It is also an interesting concept. Apoptosis is the body's natural process of killing off and destroying old dying cells. I will include the full definition below, as found in the medical dictionary.
What is so fascinating to me is that cancer is not some outside disease, or external foreign substance that somehow invades the body, like a virus or bacteria, but it is instead an interruption of the natural process of cells killing themselves off.
Cancer is uncontrolled cell growth. Cellular disease occurs when something gets in the way of of the cells process of self-destruction, or natural life cycle. Cells are designed to live for a time, and then die off and be replaced by new cells.
One could apply this notion to any number of ideas. One could especially apply it to other living organisms besides the human body: Organizations, institutions, agencies, governments, religions.
What does not flow and change and evolve according to a natural life-cycle process can easily become cancerous or diseased. I suppose the challenge there is trying to figure out what the natural life-cycle process is supposed to be.
So that's my philosophical observation for the day.
Definition of APOPTOSIS
: a genetically determined process of cell self-destruction that is marked by the fragmentation of nuclear DNA, is activated either by the presence of a stimulus or by the removal of a stimulus or suppressing agent, is a normal physiological process eliminating DNA-damaged, superfluous, or unwanted cells (as immune cells targeted against the self in the development of self-tolerance or larval cells in amphibians undergoing metamorphosis), and when halted (as by genetic mutation) may result in uncontrolled cell growth and tumor formation—called also programmed cell death
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