A summary and review of Jonathan Wiener's book "long for this world “

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        1} Death and Birth are like two faces of a coin that one can't be with out the other.If there is one there is the other.this seems rather a universal true phenomenon.
        2} Matter builds and self destructs from the ground up and down to the ground . Ground being    the fundamental form.perhaps to the basic fundamentals of its forms of which some are yet illusive and not fully 

accounted forgot are only known by their absence from the felt and perceived totality .
3} There seems to be a fixed rate of building and self destruction rate at the fundamental levels that the building period corresponds to thethe size of the form to be built and destructed that pertains to the life span
of the discreet form in context.
4} Matter lives in a form and shape from the biggest known to the smallest known for a fixed time for which building and self destruction is the limit depending on the mass size of the form. An elephant lives longer
than a mouse by the size of its proportion to the size of the mousse if compare the life expectancy of the mouse and an elephant there is a corresponding ratio of mass to mass of the two species.
5} We are part of this self constructing and self destructing universe whose mass is on the average fixed thus takes us a fixed time to build and self destruct. Like all matter in the universe including the universe it self.
6} Our body is not a construction of a perfect blue print rather a perfection of the blue print in the process of building, thus every part of our body ages or self destructs at a different rate ensuing the misery of old age .we don't grow at once and drop at once . We grow over time and drop over time.

     These are my observed and learned foundation upon which I refer when I read this book and see if any of these fundamentals agree or contradict with every and some of the premises the author tried to hit home . As enthused as I was with general them of the book and the efforts it had made to high light and call attention to the plight of the elderly and the aging I felt some what confused in some of the overreaching conclusions 

that aging will be averted .
Aging is a universal phenomenon that even the universe itself is not immune from it is asserted that it began and it is acceleratingly expanding. Perhaps it might at some point end . Or else expansion is with out coast and perhaps that would be the first process in the universe that is with out a tall . A tall paid is often degenerative and decremental to the totality of the payor. As said “Rome is not built overnight “ nor is it destroyed over night
perhaps nothing of nature ever gets built in an and destroyed in an instant though it might appear on the scene in an instant as is assume and believed that the universe itself to be an instant being from nothingness.
Time is a measure of change of matter in space ,as such matter and space are in a constant state of change and time simply is the measure of these changes .Absent change in matter and space time ceases to exist. Matter and space are never in a state of rest , discreet matter and non-discreet often change from one state to another, from one form to other forms and a form , the universal accelerating expansion attests that space to is a non fixed entity. Perhaps matter and space may not age and loose their fundamental essence of being but the discreet forms we often observe them in never stays the same and if they did we wouldn't be here in the first place. We and everything else in the universe are here only as an intermediates between what was and what is to be. What is to be will be and nothing at all is spared of this truth, not even the corner stone that we often assume is endowed with eternal state of permanence. Eternity and permanence are not universal phenomenons nor are they “creative “ or if you wish generative.To say the least that is not how we in the universe and the universe itself came about.
Every creative and generative force by necessity have to have a destructive and degenerative force for what is to be is simply to come from the transformation of the is as the is is of the was.
Having set the stage why everything material has to undergo change of state and form due to the creative and destructive vulcanism built in to the universe itself and all its universal entities there of, I will like to say some few words about the living universal entities and fade.At the basic fundamental level that all all living things share a common digital program called gene has been said time and again now that it need be said her again ,but a little up the ladder we encounter another common entity between the different living kingdoms called the Cell. If I may take a wild guess here not at all supported by an expert opinion , all animal cells of a kind divid at the same rate ,then the total cells that will build an elephants body would many times over the number of cells that are to build a body of a mole rat. If we are to compare the the number of cells in the elephant to those of the mole rat would it be fair to the assume the life expectancy of the elephant to the mole rat will have a direct proportionality.This hypothetical proportionality may as well have to consider in to account whether elephant cell division and mole rat cell division limits vary or have to be some how compensated. That as it is ,the age variance between dwarfs of a species and normals like wise could be be seen in this light . If that is true , then when broadly generalized, age is nothing but a time that takes to build a body to a pre-specified size and destruct .a curse of being in the universe part of the universe.
Evolution is not a building from a perfect blue print it is rather a dynamic process of building according to the demands of circumstances encountered and what was perfected yesterday by yesterdays circumstances only a crude beginning to what tomorrows circumstances might demand and a perfected blue print for todays subsistence. Our own body as a product of these evolutionary process of building to the demands of the circumstances, and circumstances did not demand that we have all our limbs and body parts at all times of our development ,they were rather built one or two at a time in response to the circumstances as is evidenced by our own embryonic development and beyond. Is there any wonder then that what was not built at once not to crumble at once? As they were built one at a time they age one at a time.

Ayele Teklemariam