| It's already been touched on, but an organism that has no desire continuing to live will, given probability, be killed or even kill itself. Even if the organism that lacks a drive to live reaches reproductive age and has offspring, it's unlikely that the offspring will live if they inherit the tendency to lack the drive to survive. Although I do not endorse suicide in most circumstances, I have always had a certain level of respect for, and intrigue in, those who willfully kill themselves; it seems to defy our very nature, our own genetic code. Please don't overplay that sentence, I'm not saying that a suicide isn't tragic, just that I find it interesting that some people can defy the very desire to conform (understandably) to the primal need to keep going.
The idea of infinity probably does not occur in most, and likely all, animals, with the exception of humans. The idea of immortality is largely correlated with the concept of infinity, so it would follow that the idea of living forever is also purely human. Although, I believe, that's even a cultural thing; while I'm fairly certain that most cultures have a concept of immortality (i.e. gods/goddesses that live eternally), I don't think it's a universal.
So, is death natural? I would tend to think so and that, given you use the same definition of natural, the desire to live forever is not natural. It's a conceptual legacy passed down through generations, rather than a part of our genetic code. It is only 'natural' in that it goes hand in hand with our desire to survive and our fear of the inevitable.
All that being said, I personally don't find eternal life appealing, but a few hundreds years more wouldn't hurt; life is too short. |