each of these components affect our odds of dying (i.e. increase or decrease)? Are our odds of dying within a particular year an occurrence without a definite aim, reason, or pattern? Or is there some type of methodical plan or procedure arranged in or comprising an ordered system that controls when we die? Is it a step-by-step process? Is it something that (when calculated) gives the same answer over and over again? The truth is: the timing of our own deaths are based on many uncharted elements, from heredity to lifestyle to untimely accidents.
"Most Americans don't have a particularly good understanding of their own mortality risks, let alone ranking of their relevant risks," said David Gerard, an associate professor of economics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. The researchers found that beyond infancy, the risk of dying increases annually at an exponential rate. A 20-year-old has a 1 in 2,000 (or 0.05 percent) chance of dying in the next year, for example. By age 40, the risk is three times greater; by age 60, it is 16 times greater; and by age 80, it is 100 times greater (around 1 in 20 or 5 percent). "The risks are higher, but still not that bad," Gerard said. "At 80, the average person still has a 95 percent chance of making it to her 81st birthday." Not bad, consider that at 111, the average person has a 70 percent chance of making it to their 112th birthday (around 3 in 10 or 30 percent). Keep in mind that only 1 in 10 billion people will live to be 116 years of age or older. Being as the World's Population is roughly 7.4 + billion, your changes of living even to 112 years of age are quite diminutive. In any given year of our lives, we are far more likely to keep plugging along than not. Even at the frail age of 85, you have a 92 percent chance of surviving to the next year. Pretty good odds! But this is where probability comes in... Life is not a single roll of the dice, but thousands of rolls. Survival is rarely dependent on a single, cataclysmic moment of chance, but years of smaller risks — the 0.089 percent chance of heart disease at age 50, then 0.098 percent at 51, and 0.109 at 52. In the end, it’s the additive power of probability that kills us. And at each turn of the calendar, the odds usually go up (of course). The lesson is clear: Our lives are defined by the little risks we take, not the big ones.
However, it doesn't stop there. Others have found the same pattern. It just so happens that a postdoctoral researcher in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote a blog on this very subject. Several years ago, physicist: Brian Skinner asked himself: What are the odds I will die in the next year? On July 8, 2009, he wrote his blog called: "Your body wasn’t built to last: a lesson from human mortality rates." He was 25. Now, I haven't the faintest idea why he began to wonder about this. Sure, people may wonder how, where, and when they're going to die every once in a while. Even me. Of course, how many people do you know who ask themselves: "What are the odds I will die THIS YEAR?" I mean, can we really look at death DEMOGRAPHICALLY? Can we really use statistical data relating to human population (both quantitative and qualitative aspects of it), collect and analyze numerical data on human dynamics, and infer proportions in a whole to predict what the odds are that a person (depending on their age) will die within any particular year? Well, Skinner actually looked up the answer. And what he discovered was quite interesting. Even compelling and enigmatic.
Obviously, when you're young (and past the extra-risky years of early childhood, tweens, and adolescence), the chances of dying in the coming year are minuscule (0.03% or roughly 1 in 3,000) for 25-year-olds. Just keep in mind that this is a group average. But then, eight years later, the odds roughly double. As Skinner writes in his blog post: "When I'm 33, the chances of my dying that year will be about 1 in 1,500." And eight years after that, he says, the odds double again: "It will be about 1 in 750." And eight years later, there's another doubling, which is 1 in 375. And if you were to chart this out, you'd see that keeps happening over and over again. "Your probability of dying during a given year," Skinner writes, "doubles every eight years." Rather riveting, isn't it? When I looked at the tables Skinner used from 2005, he's more or less correct. Still, it makes you wonder.... First, why the doubles? Why not sesquialterals? Why not decuples? And moreover, why the number "eight?" I mean, what's so special about the number: eight (8)?
Well, according to the Egyptians, it is the number of the balance, the cosmic order, and the eight disciples of Thot. In Babylon, Egypt and Arabia, it was the number of the duplication devoted to the sun, from where the solar disc is decorated of a cross with eight arms. In China, it expresses the totality of the Universe. For the Japanese, the number 8 means the multiplicity. For the Greeks, the number 8 was dedicated to Dyonisios, born the eighth month of the year, as well as the eight divisions of the sky of the Greek tradition. Plato remained with his mentor/master, the Greek philosopher: Socrates during an eight-year period. The eight "Selecti" gods of the Romans. In the Middle Ages, eight was the number of "unmoving" stars in the sky, and symbolized the perfection of incoming planetary energy. The number eight governs the life of the man: at 8 months, the baby teeth appear; at 8 years, he loses them; at 2 x 8 years, it is the puberty; and he becomes impotent at 8 x 8 years. Anniversary of marriage: weddings of bronze, electricity or rubber. In mathematics the symbol of the infinity is represented by a 8 laid down. It represents the totality and coherence of the creation in evolution. It represents the earth, not in its surface but in its volume, since 8 is the first cubic number. The Pythagoreans have made the number 8 the symbol of the love and the friendship, the prudence and the thinking and they have called it the Great "Tetrachtys." Biblically, the number eight corresponds to the New Testament, according to Ambroise. The number 8 in the Holy Bible represents a new beginning, meaning a new order or creation, and man's true "born again" event when he is resurrected from the dead into eternal life. It represents the eight Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-11). It represents the eight sentences of the Magnificat or Hymn of Mary (Luke 1:46-56). Jesus was circumcised eight days after his birth, according to the law established (Genesis 17:12, 21:4, Leviticus 12:3; Luke 2:21). The eight creative words of God in six days, in Genesis chapter 1, verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, and 26. There were eight persons who were saved from the Flood in Noah's Ark (Genesis 7:13). The number 8 is used 73 times in the Holy Bible. The most joyous Feast period of the year is the eight day period of the Fall Feast of Tabernacles (or The Festival of Booths) followed immediately afterward by the Last Great Day. Abdon (in the East) was a Judge of Israel who served 8 years (Judges 12:13-14). The New Testament was penned by only eight men (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Peter, Jude, Paul). Numbers 29, 42, 4500, 22000 and 40000 are used 8 times in the Holy Bible. Eight is the number of Jesus, whose name in the Greek: "Iisoús" adds up to 888. There are eight numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 12; that are common to the four Gospels and the Revelation, which means that each one of them is used at least once in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and in the Book of Revelation. Forty different people wrote the Scriptures. Forty is a number composed of five (symbolizing grace) times eight (symbolizing a new beginning). It is, therefore. only by God's grace and love that man will someday be given a chance for a new beginning, as promised in the Word of God. In Islam, eight is the number of angels carrying the throne of Allah in heaven, as well as the number of gates of heaven. The number eight is used four times in the Koran (Koran VI:144; XXVIII:27; XXXIX:8 and LXIX:7). In Wicca, there are eight Sabbats, festivals, seasons, or spokes in the Wheel of the Year. In Scientology, there are 8 dynamics of existence. In Taoism, there are eight trigrams of the "Ba gua," which literally means "eight symbols." Number 8 is the number of Karma – the Universal Spiritual Law of Cause and Effect. In other words, "To the exact extent that you live good or bad qualities, you will receive an equivalent back into your life, at some time." In numerology, the number eight puts the emphasis in the areas of career, business, finances and authority; as well as balance and power. In astronomy, Messier object M8, a magnitude 5.0 nebula in the constellation of Sagittarius. In astrology, Scorpio is the 8th astrological sign of the Zodiac. In Chemistry, eight is the atomic number of oxygen and the maximum number of electrons that can occupy a valence shell. In geology, A disphenoid crystal is bounded by eight scalene triangles arranged in pairs. In biology, there are eight cervical nerves on each side in man. In technology, a byte is eight bits. In measurement, there are eight furlongs in a mile. In architecture, various types of buildings are usually eight-sided (octagonal).
Now, before we go any further, I must point out that not only was this not Skinner's discovery, but that these statistics presented as theories came into existence clear back to the early 19th century. Two British actuaries and mathematicians, Benjamin Gompertz and William Makeham, noticed this very pattern back in 1825, and it's called: the Gompertz-Makeham Law of Human Mortality. The Law states that the human death rate is the sum of an age-independent component (the Makeham term, named after William Makeham) and an age-dependent component (the Gompertz function, named after Benjamin Gompertz), which increases exponentially with age. In other words, death creeps closer, but it creeps closer in orderly steps (for humans about every eight years). Doubling of this sort, when plotted on a chart, looks disturbing in the later years and my make more wary of the of even the most diminutive of situations, but every interval early in the curve is also a doubling. The Gompertz–Makeham Law of Mortality describes the age dynamics of human mortality rather accurately in the age window from about 25/30 to 80 years of age. At more advanced ages, some studies have found that death rates increase more slowly – a phenomenon known as the Late-Life Mortality Deceleration (i.e. hazard rate increasing at a decreasing rate in late life). So, the same thing keeps happening, only the effects become more and more pronounced. Anyone reaching the age of 100 seems to have a 1 in 2 chance of getting to 101. This data fits the Gompertz Law almost perfectly, with death rates doubling every 8 years. The Gompertz Law indicates that a precipitous fall in survival rates starting at age 80 or so. That decline is no joke; the sharp fall in survival rates can be expressed mathematically as an exponential within an exponential. If it decreases at a rate directly proportional to its current value (i.e. to the amount present), a quantity is subject to exponential decay. Any quantity that decays by a fixed percent at regular intervals is said to possess exponential decay. In a graph, the "rate of change" decreases across the graph.
Skinner said that the pattern: "holds across a large number of countries, time periods and even different species. While actual average lifespan changes quite a bit from country to country and from animal to animal, the same general rule that 'your probability of dying doubles every X years' holds true." But here's the pendulous question: Why the regular interval? Why eight years for humans? Skinner's answer? "It's an amazing fact, and no one understands why it's true." After hours of research, there doesn't seem to be an obvious explanation. Various quantities of interest of complex systems more often than not follow certain statistical distributions. This is especially true about natural systems. Let's use an example related to the Central Limit Theorem (CLT), which states that the sampling distribution of the mean of any independent, random variable will be normal or nearly normal, if the sample size is large enough. Suppose you flip a coin twice. This simple statistical experiment can have four possible outcomes: HH, HT, TH, and TT. Now, let the "variable X" represent the number of Heads that result from this experiment. The "variable X" can take on the values 0, 1, or 2. In this example, "X" is a random variable; because its value is determined by the outcome of a statistical experiment. Flip 100 coins and call it one trial. Perform such trials a large number of times (a few hundred, let's say). For each trial, count the number of heads. In the end, create a histogram (frequency of N-head trials, N ranging from 0 to 100). It'll look like a Gaussian distribution. The emergence of such distribution feels strange, even though we pretty much know everything about the system. Similar ideas applies to human mortality distributions. The best you could say is that these are very counter-intuitive observations/facts.
Skinner points out what is called: "The Lightning Bolt Theory." In this view, death is the result of a sudden and unexpected event over which you have no control. It’s sort of an ancient Greek perspective. There are angry gods carousing carelessly overhead, and every so often they hurl a lightning bolt toward Earth, which kills you if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. These are the "lightning bolts" of disease and cancer and car accidents, things that you can escape for a long time if you’re lucky but will eventually catch up to you. The problem with this theory is that it would produce mortality rates that are nothing like what we see. Your probability of dying during a given year would be constant, and wouldn’t increase from one year to the next. Your probability of survival to age X would follow a Poisson distribution, which means exponential decay (and not super-exponential decay). To make things concrete, Skinner said to imagine a world where every year a "lightning bolt" gets hurled in your general direction and has a 1 in 80 chance of hitting you. Your average life span will be 80 years, just like it is in the US today, but the distribution will be very different. The average lifespan would be the same, but out of every 100 people: 31 would die before age 30 and 2 of them would live to be more than 300 years old.
So, we can see that the "lightning bolt theory" is flawed. Skinner said that our bodies accumulate damage as they get older. With each misfortune, our defenses are weakened — a car accident might leave me paralyzed, or a knee injury could give me arthritis, or a childhood bout with pneumonia could leave me with a compromised immune system. Maybe dying is a matter of accumulating a number of "lightning strikes"; none of them individually will do you in, but the accumulated effect leads to death. He said "I think of it something like Monty Python’s Black Knight: the first four blows are just flesh wounds, but the fifth is the end of the line." He than goes into a completely testable but wrong possibility called the "Accumulated Lightening Bolt Theory." It's described in a simulated world where "lightning bolts" of misfortune hit people on average every 16 years, and death occurs at the fifth hit. This world also has an average lifespan of 80 years (16*5 = 80), and its distribution is a little less ridiculous than the previous case. Still, it’s no Gompertz Law: look at all those 160-year-olds! You can try playing around with different "lightning strike rates" and different number of hits required for death, but nothing will reproduce the Gompertz Law. No explanation based on careless gods, no matter how plentiful or how strong their blows are, will reproduce the strong upper limit to human lifespan that we actually observe. There is one important lesson, however, to be learned from Benjamin Gompertz’s mysterious observation. By looking at theories of human mortality that are clearly wrong, we can deduce that our fast-rising mortality is not the result of a dangerous environment, but of a body that has a "built-in expiration date." Skinner described it best with the Cops & Criminals analogy.
As Skinner described it: Imagine that within your body is an ongoing battle between cops and criminals. And, in general, the cops are winning. They patrol randomly through your body, and when they happen to come across a criminal, he is promptly removed. The cops can always defeat a criminal they come across, unless the criminal has been allowed to sit in the same spot for a long time. A criminal that remains in one place for long enough (say, one day) can build a 'fortress' which is too strong to be assailed by the police. If this happens, you die. Lucky for you, the cops are plentiful, and on average they pass by every spot 14 times a day... But what happens if your internal police force starts to dwindle? Suppose that as you age the police force suffers a slight reduction, so that they can only cover every spot 12 times a day? The difference between 14 and 12 doesn't seem like a big deal, but the result was that your chance of dying during a given day jumped by more than seven times. And if the strength of your police force drops linearly in time, your mortality rate will rise exponentially.
This is the Gompertz-Makeham Law of Human Mortality, in cartoon form: Your body is deteriorating over time at a particular rate. When its 'internal policemen' are good enough to patrol every spot that might contain a criminal 14 times a day, then you have the body of a 25-year-old, and a 0.03 percent chance of dying this year. But by the time your police force can only patrol every spot seven times per day, you have the body of a 95-year-old with only a 2 in 3 chance of making it through the year. This sounds right; that our immune system deteriorates at a steady pace, leaving us with fewer and fewer cops to remove the troublemakers in our bodies. As a metaphor, it works. But Skinner said: "unfortunately, the full complexity of human biology does not lend itself readily to cartoons about cops and criminals." There is no biological finding that explains the eight-year pattern we find in the mortality tables. The idea is nice. But the math? It has no obvious logic, no explanation — not yet, anyway. We know death is approaching, but why does it like the number eight? There have been attempts to describe DNA degradation (through the shortening of your Telomeres or through Methylation) as an increase in "criminals" that slowly overwhelm the body’s DNA-repair mechanisms, but nothing has come of it so far. If you recall in my article: "Death: To Those Left Behind," the process of Methylation is explained. Although Methylation is a process by which methyl groups are added to and modifies the function of the DNA (i.e. it is essential for normal development and is associated with a number of key processes including genomic imprinting), when located in a "gene promoter," Methylation typically acts to repress gene transcription, such as aging and carcinogenesis (i.e. the formation of a cancer, whereby normal cells are transformed into cancer cells). DNA is arranged into structures called: Chromosomes (46 of them, actually), capped by a compound structural component called: Telomeres, which protect the end of the Chromosomes from deterioration or from fusion with neighboring Chromosomes. They are kind of like the plastic tips at the end of our shoelaces that keep them from coming undone and maintain its structural integrity. The more times a cell has replicated, the shorter these Telomeres become. Why? Because the cell can't replicate the DNA to the very end of the strand. Once the Telomeres reach a certain "shortness," it signals the cell to die (a process called "apoptosis"), thereby effectively limiting the number of times a cell can divide. It is generally believed that this also has some effect on lifespans. It may make you wonder if the same amount of Telomenes are shortened each year, that may be why the odds of one's death "double every eight years." However, aging is not the ONLY reason for the shortening of these Telomeres. Telomeres are shortened as we age, but Telomeres can also be shortened by stress, smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and a poor diet. These factors not only quicken the pace of biological aging but also increase a carrier’s susceptibility to be inactivated by the expression of oncogenes (cancer-causing genes), the deactivation of tumor suppressor genes, or to age-related diseases like senescence (i.e. a process of deterioration with age when the Telomeres enter a state of inactivity), thereby resulting in the onset of those conditions relatively early in adult life. So, you can't always blame it on internal factors. Interestingly, if Telomerase activity was switched off in cancer cells, their Telomeres would shorten and prevent the cancer cells from dividing uncontrollably to form tumors. An ever increasing number of scientists continue to study Telomeres and the benefits of stopping or possibly reversing the Telomere shortening that happens as we age. Still, there are a lot of difficult questions for anyone who tries to put together a serious theory of human aging. Who are the criminals and who are the cops that kill them? What is the "incubation time" for a criminal, and why does it give "him" enough strength to fight off the immune response? Why is the police force dwindling over time? For that matter, what kind of "clock" does your body have that measures time at all? It is perplexing, to say the least. Nevertheless, I've studied statistics in the past. What is statistics? Although some would say it's a practice or science, it's actually a branch of mathematics. It's a a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of quantitative data. When we look at death statistically, we actually do it for the purpose of inferring proportions in a whole from those in a representative sample. It's a probability; a likelihood; a prospect; an expectation; a chance. It is the the extent to which an event is likely to occur. It is the chance that something will happen - how likely it is that some event will happen given event's occurrence. It is a theory that applies precise calculations to quantify UNCERTAIN measures of RANDOM events. It is not a firm conviction that something is the case, a quality of being reliably true, or an event that is definitely going to take place. So, just because one would have a 99% probability of dying within a single year, doesn't mean that they WITH ALL CERTAINTY will die. On the other side of the coin, just because one would have a 0.03% probability of dying within a single year, doesn't mean that they WITH ALL CERTAINTY will NOT die. Beyond the Gompertz-Makeham Law of Human Mortality, we can also calculate the odds of death in terms of "rates." Rate is: the speed or the number of times something happens or is done during a particular period of time, typically measured against some other quantity or measure. In this case, it's Mortality Rate vs. Morbidity Rate.
Mortality Rate is: a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time... That's a lot to take in, isn't it? Let's simplify this just a little... Mortality Rate is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1,000 individuals per year. So, let's say, for example, there's a Mortality Rate of 100 (out of 1,000, of course) in a population of 1,000 (just to keep it simple). This would mean that there are 100 deaths per year in that entire population of 1,000, or 10% out of the total (1,000). Therefore, this particular population would have a 10% Mortality Rate. Then, we have a Morbidity Rate. The Morbidity Rate is: the ratio determined by comparing the frequency of illness to the amount of healthy people in a group of people over a certain time frame. It is the proportion of patients with a particular disease during a given year per given unit of population. It is the frequency with which a disease appears in a population. Many get confused by the two. Morbidity refers to the unhealthy state of an individual, while mortality refers to the state of being mortal. Both concepts can be applied at the individual level or across a population. For example, a Morbidity Rate looks at the incidence of a disease across a population and/or geographic location during a single year. Mortality Rate looks at the rate of death of a disease in a population. The two are often used together to calculate the prevalence of a disease (e.g., heart disease or AIDS) and how likely that disease is to be deadly, particularly for certain demographics. So, Morbidity Rate refers to the state of being diseased or unhealthy within a population. It is the "amount of the quality of life" that is lost. Mortality Rate is the term used for the number of people who actually died of a disease within that population. It is the "amount of the quantity of lives" that are lost.
Here is another example of the difference between Mortality Rate and Morbidity Rate. Nearly 75% of all deaths in the United States are attributed to roughly 10 causes, with the top 3 of these accounting for over 50% of all deaths. In fact, over the last five years, the main causes of death in the United States have remained fairly consistent.
1. Heart disease -- Mortality Rate: 23.53%
2. Cancer (malignant neoplasms) -- Morality Rate: 22.52%.
3. Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease (CLRD) -- Mortality Rate: 5.74%.
4. Accidents (unintentional injuries) -- Mortality Rate: 5.02%.
5. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) -- Mortality Rate: 4.97%
6. Alzheimer's disease -- Mortality Rate: 3.26%
7. Diabetes (diabetes mellitus) -- Mortality Rate: 2.91%
8. Influenza and Pneumonia -- Mortality Rate: 2.19%
9. Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis) -- Mortality Rate: 1.81%
10. Suicide (intentional self-harm) -- Mortality Rate: 1.58%
Homicide is #28. Alcohol is #38. AIDS is #40. Street Drugs is #52. Now, let's say that the average lifespan of a human being is roughly 70 years. That sounds pretty reasonable, since the in the Holy Bible, Psalm 90:10 says: "Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures..." Now, as we see, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 1 in every 4 deaths. Say, for example, a 60-year-old man died of a heart attack. Demographically, he died of something that has a high Mortality Rate, since it's the leading cause of death. However, if the average lifespan is 70 years, he only missed out on ten years of life, and therefore, has a low Morbidity Rate. Now say, for example, a 15-year-old boy has unprotected sex with many different partners in a time period of about a decade, then finds out he has AIDS. After fighting to stay alive for five years, he eventually dies at the age of 30. As we see above, AIDS has a low Mortality Rate, especially compared to heart disease. But, with the average lifespan being 70 years, he missed out on 40 years of life and, thus, AIDS has a high Morbidity Rate.
One might wonder if death is something that we can avoid to some extent. A Forensic Pathologist: Dr. Jan Garavaglia, M.D. (born: Jan Carla Garavaglia in Saint Louis, Missouri on Friday, September 14, 1956) authored a book entitled: "How Not to Die," (ISBN#: 978-0307409140) in which she relates some of her own experiences as a medical examiner to educate readers how to better care for their health. Now retired, she served as the Chief Medical Examiner at the District 9 Morgue for Orange and Osceola counties in Orlando, Florida (1988–2015). The book was released on October 14, 2008 by Crown Publishing. Using cases from her 20 years of experience as a medical examiner, Dr. Garavaglia identifies some lifestyle and behavioral choices that may result in premature death and offers advice on how to be smart and pro-active about one's health. Dr. Garavaglia writes: "There are other actions you might not be aware of that can save your life." Though many of us believe in an appointed time of death, Dr. Garavaglia believes that fate lies with genetics and luck, and "a lot of us make our own bad luck." Much of the author's advice is obvious:
1. Be your own advocate if you are hospitalized.
2. Avoid abusing alcohol and drugs (both prescribed and street drugs).
3. Get regular checkups.
4. Do not ignore symptoms of illness.
5. Drive defensively (with seat and lap harness securely fastened).
6. Make sure that you eat properly.
7. Exercise.
8. Get plenty of sleep.
Some of the recommendations that Dr. Garavaglia passes on, however, may prove surprising. For instance, an untreated dental infection can cause bacteria to migrate to the bloodstream, resulting in multisystem organ failure, so don't neglect your teeth and gums. Dr. Garavaglia emphasizes the crucial role of psychological well-being since the mind and body are so closely interrelated. Social connections, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose can affect a person's attitude and contribute to his longevity. "How Not to Die" contains useful and informative charts, a list of resources and Websites, a bibliography, and a thorough index. So, you may not always be able to prevent a massive coronary or an aggressive, malignant form of cancer. But you CAN prevent a drug overdose. You CAN prevent a suicide. You CAN prevent reckless driving. There are external aspects that could attribute to our deaths that we CAN prevent, if we simply make wise choices. As Dr. Garavaglia says in her epilogue: "Life has its challenges at times, and death is inevitable. We just don't have to help it along."
Now, we know that we should take care of our bodies while we are alive. We will feel better and happier if we are healthy, rather than sickly. And keep in my that our bodies are Temples of God (1 Corinthians 6:19 and 2 Corinthians 6:16). Still, nobody can avoid or escape death, no matter how healthy and clean we keep our bodies. Our physical bodies are all mortal, and thus, will someday die. The word: death appears in the Holy Bible roughly 372 times (depending on what version you read). But what does the Holy Bible say about death?
(1.) First, Believers will be taken into the presence of Christ in heaven. Christ is in Heaven now (Acts 1:2; 3:21; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 4:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:7), and Believers will go to be with Him. Jesus said to the thief on the cross: "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). And on two different occasions, the Apostle Paul spoke of death as ushering us into the presence of Christ: "But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake." (Philippians 1:23-24)
(2.) Second, Heaven is a place of resplendent glory, and being with Christ in the glory of Heaven will be far superior to our present earthly lives. Notice that in the passages just listed, the Apostle Paul says that departing this life to be with Christ "is very much better" (Philippians 1:23) and that he would "prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). Notice also that being in heaven with the Lord is referred to as being "at home." One of the things that will make heaven so great is that we will finally feel that we are in our true home.
(3.) Third, when in Heaven we will be continue looking forward (as we should be already in this life) to the resurrection of our bodies from the dead. Disembodied existence is not God's ultimate and final and greatest purpose for us. As great as it will be to be in Heaven after we die, God has something greater in store: being resurrected from the dead so that we will live soul and body forever in the new heavens and new earth. While still alive, the Apostle Paul stated that he was waiting eagerly for the redemption of his body (Romans 8:23). This eager anticipation for our resurrection stops not when we die, but when we finally receive the fulfillment of our anticipation in the resurrection of our bodies. Understanding this should greatly increase our desire for the full coming of God's Kingdom.
(4.) Fourth, at the moment of death, Believers will be made perfect and cleansed from all sin. This follows from the above point that Believers are taken to heaven immediately at death. Heaven is fully pure and free from all tarnish and sin, and therefore, when God takes us to heaven He makes us fit for the experience of it by making our hearts perfect in holiness. This accords with His purpose to make us completely like Christ (Romans 8:29) and, at the return of Christ, to present us to Himself without spot or wrinkle or sin (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Ephesians 5:27).
(5.) Fifth, those who did not trust Christ in this life will be separated from God and enter a reality completely devoid of His common grace and blessing. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus speaks of Lazarus as being taken to heaven when he dies but the rich man, because he did not heed the Scriptures, immediately entering into great torment and being excluded from the blessing of heaven (Luke 16:22-26). Scripture speaks often of the painful reality that awaits those who do not place their faith in Christ to be rescued from sin (Matthew 13:30; 25:41; Luke 12:5; John 3:36; Romans 2:8-9; Hebrews 10:29).
(6.) Finally, we see from all these things that death is not the end of our existence. We have bodies and souls. Death is the separation of body and soul, not the end of our personhood. When we die our bodies become lifeless and are no longer the place where we "reside," but we continue to exist as souls, either with Christ in glory or separated from Christ in shame. If souls existed as separate entities that lived on after we died, that would mean we have immortality. However, the Bible says human beings do not have immortality. Only God is immortal (1 Timothy 6:15 & 16). The Apostle Paul says that the righteous "seek for glory, honor, and immortality" (Romans 2:7). The immortality that is mentioned is "eternal life" with our Lord and Savior Jesus in Heaven (Psalm 16:11; Matthew 19:16 & 29, 25:46; Mark 10:17 & 30; Luke 10:25, 18:18 & 30; John 3:15-16, 3:36, 4:14, 4:36, 5:24, 5:39, 6:27, 6:40 & 47, 6:54, 6:68, 10:28, 12:25, 12:50, 17:2-3; Acts 13:46-48; Romans 2:7, 5:21, 6:22-23; Galatians 6:8; 1 Timothy 1:16, 6:12; Titus 1:2, 3:7; 1 John 1:2, 2:25, 3:15, 5:11, 5:13, 5:20; Jude 1:21).
When we talk or think of death, we have to think of it fatalistically. I mean, sure, we cannot prolong our lives and be able to keep death at a distance to an extent. But, in the end, our general odds of dying are, well... 100%. The ultimate reality is: death is one of those events that are determined by an impersonal fate and cannot be changed by human beings. Again, I come back to the "Final Destination Series." Death is personified as a malevolent entity which manipulates the environment with the intent of claiming the lives of those who managed to escape their fates? It pursues people with a Postmature Life; people who live past the appointed time of death; people are looked at as, the Greek: "pou zoun metá apó to chróno sas tou thanátou," meaning "living after your time of death." Because "Death doesn't like to be cheated," it comes back around and attempts to reclaim the lives that were suppose to do be taken. It basically implies that all events (in this case, death by disasters) are predetermined and, therefore, inevitable. In the end, I suppose when you look at the death statistics, you can look at it as a: "Is the glass half empty or half full" kind of analogy. At my age, I have (at a rough estimate) a 13%-14% chance of dying in the next year. But do I want to pay attention to THAT statistic? Because there is another way of looking at it. I could also say that, at my age, I have 86%-87% chance of LIVING in the next year (i.e. seeing my 43rd birthday). Sure the 13%-14% is a pretty small percentage, but the word: "death" being there and the "chances of death" being out there, it may make a person a little more apprehensive. This would be looking at the glass as half empty. However, the 86%-87% is a pretty high percentage with the word: "living" associated with it. Kind of makes you feel a little better, doesn't it? I know it makes ME feel a little better. This would be seeing the glass as half full. Nevertheless, people can escape a lot of things, but nobody can escape death. You can play with numbers, enumerate odds, and calculate probabilities all you wish. But simply knowing what your chances of dying are within the next year will not cause you to die later or live longer. Mahatma Gandhi once said: "Live as if you'll die tomorrow." However, if you knew you chances of dying within the next year, perhaps you can die as if you'll live tomorrow. In other words, don't live as if you're already dead. And even if you did have the "I'm already dead" mindset," live you life the best you can as if you know you're going to be alive tomorrow anyway. Chances are: you'll live to see tomorrow. But for now, if you're going to worry, worry about today. As far as tomorrow is concern, remember what our Lord and Savior Jesus said in Matthew 6:34. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
