Coming from the biochem community (I'm not a scientist and was just a tech there + grad school classes), aging in the labs I worked in was seen as more of a mechanism. Sure, it leads to deterioration of cellular function which inevitably leads to death.

However, aging!=dying since aging can protect the whole organism (as opposed to individual cells) from dying and some would argue that it is there primarily to protect the organism from dying from cancer and for healthy reproduction.