Why death? What's the point of it? How did it evolve?

In answer to Quora question: "Why death? What's the point of it? How did it evolve?"

Thanks for the A2A. The conventional evolutionary answer to this has been that, without older organisms dying off to make room for new organisms with improved fitness as a result of natural selection, and the amplification of this process over generations, a species would not be able to effectively adapt to changing environments or expand its avenues of survival. This answer seems to be further supported by our more recent understanding of epigenetics and how genes are expressed in a given organism (see Epigenetic Modifications Regulate Gene Expression), and how that genetic regulation gets passed on. Death is actually a very elegant stimulus, especially when coupled with consciousness, which can pass on non-genetic, fitness-improving information to the next generation as well. Hey...maybe that's why consciousness, tools and language evolved! Without death defining fitness (i.e. survival of the fittest), would there be a need for adaptive intelligence? "Death implored the evolution of consciousness, tools and language, so that adaptive behaviors could be conceived, remembered and communicated across generations of the species to enhance fitness. Instead, without the certain end to an organism, epigenetic mechanisms might have become so robust that consciousness, tools and language provided no distinct advantage." How about that for a quotable? :-)

My 2 cents.

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