Miles's lifespan (spoilers?)

[Satsuoni]

Ok, this one has been bugging me for a while. If Miles weren't killed, how long would he gave lived? I mean, humans don't die from old age, they die from the illnesses associated with old age. Osteoporosis is illness, and senility is a set of illnesses, as well as heart failure, gray hair,etc, all of which should be removed by gold Health. I mean, he could go on without breathing or heartbeat, his whole body just rewrote itself. Also, there are no reduced gains, or at least not infinitely reducing as in case with age. There is a fixed amount of health that will fix your body from nothing, and no damage or age will go above that. So, how long? He still aged, but perfectly healthy old man is little different from young man. Could he have lived for 200 years? 1000? 1000000?

[Musicspren]

Miles would have lived until he could not afford to buy enough gold.

(I don't know how long he could have lived with an infinite supply of gold; TLR's age is quite reasonable, I think. But I suspect that in reality he would have run out of gold at some point before he died from diseases of aging.)

[Satsuoni]

Miles would have lived until he could not afford to buy enough gold.

(I don't know how long he could have lived with an infinite supply of gold; TLR's age is quite reasonable, I think. But I suspect that in reality he would have run out of gold at some point before he died from diseases of aging.)

Well, yes, but unlike Atium age, his need for gold will plateau at a certain level, so assuming he gets a well-paying job, or maybe invests money wisely, he can get a stable income that will cover his needs. So let us assume infinitely long, but stable supply ( Although that raises a question of where does all that gold go, and whether the planet itself will run out one day)

[Musicspren]

Well, yes, but unlike Atium age, his need for gold will plateau at a certain level, so assuming he gets a well-paying job, or maybe invests money wisely, he can get a stable income that will cover his needs. So let us assume infinitely long, but stable supply ( Although that raises a question of where does all that gold go, and whether the planet itself will run out one day)

We don't know how much gold is on Scadrial or how accessible it is. Just because it is rare on earth doesn't mean it is nearly so rare on Scadrial (although it could be more rare, for that matter). However, Augers or double-gold twinborns will make some of the supply of gold actually disappear, not merely be used to make other things. That is to say, if there is a bracelet of gold, the gold still exists, just in a different form. If Miles burns the gold, it's gone forever (as far as we know). I don't know that there would be any limit to his lifespan with an unlimited supply of gold; perhaps his body could develop enough natural problems that it became too much to stay ahead of, but if he could survive a bullet through his head, I doubt anything "natural" could stop him.

[lordofsoup]

or 5 bullets to the head in rapid succession. Gold seems relatively plentiful on Scadrial and gold is also a slow burning metal, so he would have had many more years to go. Seems strange that TLR didnt use gold to keep his age down and make him use up less Atium.

[Satsuoni]

or 5 bullets to the head in rapid succession. Gold seems relatively plentiful on Scadrial and gold is also a slow burning metal, so he would have had many more years to go. Seems strange that TLR didnt use gold to keep his age down and make him use up less Atium.

Who is to say that he didn't? He used it to regenerate, after all. Also, he was over 1000 year old when he lost his Atium bracers, going from around 30 to 1000 in seconds, and he didn't just keel over, so he was healthy enough to survive that. Apparently he didn't have his goldminds at the moment, and maybe body does waken with age somewhat, but he would still have survived on gold, it seems. So we can establish at least 1000 years as lifespan of gold twinborn. Hm.

[happyman]

My take is that health, like age, actually is a limited resource. In some ways, it's a more limited resource. The older you get, the more diseases you face, both internal and external; the amount of damage you take grows exponentially past a certain point (roughly in your 80's). It's very sad to watch, but I've had enough old relatives to know that it's true. A human's ability to heal actually drops quite drastically with age. I have absolutely no doubt that a Gold Compounder could live quite a lot longer than the average human, but I also doubt they could get anywhere near TLR's trick with Atium.

[Satsuoni]

My take is that health, like age, actually is a limited resource. In some ways, it's a more limited resource. The older you get, the more diseases you face, both internal and external; the amount of damage you take grows exponentially past a certain point (roughly in your 80's). It's very sad to watch, but I've had enough old relatives to know that it's true. A human's ability to heal actually drops quite drastically with age. I have absolutely no doubt that a Gold Compounder could live quite a lot longer than the average human, but I also doubt they could get anywhere near TLR's trick with Atium.

Well yes, I should know. *sigh* But a gold compounder does not use his body's ability to heal, so it should not matter if it is zero. He can constantly regenerate damage- any damage. No amount of aging actually compares to having a point-blank shotgun discharge in the face. So he' ll probably stay alive. Yet muscle degeneration that goes on with age does not seem to count as illness , so my guess would be that after some point he will be alive, but to weak to even walk. And then somebody will stop feeding him gold...

[Deus Ex Biotica]

It seems to me that, for the purposes of Mistborn, "age" must be an actual, measurable factor distinct from years lived or lifestyle choices.

Why? Because Ferruchemists store Age. In theory, if age worked like it does in our world, then they could begin in a safe, indoor environment with adequate food, and doing solid but low-impact exercise, store 20 years, and still be in a good position to continue working out this way, because they have been staying in shape the whole time they aged. Ha!

But it doesn't seem to work like that. Blame Ruin's touch on humanity if you must, but age has a strictly quantifiable cost to Ferruchemists storing it, and (we may assume) everyone else as well.

As such, a Gold Compounder might bypass the need to eat, sleep, or breathe (Take that, Bronze, Cadmium, and Bendalloy Ferrings!), but it cannot bypass the body's aging - this is something which transcends health, and enters into the nature of humanity itself.

Otherwise, the Lord Ruler died because he just randomly decided to regulate his age in an infinitely more difficult and less effective manner, for 1000 years.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[lordofsoup]

TLR was dumb, he should have changed his body to be immortal when he got a hold of Preservation.

[Wispsy]

There is no good reason a perfectly healthy body that is healing far more then it is deteriorating should suffer from greater and greater amounts of deterioration as time goes on, it stays healthy so would continue to deteriorate at the same rate as always, which is alot less then it's healing.

[lauren.e135]

Well, and the healing seems to bypass scar tissue. It also regenerates organs. Normal healing does not do that. So this is not just simple healing. That or I simply need more education in biology. As far as I am aware, the only organ that can regenerate is the liver.

[Arcanist Lupus]

I believe it says specifically in the book that Miles continued to age naturally.

I would assume that Miles would live a very long time (in the 100 - 200 range, not the 1000+ range), but eventually his body would start to shut down, and there'll be nothing he can do about it. (for example, if his body shut down red blood cell production due to a hormonal command, it couldn't be "healed", because the body wouldn't see it as a problem, just a natural result of age, but it would kill him just the same.

This is mostly conjecture, though.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

I believe it says specifically in the book that Miles continued to age naturally.

Miles' inner monologue does, indeed, note that old age is the form of death his power cannot prevent (though, personally, I suspect that decapitation and the like might work, too). This is one of the reasons I presumed that Gold Compounding does not grant immortality, and tried to explain this fact with conjecture.

[Musicspren]

TLR was dumb, he should have changed his body to be immortal when he got a hold of Preservation.

He was just a little bit busy saving the world, remember.

Otherwise, the Lord Ruler died because he just randomly decided to regulate his age in an infinitely more difficult and less effective manner, for 1000 years.

I agree with a bit of your post, but this part I question - TLR probably wanted to look like a god, not like an old man. Even if he could keep himself alive with gold compounding, he might have looked ancient, and he preferred to look eternally youthful (my atium theory changes the comparison a little, but the concept still applies as to why he might alter his age rather than his health).

I believe it says specifically in the book that Miles continued to age naturally.

I would assume that Miles would live a very long time (in the 100 - 200 range, not the 1000+ range), but eventually his body would start to shut down, and there'll be nothing he can do about it. (for example, if his body shut down red blood cell production due to a hormonal command, it couldn't be "healed", because the body wouldn't see it as a problem, just a natural result of age, but it would kill him just the same.

This is mostly conjecture, though.

If feruchemy is storing something that can be recovered later in time - essentially transporting it forward in time - wouldn't what your body healed to be what it had previously perceived as healthy? And since Miles is essentially recycling health stored early on (by burning previous stores, he never needs to store "new" health; his "old" health just keeps expanding), his healing should always move him toward a young level of health. The only problem will be when his natural state of health is too much for his stored health to overcome (or when he can't get gold). I doubt his body can stop him by deciding to turn off red blood cell production; our bodies aren't made to regrow eyes, but Miles did so in a few seconds.