title: The propensity of biological aging.
abstract: From birth to death life represents a structural connection of events, regardless of the space of time separating them. The potentiality of a living system is a finite one. It can only be finite since infinity cannot be achieved by a progression of finite elements. Ontogenesis then ends when the potentiality of the organism is fully realized and has reached an optimum, the highest level of bionomical order (Kment, in prep.), which corresponds to the vitality maximum (Beier, 1980). In attacking the problem of probability statements in their most general form, Popper (1959) developed the "propensity interpretation of probability". In my opinion, the disposition towards aging, or, in other terms, the propensity of biological aging, also has to be regarded as a reality--as a biological reality. Since the propensity of aging is viewed as a measure of a disposition, we also have to deal with two questions in order to accept it as a biological reality: Is there any measure of biological aging which can be defined operationally? Is there an operational definition possible of the propensity of biological aging? The acceptance of the concept of propensity in biomedical gerontology, will make it necessary to comment anew on the unsolved problem of a general definition of aging.
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D004463:Ecology; D006801:Humans