Moderator: Alyrium Denryle
Ah, ok, right-o!Admiral Valdemar wrote: I was merely referring to the biological aspects of the technology, it is not meant to be a technology vs. natural evolution debate because obviously we can't reproduce the eye now nor can nature make hippoes with wheels and not legs.
I just don't like people saying Nature is obviously inferior for not achieving goals that it never set out to accomplish, that's all.
And I just don't like people assuming that it must be capable of achieving any goal which hardware can achieve. It is a grotesque leap in logic to say that because biosystems can perform well in certain environments, they must be able to perform well in all environments.I just don't like people saying Nature is obviously inferior for not achieving goals that it never set out to accomplish, that's all.
So your idea of an organic ship is actually just a normal ship where all the structural parts, power, and weapons systems are inorganic, and the only organic part is where they grow all the spare parts for the ship? In a way that would be kinda like Voyager where the majority of the ship is inorganic with some specialized organic systems here and there. It's a bit of a stretch to call that an organic ship don't you think?Nova Andromeda wrote:-GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK HEAD YOU MORON!!! A BIO. SHIP ISN'T GOING TO USE ORGANIC POWER SYSTEMS, ARMOR, BULK HEADS, ETC WHERE OTHER MATERIALS ARE NEEDED!!!! One would use metal alloys, ceramics, carbon composits, plastics, etc. just like we would today. The difference is that the bio. ship would be designed to grow as much as possible directly. If it can't be grown directly then the bio. ship would grow specific workers and/or carbon based tools to build it. If that means growing workers and tools to build a machine shop to build a new armor plate so be it. If you can't figure out why this type of fexability is useful far from base on long voyages too bad for you.
An inorganic ship would use ZERO energy when stored. With any half decent design it could have all power systems shut down and be parked in orbit or wherever for as long as you want. Think about it, does your lawnmower use any power while it's stored in the shed over the winter?-You were talking about STORAGE! If a bio. ship is just going to sit around it would only need a very small amount of power to maintain itself!!! The amount of sun light found on Earth would probably be enough.
Which is precisely zero, when it comes to useful components on a spaceship. Congratulations.Nova Andromeda wrote:-GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK HEAD YOU MORON!!! A BIO. SHIP ISN'T GOING TO USE ORGANIC POWER SYSTEMS, ARMOR, BULK HEADS, ETC WHERE OTHER MATERIALS ARE NEEDED!!!! One would use metal alloys, ceramics, carbon composits, plastics, etc. just like we would today. The difference is that the bio. ship would be designed to grow as much as possible directly.
Pointless extra steps required to achieve the same outcome as conventional methods but with far greater complexity, time, and resource requirements. This has been pointed out before, and you consistently ignore the point.If it can't be grown directly then the bio. ship would grow specific workers and/or carbon based tools to build it. If that means growing workers and tools to build a machine shop to build a new armor plate so be it.
If you can't figure out why this flexibility does not exist, too bad for you. Arguing for biotech flexibility as an intrinsic advantage requires that you first justify your claims of said flexibility.If you can't figure out why this type of fexability is useful far from base on long voyages too bad for you.
--Of course there is a fundamental difference between how a human brain works and how a computer works. However, neural networks are actually quite powerful and can perform certain functions just as well as a computer and others better than a computer. A computer basically does exactly what you program it to do. If you know all the equations and all the variables then a computer is the way to go for complex problems. For simple problems both a computer and a neural net are fine. If all the variables or the equations are not known a neural net is the way to go. This is because a neural network adapts its output to produce results matching whatever goal you have set for it. You don't have to have all the variables or the equations to solve a problem you just have to train the neural net. Your arguement that brains are worthless because they don't do effecient raw computations like a computer is one big fat false dilema. The question was whether a brain could do the job of a microchip in a bio. ship (since brain growth is more cost effective). For many simple tasks the answer is yes. For complex math problems for which the variables and equations are known the answer is no.Darth Wong wrote:And I just don't like people assuming that it must be capable of achieving any goal which hardware can achieve. It is a grotesque leap in logic to say that because biosystems can perform well in certain environments, they must be able to perform well in all environments.I just don't like people saying Nature is obviously inferior for not achieving goals that it never set out to accomplish, that's all.
PS. Regarding the brain thing, give it up. A handheld computer has more processing power than your brain. It does not learn the way a human brain does because it's a computational device rather than a neural network, but like it or not, its ability to perform computations far outstrips that of the human brain. If somebody wishes to prove me wrong, don't pull bullshit like pretending a neural firing is a computation or arbitrarily assuming it takes only 100 neural signals to perform a floating-point computation. Instead, prove me wrong by demonstrating your ability to out-compute a hand-held pocket PC. Please, by all means, multply 1 million pairs of floating point numbers together and then add the products up to get a sum total, all in one second with no errors.
--On what type of spaceship exactly since any interstellar spaceship is by definition speculative or imaginary currently? What if it is very long voyage away from base, reducing the mass of the ship is criticle (thanks to propulsion problems), and it has to be entirely self sufficient?AdmiralKanos wrote:Which is precisely zero, when it comes to useful components on a spaceship. Congratulations.
--Haven't I already addressed this question multiple times? At any rate, what if you can't put all of the required conventional systems on the interstellar ship (due to problems with weight limits)? How many systems does one need to make a ship entirely self sufficient anyhow?AdmiralKanos wrote:Pointless extra steps required to achieve the same outcome as conventional methods but with far greater complexity, time, and resource requirements. This has been pointed out before, and you consistently ignore the point.
--Why can't you grow humans or bio robots optimized to build the stuff you need to replace on your ship when the need arises instead of maintaining all of them for an entire voyage? What if I couldn't justify this based on current science and tech.? Should I simply forgo speculting about it with others during discussions already speculating about nonexistant things like interstellar travel? Would an attitude of not discussing anything you couldn't prove be conductive to advancing science and tech.?AdmiralKanos wrote:If you can't figure out why this flexibility does not exist, too bad for you. Arguing for biotech flexibility as an intrinsic advantage requires that you first justify your claims of said flexibility.
Show me a computer that works after being sliced in half.Show me a living organism that doesn't get tired or sick, and that doesn't have mood swings or gets infected by viruses or other pathogens. Did I mention cancer and other genetic mutations and defects that can cripple living organism?
And therefore the space suttle, apollo missions and ISS is unmanned.Which is precisely zero, when it comes to useful components on a spaceship. Congratulations.
And if my palm can tell a rubble ball from a apple, you'd have an argument.Regarding the brain thing, give it up. A handheld computer has more processing power than your brain.
And we shouldn't assme that we can build a starship any bigger than apollo. Just because we can built apollo doesn't mean we can build mars direct or anything else right?And I just don't like people assuming that it must be capable of achieving any goal which hardware can achieve. It is a grotesque leap in logic to say that because biosystems can perform well in certain environments, they must be able to perform well in all environments.
An organic can go on stasis as well.An inorganic ship would use ZERO energy when stored. With any half decent design it could have all power systems shut down and be parked in orbit or wherever for as long as you want.
Build me a machine the size of a human capable of inguesting millions of different chemicals to maintain itself and while capable of reasonable amounts of processing and physical power while not always suffering catatastropic failure when suffering server physical damage and is capable of self-regeneration and self-reproduction.If you can't figure out why this flexibility does not exist, too bad for you. Arguing for biotech flexibility as an intrinsic advantage requires that you first justify your claims of said flexibility.
And the way a computer works happens to be useful for a starship component. You don't need wetware in a starship because THE CREW ALREADY PERFORMS THAT FUNCTION.Nova Andromeda wrote:--Of course there is a fundamental difference between how a human brain works and how a computer works <snip stuff we've all heard before>
Actually, I was about to say that the whole problem is that you assume any disagreement is invariably people misunderstanding your flawless arguments.P.S. -- You know the whole problem is that you turn every discussion into a fight. I'm affraid I'm going to have to disarm you by phrasing my ideas in the form of questions and refining those questions until you understand what I'm getting at.
Justify your assumption that your bio-manufacturing process would reduce starship mass and supply requirements. Stop using circular logic (proving that biotech has an advantage by assuming that advantage as a premise).--On what type of spaceship exactly since any interstellar spaceship is by definition speculative or imaginary currently? What if it is very long voyage away from base, reducing the mass of the ship is criticle (thanks to propulsion problems), and it has to be entirely self sufficient?
Precisely one less than one needs to make a ship self-sufficient with biotech. Your assumption that any critical shipboard system can be replaced or eliminated thanks to biotech has never been justified in any way, shape, or form.--Haven't I already addressed this question multiple times? At any rate, what if you can't put all of the required conventional systems on the interstellar ship (due to problems with weight limits)? How many systems does one need to make a ship entirely self sufficient anyhow?
Anything smart enough to do the job is sentient, and cannot be grown and then disposed of casually. Moreover, the hard equipment necessary for them to do their jobs must still be installed aboardship, so you have not eliminated anything. All you've done is make a vat-grown crew for your completely non-organic spaceship.--Why can't you grow humans or bio robots optimized to build the stuff you need to replace on your ship when the need arises instead of maintaining all of them for an entire voyage?
Don't pull that smart-ass bullshit with me, you little shit. You know perfectly well that the crew of a starship is not what I'm referring to when I say "component".SWPIGWANG wrote:And therefore the space suttle, apollo missions and ISS is unmanned.Which is precisely zero, when it comes to useful components on a spaceship. Congratulations.
thank you
Irrelevant, since it DOES solve the problems required of a starship computer. We don't give a shit if a starship computer can appreciate art.Different artitecture, different ability at solving different problems. The comparision is invalid to being with. A quantum computer isn't going to solve 1+1=2 faster than a traditional one, but that doesn't mean it is useless.
No need, since billions of these machines are already available, and they would act as the crew of the TOTALLY INORGANIC SPACESHIP. Stop trying to change the fucking subject from "are bioships viable" to "is a human crew useful on a spaceship".Build me a machine the size of a human capable of inguesting millions of different chemicals to maintain itself and while capable of reasonable amounts of processing and physical power while not always suffering catatastropic failure when suffering server physical damage and is capable of self-regeneration and self-reproduction.
I see that there are already eight pages worth of reply to this. Won't stop me from contributing my two cents:Shinova wrote:Shadow battlecrabs, Species 8472, Vorlons...all of these are biological ships.
Question is, are biological spacecraft feasible?
Show me a complex life-form, such as . . . say, a blue whale, work after being sliced in half.SWPIGWANG wrote:Show me a computer that works after being sliced in half.Show me a living organism that doesn't get tired or sick, and that doesn't have mood swings or gets infected by viruses or other pathogens. Did I mention cancer and other genetic mutations and defects that can cripple living organism?
It's not going to entirely cease activity. It's just going to slow it's metabolism to really, really slow levels. And you have to keep it somewhere sheltered, as it can't repair itself while it's hibernating.SWPIGWANG wrote:An organic can go on stasis as well.An inorganic ship would use ZERO energy when stored. With any half decent design it could have all power systems shut down and be parked in orbit or wherever for as long as you want.
I think it's the same reason you don't see lasers much as a sci-fi weapon: lasers have become a mature "science fact" technology, and their capabilities and limitations are very well known. The properties of things like biotech and nanotech are still relative unknowns, so writers have more room for the "no limits" fallacy to work its magic. Flash back 20 years in the movies, and it was computers or lasers getting this treatment.XPViking wrote:Why is it people think that bioships are somehow superior to non-organic ships? Do they think the non-living robots will replace humanity? Oh no! We have to prove that bio ships are better! We are threatened!
XPViking
Leaving moral systems aside, doesn't it seem incredibly inefficient to you to grow a crewmember to deal with a certain task and then kill off that being once the job is done? Isn't it easier to crew an ship with available crewmembers and pack along some food? Besides, what if the newly-grown crew member turns out to be retarded or something? Then your really SOL.Isn't your entire moral system invalid if the desires of the crew vastly differ from human desires? Aren't our hardwired goals evolved to generate certain behavior necessary for humans? Why should the crew be unecessarily burdened with goals that don't match their job? What if the crew's hardwired goals are designed to match their jobs? For instance, what if they desire to death once their job is done and the entire process of that death is pleasurable for them? - Nova
Morality should not be a factor in this discussion.Anything smart enough to do the job is sentient, and cannot be grown and then disposed of casually.
I'm not claiming that bio-manufacturing would automatically reduce mass and supply, but nano-manufacturing might and bio-manufacturing is a sub-set of it. The reason being is that nano-fabication with an outside information source theoritally have near infinite flexibility with the low mass. The attainability of the ideal can be put in doubt, but a machine shop isn't going to make a part that is smaller its accuracy, and to have atomic levels of accuracy with low mass nano, and perhaps biological, systems are ideally superior than tradtional methods.Justify your assumption that your bio-manufacturing process would reduce starship mass and supply requirements. Stop using circular logic (proving that biotech has an advantage by assuming that advantage as a premise).
The question is can we make a bio-system that is more suited to spaceships than crews.No need, since billions of these machines are already available, and they would act as the crew of the TOTALLY INORGANIC SPACESHIP. Stop trying to change the fucking subject from "are bioships viable" to "is a human crew useful on a spaceship".
We do need neuro-net based systems to solve problems, like whether that planet has life, there raw processing power might not be sufficient in itself. Of course you can also used the same no-limits extention and claim that your 1googlo-herz computer can be programmed to do so, but the question is where biological systems would do it better as in faster and with less mass and energy consumption, is still unanswered since the limits of either is unknown and nature-produced neuro-nets can do this far better than any traditional computer today.Irrelevant, since it DOES solve the problems required of a starship computer. We don't give a shit if a starship computer can appreciate art.
I think the possibilities are (near) limitless, but the engineering problem is going to give engineers a headache bigger than the death star.Unless someone can find some other atom with the connectivity of the humble carbon atom, carbon-based life is what your ship is going to be based on.
Batterys leak when not in use, and fuels degrade (at abit minisure rates) so there. Consider that sealed wine can keep some organisms alive for centuries but feeding on itself. Also, a computer can't self repair when it is shut down can it?It's not going to entirely cease activity. It's just going to slow it's metabolism to really, really slow levels. And you have to keep it somewhere sheltered, as it can't repair itself while it's hibernating.
I don't want to live on the solar sail for twenty centuries waiting to get to the next star while waiting for that a failure that have only 5% possibility of happening for the whole trip.Leaving moral systems aside, doesn't it seem incredibly inefficient to you to grow a crewmember to deal with a certain task and then kill off that being once the job is done? Isn't it easier to crew an ship with available crewmembers and pack along some food?
So you want to terraform a planet. Do you send 1. some tailor made resistant bacteria to create greenhouse gas for warm as well as oxygen. 2. Hyundai Heavy Industries monster terra forming plant at 1 million tons.Sorry, but in order to build the ship, you are still going to have to provide it with a wide array of organic nutrients in a temperature-controlled environment. Even if you have some practical way of providing a womb for it to grow in, you still need the time and materials for it to grow. Let's assume that you can grow a 500 meter long bioship in say, 9 months (an astounding rate of growth, considering that growing a 2 meter tall human takes 18 years to grow). At the same tech level, Hyundai Heavy Industries (or its equivalent) hands you a fully functioning equivalent inorganic ship in a week, and that's if their worker droids are lazy.
Actually, the energy required for any newtonian vessal to move at any significant speed is so huge that differences in efficiency can be discarded.While an inorganic starship requires this as well, it isn't on top of the amount of material you need to keep the bio-systems alive. Efficiency goes to the inorganic vessel.
I'd agree that could displace organics if a sufficiently small and flexible system could be build, but we don't know if it is possible.Oh yes, the ship will have a PDA and material synthesizer on board to produce any raw materials the drones may need to replace parts of the ship that were blown off.
I really don't know. Always possible for a system to screw up in twenty centuries. How do you arrive at this magical 5%? Like I say, sounds like good material for a fanfic. Go Tinman!I don't want to live on the solar sail for twenty centuries waiting to get to the next star while waiting for that a failure that have only 5% possibility of happening for the whole trip.
Growth is cheap compare to maintaince in this case. - SWPIGWANG
Do you use a tweezer to build your car? No. Things are best at working at their native scale, and nanotech is going to be just as bad at working on the large scale as a big honking factory robot is going to be ad building microchips. There is proof of this in real life - while one the microscopic scale, most reactions are fairly well organized (as chemical reactions go), on the macroscopic scale, we see that bio-manufacturing can't even make two arms within a quater-inch of each other's length. Unlesss your ship is about the size of a walnut, conventional manufacturing techniques will always be better than bio- or nano-manufacturing methods.Spiggy wrote:I'm not claiming that bio-manufacturing would automatically reduce mass and supply, but nano-manufacturing might and bio-manufacturing is a sub-set of it. The reason being is that nano-fabication with an outside information source theoritally have near infinite flexibility with the low mass. The attainability of the ideal can be put in doubt, but a machine shop isn't going to make a part that is smaller its accuracy, and to have atomic levels of accuracy with low mass nano, and perhaps biological, systems are ideally superior than tradtional methods.
Yes, Neural-net based algorithims can solve some problems faster than conventional archetecture. HOWEVER, most problems, in particular any problem that involves getting an exact solution (i.e., most problems taht a starship computer would actually be tasked to solve) are solved far faster and more efficiently by your pocket calculator than by your brain. Also, read my post again, or better yet, go to your local bookstore and pick up The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. As you can plainly see, biological systems are already being surpassed by artificial systems in just about every area. Why would you want to limit yourself to organic computing?Spiggy wrote:We do need neuro-net based systems to solve problems, like whether that planet has life, there raw processing power might not be sufficient in itself. Of course you can also used the same no-limits extention and claim that your 1googlo-herz computer can be programmed to do so, but the question is where biological systems would do it better as in faster and with less mass and energy consumption, is still unanswered since the limits of either is unknown and nature-produced neuro-nets can do this far better than any traditional computer today.
I smell a brainbug.Spiggy wrote:I think the possibilities are (near) limitless, but the engineering problem is going to give engineers a headache bigger than the death star.
And a bio-organism can't self-repair when it's dead, which is what is going to happen when you expose its internal organs to vaccum.Spiggy wrote:Batterys leak when not in use, and fuels degrade (at abit minisure rates) so there. Consider that sealed wine can keep some organisms alive for centuries but feeding on itself. Also, a computer can't self repair when it is shut down can it?
Irrelevant. The question is: are biological systems better for performing the functions on a starship, not are they better at terraforming. If you want to discuss the best method of terraforming a planet, then you may open a seperate thread at your convenience.Spiggy wrote:So you want to terraform a planet. Do you send 1. some tailor made resistant bacteria to create greenhouse gas for warm as well as oxygen. 2. Hyundai Heavy Industries monster terra forming plant at 1 million tons.
Concession Accepted.Spiggy wrote:I would agree growing a ship is a absurd idea with what we know of biology, but seed mass required to start production in a favorable environment is far less, as you don't need to move a whole industry over.
If we have a favorable environment for life, it might even be cheaper to send bio-ship growing life than a factory. (but that is a strech alright)
Concession Accepted.Spiggy wrote:Actually, the energy required for any newtonian vessal to move at any significant speed is so huge that differences in efficiency can be discarded.
Yet you assume that it is possible to build an organic system that can metabolize inorganic matter in such a way as to make the same useful materials that would be required to grow systems that are in any way comparable to inoragnic ships? You're stretching.Spiggy wrote:I'd agree that could displace organics if a sufficiently small and flexible system could be build, but we don't know if it is possible.
The question you are asking here is similiar to asking whether it is a good idea to build airplanes out of only copper. OF COURSE NOT because copper lack all the necessary properties by default and you are limiting yourself to one material compared to infinite variations of other materials that could be used. But does that mean the copper is useless on airplanes? No, because they can still serve a useful role on an airplane and that is what you are denying. Unlike the thread starters that is wanking off to shadow cutting beams I do not make the claim that biotech is the end all or necessarily superior, but it can serve a useful role even in evironments seeming completely hostile if technological progression of this field can keep up with other developments.Darth Wong wrote:(sigh) this thread is just biotech-wanking followed by rebuttal followed by repetition. Nothing more. The biotech wankers are incapable of recognizing that biotech has inherent limitations which are more severe than those imposed on non-biological technologies, so they propose infinite improvement of biotech and total cessation of improvement of all other fields of technology in the future, so as to permit their technowank fantasies of biotech making sense in an environment which is as hostile to biotech as any conceivable environement could possibly be.
This is not necessarily true, as the examples of bio- and nano-manufacturing examples here had to rely on highly inaccurate information transfer methods. I believe if we argument nano-tech with macroscopic data transfer system, for example laser lithography, the accuracy is going to match all but the most precise modern manufacturing tools.There is proof of this in real life - while one the microscopic scale, most reactions are fairly well organized (as chemical reactions go), on the macroscopic scale, we see that bio-manufacturing can't even make two arms within a quater-inch of each other's length. Unlesss your ship is about the size of a walnut, conventional manufacturing techniques will always be better than bio- or nano-manufacturing methods.
Well, molecular PDA that is capable of making all necessary material on a starship while still small enough to fit on one is just as a stretch as my proposition of biotech.Yet you assume that it is possible to build an organic system that can metabolize inorganic matter in such a way as to make the same useful materials that would be required to grow systems that are in any way comparable to inoragnic ships? You're stretching.
