I think it would be impractical to build a CAR that is living, but other methods of living transportation may be a VERY effecient form of transportation. Like instead of cars, there could be a network of living transportation tubes that are propelled by very strong smooth-like muscle. There are advantages to have a living transportation network. If we can design all aspects of a living creature including rate of aging and metabolism, then you could have nearly immortal transportation networks that require no maitenance. Humans go through so much wear and tear that a steel android would be destroyed within a month. We heal constantly. So no more need for road work, the network would heal itself.
And it may seem that living organisms consume too much energy to be practical but to make a transportation network that is living wouldn't require very sophisticated mechanism. And there are animals out there whose metabolism are virtually a miracle to us. Just because humans metabolism looks disgustingly ineffecient doesnt mean there arent more effecient systems out there.
It is very possible, however it is pretty far away. We know only a fraction of what there is to know about genetics and how genetics translate into biochemistry dynamics, and just general physics and chemistry as applies to the complicated self-perpetuating phenomena of chemical reactions in living organisms.
It could be that the chemical reactions which form life in all organisms on earth are almost the ONLY way that chemicals can react to each other to create the phenomena of life. Or at least the easiest, but that isn't necessarily true. It may be that it was just an arbitrary series of events that led to this system of chemical reactions, and that a totally different iteration of chemical interactions could have just as easily occured which create the phenomena of life.
So there is a whole lot of room for development in the area of living machines. I think that in the short term metal machines will ownzor anything which could be developed in the area of living machines, but in the long term, living machines will be the next or maybe the next next best technology available.
20 Jun 2005, 1:26 pm
