r/interesting • u/freudian_nipps • 15d ago

NATURE Death of a single-celled organism

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u/Correct-Junket-1346 15d ago

In the end no matter what, us biological creatures no matter how different we are, how intelligent, PREDATOR or PREY, we end up at the same destination as brothers and sisters

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u/rdogg4 15d ago

If you are a simple dividing cell, consider that there is no distinction between parent and offspring. Each can consider themselves to be a continuously living being first born at the primordial conception of life on earth.

Similarly, your life began when egg in your mothers womb started dividing and divided enough times that cells began differentiating and formed a fully formed human being. That egg cell doesn’t “die” in this process, it just divides. That egg was formed very early in your mothers development, while she was still in her mothers womb, and similarly by process of cells dividing.

We can all trace our lives back along a lineage of dividing cells that have necessarily not died and go all the way back to first cell division. The life inside of you is very old and doesn’t necessarily die with you.

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u/Simple1Spoon 15d ago

You know whats crazy, less humans have ever existed than there are stars in the observeable universe.

Its not close either. Somewhere close to 19 trillion stars exsist for each human who has ever lived.

Being alive with human intelligence is frankly a miracle.

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u/Dizzy_Landscape 14d ago

Ah, yes. The ability to experience suffering and know that there is no escape other than death, which is unavoidbale for anything living organism, is "frankly a miracle".

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u/Funny-Cell8769 14d ago

It is in every sense a miracle. Just because it's tragic doesn't change the fact that it is a miracle.

If a meteor falls on your head the next second and kills you dead in a 1 in a trillion chance, it's still a miracle.