Could An Organic or Cyborg Life Form In Theory Use Electrical Power As A Secondary Form Of Energy?

[Spacescifi]

Would physics even allow for an organic or cyborg (part organic) life form that eats food to rely on electricity as an alternative energy source when there is no food available?

They would still need to drink water, but if electrically charged they could go without food for a week without feeling hungry or tired from lack of food.

Though in practice this is really bad because if done too long (weeks) the organs would atrophy from lack of being used.

In practice they would begin to lose weight, but would paradoxically still have normal energy levels as a person fully fed so long they are charged.

 

Thoughts?

 

Edited May 31 by Spacescifi

[darthgently]

Organic life already runs on electrical power.  All chemistry is electrical at base involving the exchange of and bonding via electrons

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

 

Organic life needs something to oxidize with the oxygen.

[GluttonyReaper]

The obvious problem here is how you convert your electrical energy into something an organic body can use - I definitely don't have the biological knowledge to speculate as to what exactly is needed for full functioning, but ATP seems to be a major part of how the body releases energy. The only reference I could find to electric-to-ATP conversion was here:

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-scientists-artificial-metabolic-pathway-electricity.html#

...but that's extremely new stuff, and I think still requires organics to break down (so you still need some kind of artificial photosynthesis). If you could do that though, you might be able to avoid some atrophy, as then you're effectively "feeding" the muscles and such.

Unfortunately there's just so many processing going on in the human body which don't have an "off" switch - even if you are artificially thermoregulating, I don't think your body will just stop respiring, and you still need to breathe and keep your heart pumping. Equilibrium processes are kinda a pain like that. As a side note, you'd also have to suppress your hunger artificially no matter what: the feeling is hunger is based on whether or not you have solids in your digestive tract, rather than what your blood sugar level is.

[DDE]

10 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Though in practice this is really bad because if done too long (weeks) the organs would atrophy from lack of being used.

In practice they would begin to lose weight, but would paradoxically still have normal energy levels as a person fully fed so long they are charged.

Normal biology neatly combines the delivery of energy, replenishment materials, chemical command signals, immune cells - I'm probably missing a few things - into a single overall process, a main bus of sorts. Delivering energy via electricity would require a whole separate mechanism, that's why everyone here is rushing to turn electricity back into chemical fuel instead.

Evolving such a system would be seemingly impossible, as it would be useful in a low-food, high-energy gradient environment, and such environments should get overgrown by life (potential nutrients) in short order... but natural evolution isn't a necessary part of your hypothetical.

[AckSed]

Before I say anything, read this: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/celss.php#id--Synthetic_Food

In theory, it might be possible to feed yourself off electrical synthesis with a cybernetic implant. It depends on how fancy you want to get.

If you just want an implant that, given electricity and the waste products of the body, will make glucose and drip-feed it into the bloodstream it's... theoretically possible? Glucose is six atoms of carbon, six atoms of oxygen and twelve of hydrogen. Or to put it another way, six molecules of H2O and six of CO2, with three molecules of O2 left over. Here's a page that ponders NASA synthesising basic nutrients from exactly those molecules (and growing meat): https://www.kolabtree.com/blog/innovations-synthetic-foods/

Regardless, it would have to be absurdly small and efficient if you wanted it implanted. The chemical pathway from raw carbon dioxide and water to glucose is involved and uses up a lot of energy. It'd also need a secondary function capable of capturing the carbon dioxide and water either in the blood or before it is breathed out by the lungs. That is a very small amount - something like 32 milligrams of CO2 per breath.

If we want to introduce a bit of biology, say a hydrogen-eating bacterium, that might be slightly more viable. Solar Foods is doing this, and it currently has a test-plant running. You will also need a store of trace minerals, which has the amusing image of eating powdered rocks that 'smell right' to a chemical-analysis implant in the nose. You also don't want the bacteria to get into your blood.

You still need power. Lots of power. We aren't talking kilowatts here, but it's not far off. That produces heat and your prospective cyborg will overheat.

Edited May 31 by AckSed

[Hannu2]

12 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Organic life needs something to oxidize with the oxygen.

Aerobic metabolism is one option to get energy to join phosphate to ADP to return it ATP. ATP then gives energy to biological processes when it break to ADP and phosphate. There is also many anaerobic ways to get that energy  but aerobic oxidation is by far the most effective known way and makes actively moving lifeforms possible.

If that referenced study is true there seems to be a way to run that reaction cycle with electricity. Of course there is no known biological mechanism to do that and it is impossible to say can there be a working cell. Even then lifeform would need material (and special chemicals like vitamins) to grow and reproduce damaged things but eating for just energy would not be needed and food consumption of adult (or otherwise non growing or reproducing) individuals would be very small compared to humans.

 

[Spacescifi]

26 minutes ago, Hannu2 said:

Aerobic metabolism is one option to get energy to join phosphate to ADP to return it ATP. ATP then gives energy to biological processes when it break to ADP and phosphate. There is also many anaerobic ways to get that energy  but aerobic oxidation is by far the most effective known way and makes actively moving lifeforms possible.

If that referenced study is true there seems to be a way to run that reaction cycle with electricity. Of course there is no known biological mechanism to do that and it is impossible to say can there be a working cell. Even then lifeform would need material (and special chemicals like vitamins) to grow and reproduce damaged things but eating for just energy would not be needed and food consumption of adult (or otherwise non growing or reproducing) individuals would be very small compared to humans.

 

 

Cool. So for healing damage (which happens far more than we would like to think), reproduction, or growing up to adulthood, such a being would need food. But if stranded out in the desert they could go farther without tiring out. But without water they would die like any normal person. The good news is their energy level would be good, so they would have more energy to spare to look for water and food.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Hannu2 said:

Aerobic metabolism is one option to get energy to join phosphate to ADP to return it ATP. ATP then gives energy to biological processes when it break to ADP and phosphate. There is also many anaerobic ways to get that energy  but aerobic oxidation is by far the most effective known way and makes actively moving lifeforms possible.

Yes, but I mean that the organism needs not just energy, but incoming chemical compounds as well, even to deliver the energy to the cells.

[lajoswinkler]

The problem is - how exactly would it charge? Charging is electrolysis, which means there is a large, macroscopic, monolithic anode and a cathode and an electrolyte.

We charge ourselves by stuffing our meatbags with matter full of compounds that are willing to give off electrons, and oxygen which will accept those electrons. Energy comes to us coupled with molecules ready to react. Those reactions go over enzymes which transfer energy into synthesis of ATP by ion flow and molecular configuration changes.

Even if we could somehow deliver energy by electrons alone, we continuously shed matter. We have to, that's also what powers us. Small decrease of system entropy exchanged for massive increase in environmental entropy.

[Hannu2]

23 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

 But if stranded out in the desert they could go farther without tiring out. But without water they would die like any normal person. The good news is their energy level would be good, so they would have more energy to spare to look for water and food.

There is another problem. The energy density of lithium batteries is about 1 MJ/kg. Energy density of carbohydrates is about 16 MJ/kg and fats over 30 MJ/kg. It would be much easier to bring food on desert than electricity. It is difficult to invent credible explanation why any natural lifeform on any planet conditions would develop such an ability. But maybe electric metabolism would fit to some superadvanced civilization who lives mainly in space stations and have practically unlimited energy supply but want to save material resources of their solar system for example for Dyson sphere.

[darthgently]

My thought when reading the OP was that more people should read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.   Electricity ftw!  Sad story though, but excellent early sci-fi

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

superadvanced civilization who lives mainly in space stations and have practically unlimited energy supply

With practically zero heat sink, making its power supply capability negligible.

Here on the Earth we have ocean to cool.

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

My thought when reading the OP was that more people should read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.   Electricity ftw!  Sad story though, but excellent early sci-fi

+100

Spoiler

 

 

[AckSed]

No-one said our cyborg's power source had to be internal. Perhaps they're plugging into wall current, or lugging a jury-rigged micro-fusion reactor on their back as they trek halfway across the planet to safety.

[darthgently]

4 hours ago, AckSed said:

No-one said our cyborg's power source had to be internal. Perhaps they're plugging into wall current, or lugging a jury-rigged micro-fusion reactor on their back as they trek halfway across the planet to safety.

If the planet is carpeted they could just shuffle along powered by static electricity

Edited June 2 by darthgently

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, AckSed said:

No-one said our cyborg's power source had to be internal. Perhaps they're plugging into wall current, or lugging a jury-rigged micro-fusion reactor on their back as they trek halfway across the planet to safety.

This wouldn't help.

Spoiler

Remember how it ended.

 

[K^2]

On 5/31/2024 at 3:07 AM, GluttonyReaper said:

The obvious problem here is how you convert your electrical energy into something an organic body can use

Such an obvious problem, in fact, that it's the exact problem that we have specialized proteins for - ATP Synthase. Pathways to creating a proton gradient given an electric potential are many and obvious.

On 5/30/2024 at 6:43 PM, Spacescifi said:

cyborg (part organic)

Just FYI, that's not what the word cyborg means, or humans with their skeletons would be cyborgs by the default. Cybernetics is the study of feedback loops, and cybernetic organism, or cyborg for short, is an organism that has a cybernetic integration with something that isn't an organism or part of one.

Since you're talking about life forms evolved with the inorganic parts, these parts are integral to the organism, and so these are not cyborgs by definition. A cyborg is created from a normal organism, not born as a cyborg, if that makes it a little bit more clear.

 

In contrast, it does mean that a person wearing glasses is, technically, a cyborg, as glasses are involved in sensory feedback loop. But people don't usually use the term quite so liberally, of course.

[DDE]

5 hours ago, K^2 said:

Cybernetics is the study of feedback loops, and cybernetic organism, or cyborg for short, is an organism that has a cybernetic integration with something that isn't an organism or part of one.

Huh. All of the garden-variety descriptions I'd encountered were a complete mess that made people with glasses and tooth fillings cyborgs, but could never properly explain why a Terminator was insistently called a cyborg when it seemed to be some sort of an inversion.

[kerbiloid]

Probably, first the term "organism" should be defined more accurately.

As the glasses aren't directly included into the natural cybernetic system functioning, they don't make the glass-bearers cyborgs, they are augorgs or mechaugorgs (mechanically augmented organisms).

While Termy is not a cyborg for the same reason. Its cybernetic system doesn't depend on the organic component.
Like a grass on a helmet.
So, it is not a cyborg as well. It's a pure robot, or an augmech or an orgaugmech (organically augmented mechanism).

Neuralink is what makes a cyborg. When both components interact at the cybernetic system.

The Robot 790 is a human brain inside the artificial head, augmented with cybernetic devices, easily interacting with people and computers. It's a true cyborg.

Spoiler

And Neuralink is how it begins...

Edited June 5 by kerbiloid

[darthgently]

On 5/30/2024 at 9:43 PM, Spacescifi said:

Would physics even allow for an organic or cyborg (part organic) life form that eats food to rely on electricity as an alternative energy source when there is no food available?

They would still need to drink water, but if electrically charged they could go without food for a week without feeling hungry or tired from lack of food.

Though in practice this is really bad because if done too long (weeks) the organs would atrophy from lack of being used.

In practice they would begin to lose weight, but would paradoxically still have normal energy levels as a person fully fed so long they are charged.

 

Thoughts?

Enjoy ...

 

 

[K^2]

21 hours ago, DDE said:

could never properly explain why a Terminator was insistently called a cyborg when it seemed to be some sort of an inversion.

I don't think terminator's a cyborg. People just got used to calling anything human-looking with robotic parts sticking out (as in scenes where terminator has taken damage) cyborgs by that point.

Technically, depending on how you classify the fleshy bits, terminator could be a cyborg. The skin, presumably, has the sensory capacity which the robot riding inside it can use, making it an instance of cybernetic connection, and nothing in the cyborg definition dictates which side does the driving. It could be argued that with the Borg, the robotic parts do the driving as well, and they're clearly cyborgs.

But this only makes sense if we treat the flesh as an organism, which is a bit of a stretch. If it's synthetically grown flesh, it's organic, but it's not a self-sustained organism. Unless they literally clone the whole human, then gut the body and the robot wears it as a suit... Which my Terminator knowledge isn't sufficient to dispute, but I don't think that's what they've been implying in the movie.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I have wondered this very thing a few times before. I completely agree with the logic of the argument.

Personally, I think preexisting organics must be a component in the new whole. I know that arguments can be made for bio-tech / nano-engineering to blur that distinction.. but always feel a partial meat brain should be required. 

 

Was reading about advances in wetware and wanted to share the link.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-brain-inspired-chip-can-run-ai-with-far-less-energy-20221110/

Edited June 5 by Fizzlebop Smith

[kerbiloid]

10 hours ago, K^2 said:

The skin, presumably, has the sensory capacity which the robot riding inside it can use

It was chasing Sarah as a skeleton, thus probably doesn't need the flesh sensors.

Maybe it feels pressure against its "bones", regardless of direct pressing or with some object (like the flesh) inside. Like a glove doesn't feel something.

Also, iirc its damaged flesh was decaying and smelly, thus can't regenerate. As a glove, as well.

***

Btw, as the bare-skinned humans with week nails and small teeth can't survive without using external objects (skins, grass, sticks, stones), we can state that our mechanically augmented ancestors have successfully eradicated the  non-augmented underhumans long ago.

Hail augorgs! Down with the non-augmented post-monkeys!

Edited June 6 by kerbiloid

[Nuke]

a dalek is a battlemech for a mutant. but it is more like an  integrated biological-mechanical system. the squid is useless without the suit and vise versa.  the dalek "suit" is known to also be used for behavior modification of the squid, to keep its values in line with the extermination party. though i have a theory that every now and again you get a dalek who actually has a cat inside instead of a squid. its still just as hateful and murderous, but sometimes it knocks things off the table.

actually this thread kind of reminds me of scorn in a way. whatever genetic modifications humans have committed themsleves to, its clear that they are incapable of ingesting food in the normal way (despite going through much of the game with your bowels hanging out) and have to recharge by plugging little sacks into your whatever. its kind of confusing as your protagonist is a mash up of a mutant human who is infested with a mutated mutant human parasite with some technical implants. im not sure whats ingesting what but im pretty sure the sacks of goo are full of atp.

Edited June 7 by Nuke