Skip to content

Resilience / Criticality (Fedichev)

Simple Summary

  • Idea: Aging is a system‑level loss of resilience (critical slowing) — recovery from perturbations becomes slower and variance rises; tuning dynamics can lower hazard.
  • Not just parts: focus is on the whole‑system controller; measure/restore resilience rather than enumerating specific damages.

Conflicts With Other Theories

  • Classic Models (Medawar, Williams, Hamilton, Kirkwood)
    • Classics: Tradeoffs/damage explain hazard; resilience focus is secondary.
    • Resilience: System dynamics predict hazard and intervention response beyond tradeoff framing; big hazard shifts without obvious costs challenge Classics.
  • Pathogen Control (Lidsky)
    • PC: Reducing pathogen burden is the main lever for hazard improvements.
    • Resilience: Hazard can be lowered by improving recovery dynamics without infection changes; similar/better gains vs anti‑pathogen plans favor this view.
    • PC further predicts lifespan differences that track population structure (dispersal, eusociality, cohorting), which resilience alone does not specify.
  • Epigenetic Information (Sinclair) and SENS Damage Repair (de Grey)
    • Sinclair/SENS: Reset/repair is primary; dynamics follow.
    • Resilience: Tuning dynamics shifts hazard broadly; state resets/repairs may not be required for large gains.
  • Bioelectric / Morphogenetic Control (Levin)
    • Levin: Pattern goals drive repair; spatial cues write targets.
    • Resilience: Global dynamics dominate outcomes; pattern control is one lever among many.
  • Longevity Bottleneck (Various Proponents)
    • Bottleneck: One/few pathways dominate aging.
    • Resilience: Many pathways funnel through common dynamics; pathway‑specific fixes may underperform dynamic tuning.

Questions

Sources

  • Resilience metrics (Pyrkov 2021): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23014-1