>> For macro scale manufacturing, the current processes will remain in use.
Maybe. Every large scale creature uses nanoscale manufacturing techniques. Whilst the natural versions of those technique are undoubtably slower than, say, casting them in bronze, with a bit of intelligent development, we can probably learn to speed that up quite considerably, and make it work on a more suitable timescale
>> The organism does not use the temperature, which is a side effect of the cavitation bubble.
>> It's in a very small area, so the actual energy content is tiny.
The fact that it has acheived a startling high energy density with almost no energy doesn't earn it even a small salute? We need a whole plasma reactor or similar to get the effect
>> Biomecanical tricks can only take you so far. For spaceflight, or anything approaching it, you need an engineer's solution. How do you propose to make some sort of space vessel using these biomechanical tricks
Making a space vessel isn't that hard in theory. It needs to withstand whatever internal pressure you choose, withstand very low external temperatures, and either have an internal source of heat, or just cheat and hibernate the whole way. We have to build a (quite expensive) cryotube to do a job organic systems worked out millions of years ago. Getting into space is a different matter, 7 miles/s is currently beyond organic tech, but it's been beyond metaltech for most of history too. I wouldn't bet against it being possible to put a purely or mostly organic object in orbit
>> And another is? Waving your hands about "biomechanical tricks"? I'm getting annoyed with this disdain for engineering. If you have a better idea, tell us
Engineering is generally a quite linear method. Cause >> effect, and only that effect. Biology doesn't work like that. When the structure of DNA was worked out, everyone got excited becuase we'd soon be able to "read the book" on humans, and understand everything. Only it doesn't work that way. Genes are not single function. They can do multiple jobs in a single organism. They can do different jobs in different organisms. We share 60% of our genes with fruit flies apparently
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/647139.stm, but we have an endoskeleton, no wings, spherical lensed eyes, lungs. Very different, but built using a lot of the same instructions.
There's nothing wrong with engineering, but it's not the only possible approach
>> That said, I believe the original intent (technology that is alive) was clear when the statement was made from the context.
"Alive" is a tricky concept, as I said. In the last 3,000 years or so, the finest scientific and philosophical minds humanity has produced have failed to come up with a truly satisfactory definition. The problem is coming up with a definition that includes viruses and prions but excludes fire, for example. Being organic is a pre-requisite for all life we are aware of, but not all organic material is alive
>> And the point is? We do maintain horses, for any number of reasons.
You were representing shoeing and deworming as necessary for horses to be useful, which isn't the case. Doing those things makes them more useful to us, but they are not the basis of the horses utility, as you implied. Nor is domestication even an absolute requirement for utility. You can catch and kill a wild horse, and it's useful as food exactly as it is. You could never say the same for any ICE, however advanced
>> Because "never breaks down" is a legitimate design criteria
It's also an impossible one, as I'm sure you are aware. Entropy always wins, however long you stave it off. Organic systems do evolve, but only part of the population evolves. We can still find examples of what may be the earliest forms of life on Earth, right alongside more recently evolved examples, and they have survived for 4 billion years, largely unchanged today because they found a neat biomechanic trick for beating entropy : reproduction
>> To clarify: organotech refers to sci-fi type "living technology"
You're creating a false distinction. If it uses carbon as a necessary component, it's organic tech, by definition. It may also be alive, or not, but you have to be careful defining life. Consider a pencil. It has a wooden shell (organic, essentially sugar) and a graphite core (almost pure carbon, and hence organic). A pencil is clearly not alive. But if you put it into a bacterial digester which can break it down, and use those organic components to make new bacteria, you haven't changed the individual atoms, just rearranged them into a configuration we are pleased to label "life". If you extracted a carbon atom at random from the output, it would be impossible to say whether it came from the pencil or not. Life is not all that special, in that sense
>> Carbon fiber does not count
You are of course entitled to your opinion. The rest of science will hold its' own counsel
>> Yes, but if it takes your living ship twice as long to heal as it takes for my ship to repair at the yard, who wins?
Dependent on context. If I can heal in place, or in any random location I like, that's quite flexible. Going back to a yard introduces a locational constraint on your repair capabilities. If I destroy your yard, or even just deny you access to it, you have no options at all. Who wins then?
>> Because bacteria are remotely suited for structural use how?
An individual bacteria, not so much. But the trait could potentially be transferred to a more structurally useful organism. This is one of the fundamental strengths of organic tech, flexibility
>> Also, the self-repair mechanism must be close to the hull, and thus vulnerable to radiation.
That's an interesting use of the word "must" given that no organic self repair system we know of works that way. I've also already demonstrated that organic systems have the capacity (although it's not necessarily present in a given system) to be more resistant to radiation than any conceivable metaltech equivalent
>> Wikipedia gives the growth rate for coral reefs as at most 9.8 inches per year. That's not very good for closing a hole, is it? To be useful, it's likely to take at least two if not three orders of magnitude improvement on that number.
And certain species of bamboo grow a metre in 24 hours. Oh look, an improvement on your cherry picked number of two if not three orders of magnitude
