I play thought games with myself frequently. I also play with myself frequently, but that's another topic entirely. Here's one thought game inspired by blogger Davey Wavey recently when he wrote in one of his posts:"...we must realize that death is necessary in the planet’s cycle of life. It renews and restores the planet and allows for the beautiful world in which we all live. Without death, life would be a living hell."
Hmmm....
What if suddenly, every living thing on Earth stopped dying?
Here's my estimate of events according to the information I could find from various sources:
All living things stop their dying processes. This means that all cells remain intact and undegraded, no matter the situation, in all organisms, no matter where on Earth, no matter what size or complexity, no matter what situation.
1. This would also mean the cessation of any cell mitosis as, technically, that requires cell deconstruction and reconstruction. Thus, all growth stops. Single celled organisms stop dividing and multiplying, seeds stop germinating, embryos stop growing. Without the energy obtained from the breakdown of cellular life, biological processes requiring this energy will cease, up to near-but-not-quite-at the point of atrophy since that would mean death of the cell, which is now non-existent.
2. All lifeforms requiring the breakdown of cellular constructs to extract energy for it's existence would be severely compromised. In other words, nothing biological can be eaten. There would be widespread and massive starvation in all organisms that do not entirely depend on non-biologic sources for sustenance, like plants. But these organisms can't die so instead they would "live" in a near-death, painful existence for, well, forever. Humans, for instance, would all be in a prostrate, motionless and comatose state, no longer having the energy sources to support their power-draining brains. They would not all be concentration camp thin however, since their fat cells cannot breakdown. The source of the minimal energy required to pump their hearts and allow breathing would be part of non-death phenomenon, since the energy would not be food supplied.
3. Only lifeforms which do not require the destruction of existing life would be able to exist in a state relatively similar to their present, except for growth, death or procreation. Namely plants, lichen, mosses etc. that rely on photosynthesis.
So while it sounds like a Utopian idea to eliminate the existence of death from our world, in fact it may bring on a scary reality of billions of years of a happy-go-lucky Earth for the green things. But a literal living hell for everything else. Until, that is, when the sun goes nova, swells into a Red Giant and envelops the Earth with it's 10,000,000 degree Kelvin corona.
Then all bets are off.