Biological engineering — "bioneering" for short — is the technology of genetic engineering. While the nucleic acids represent the blueprints for all Earthly organisms, the biochemical specifics may vary from world to world. Still, the general principle of manipulating the executive molecules of life — whatever they are — should be more or less universal.

Xenobiologists today believe that it will soon be possible to: splice, repair, recombine, synthesize, and transplant specific terrestrial genes and chromosomal patterns between individuals and even between species. What humanity will probably achieve in the coming century may already be well-known to countless advanced extraterrestrial bioneers as well.

People have long been astounded by the feats of so-called "human calculating machines." An 18th-century Englishman named Jedediah Buxton reputedly could multiply three 6-digit numbers in his head almost instantly, but his mind was otherwise dull and he remained a day laborer all his life. Zerah Colburn, a rather shy Vermontian born in 1804, attracted even more attention as a child by solving involved mathematical problems.

Taken to London at the age of eight, he gave math professors instantaneous answers to such questions as raising 8 to the 16th power and extracting the cube root of 268,336,125. Another mental marvel, Johann Martin Dase, was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1824. Dase once correctly multiplied together two 100-digit numbers in his head in only nine minutes.

Since there really was nothing unusual about the upbringing of any of these individuals, the simplest explanation is that their abilities were congenital in origin. Through some odd shuffling of the genetic deck, some gene or sequence of genes produced a brain of incredible calculational capability rivaling at least that of early-generation electronic computers. If ETs encouraged the spread of some similar hereditary pattern throughout their own gene pools, their entire population could become a race of arithmetic wizards.

Other aspects of intelligence similarly may be upgraded. One well-known case of fantastic memory was Elijah of Vilna, a Lithuanian rabbi, who during his lifetime read more than two thousand treatises. He could recall any sentence on any page in any book at will, without error, and was unable to forget anything he’d read — an ability the rabbi regarded as a curse.

His memory represented a storage capacity of at least five billion bits of information — again, a capacity comparable to the large magnetic disk memory units used in modern computers.

It is entirely possible that aliens, by judiciously selecting specific constellations of genes, could arrange to give themselves and their offspring total-recall eidetic memories, fast arithmetic ability, and a host of other genius-level mental qualities.

In a series of experiments, Dr. Allen L. Jacobson of the University of California showed that RNA functions as a carrier of memory in the mammalian brain. Jacobson taught rats and hamsters to retreat into a feeding box at the flash of a light or the sound of a click. The conditioned animals were sacrificed and the RNA carefully extracted from their brains.

This material was then injected into untrained animals of the same species, who subsequently proved far easier to train than their predecessors. One unexpected finding was that the transfer of learning worked cross-species: Untrained rats benefited from injections of trained-hamster RNA.

If these results can be confirmed, the implications of such "memory molecules" are staggering. Injected directly into the bloodstream, synthetic viruses consisting of nothing more than a central core of nucleic acid (commonly RNA) surrounded by a sheath of protein could be used to "infect" a brain with knowledge. Remarks one writer:

We would be able to learn French, or algebra, or anything else whose code we knew, by injection. One can imagine education by mass inoculation, or the use of bacteriological warfare techniques for beneficent purposes by spraying entire populations with "good" viruses. The teaching of many subjects would become obsolete).¹⁸⁶⁰

Drs. Alexandre Monnier and Paul Laget, French geneticists, have suggested that these coded forms of knowledge be written directly onto the original genetic specifications. Like the social insects, who carry a plethora of pre-programmed knowledge in their genes, humans of the future or extraterrestrials of other planets might be able to arrange to be "born smart." Each infant could carry the genes to manufacture RNA information equivalent to several university doctoral degrees. Much basic knowledge — the ability to walk, to speak in many tongues, to swim and dive, to pilot a spacecraft, to perform intricate mathematical calculations using established techniques, to play a piano — could be incorporated directly into the nucleus of the fertilized egg so that the organism would possess all these abilities without ever having to learn them.

The evolution of physically larger brains by deliberate breeding and selective gene transplantation is another practical option for ETs seeking intelligence amplification. "Is it very rash," asks Dr. Jean Rostand, "to imagine that it would be possible to increase the number of brain cells?" His answer:

A young [human] embryo has already in the cerebral cortex the nine billion pyramidal cells which will condition its mental activity during the whole of its life. This number, which is reached by geometric progression or simple doubling, after 33 divisions of each cell (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on), could in turn be doubled if we succeeded in causing just one more division — the 34th.²⁶⁴⁵

Many neurologists remain skeptical of such suggestions, claiming that normal birth would be quite impossible with a head so large. According to Dr. H. Chandler Elliot:

The man of the future was depicted by early fantasy writers with a huge head to house a superbrain; but this picture is discarded by modern sophisticated science fiction as naive and implausible, even for inhabitants of other worlds.⁹⁰

But as Rostand has pointed out, the supercranial fetus could be produced in an artificial womb. Since the opening could be made as large as required, the impossible-birth consideration is largely irrelevant.

It is impossible to rule out the possibility of genetically amplified, bioneered aliens, possessing memory, mental acuity and speed of thought comparable to some of the finest computers available on Earth today.

"Genetic surgery" is a term used to describe the manipulation of DNA and RNA — the executive molecules of terrestrial life — for specific purposes. Many scientists believe that in the near future human biotechnology will be able to "delete undesirable genes, insert others, and mechanically or chemically transform others."⁹²

The methods of genetic surgery will often require the deft insertion of new genes into the nuclei of malfunctioning cells. This is called a "gene transplant," a technique already proven by tests involving human subjects. In one early experiment conducted by Carl Merril, Mark Grier, and John Petriccione at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, specially prepared virus were used to carry DNA into cultured cells taken from people suffering from galactosemia (an enzyme-deficiency disease). After the viruses and the human cells were mixed together in solution and warmed to normal body temperature, the researchers found that the cells had absorbed a gene which had been placed in the virus that was capable of repairing the deficiency. The transplant complete, the cells began to manufacture the previously deficient enzyme in adequate quantities.

In 1970, Dr. Stanfield Rogers, a medical geneticist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, performed one of the first experiments on human subjects. A group of children had a rather rare genetic disease called Argininemia, a congenital disability to produce an important enzyme called arginase because of defects in the chromosomal DNA. Rogers selected a microorganism called Shope virus which, while harmless to humans, causes the cells it invades to produce an excess of arginase. A few months after the young children were injected with Shope virus, their bodies began producing the needed enzyme — proof that the viral treatment was beginning to work. The foreign arginase-producing genes had been transplanted into some of the children’s cells.²³⁶⁵

Genetic surgery and transplantation biotechnology may give ETs the ability to regenerate lost limbs or damaged organs. Each cell contains all of the organism’s genetic information, but most of it is suppressed because of specialization as a nerve cell, liver cell, or brain cell. If the expression of these hidden parts of the gene package can be unblocked, new limbs and organs could be grown by stimulating the correct genome sequences at the right locations. Nerves might be regenerated, eyeballs repaired, arms and legs regrown from scratch.

Similar techniques could possible minor modifications in physical appearance — such as skin or hair color change — or major modifications in body form such as extra arms, fingers, or special organs. The degree of genetic individuality may be so great among extraterrestrial bioneering races that each organism might represent his own distinct and unique "species."

Where will participative evolution lead? Eventually ETs, as man, will no longer be satisfied merely with correcting errors and improving upon the old models. Rather, they will have the urge to go nature one better, to create new synthetic organisms for specialized purposes.

Dr. Paul Berg of Stanford University (one of the first scientists to perform "recombinant DNA" experiments) in 1973 mixed together fragments of a bacterial "plasmid" (tiny circlets of DNA imparting resistance to antibiotics) with genes from a virus that produces cancerous virus in monkeys, in a single test tube. These combination virus-plasmids were then allowed to invade normal E. coli bacteria, which soon began churning out viral protein. Using simple gene splicing, Dr. Berg had created a "genetic hybrid" organism — a cross between a cancer-producing virus and a bacterium — which had never before existed in nature. The methodology, says Berg, "is simple and can probably be done as a high school science experiment."²³⁶⁵

Since 1973, scientists have used plasmids to introduce mouse and frog DNA into bacterial cells. It appears quite possible to create hybridized plants and animals, beings not found in nature.* It would be, as one participant at the 1976 Asilomar Conference on recombinant research jokingly put it, "like crossing an orange with a duck."

Much as man learned long ago to domesticate and cultivate the lifeforms of his world, sentient bioneering races will learn to exploit the gene as well for their own purposes.

As regards most biochemical substances, mankind is still in the "food gathering" stage. Many needed hormones, such as insulin, must be laboriously collected from scores of individual animal organs. But this situation has begun to change in the last few years.

Scientists have succeeded in transplanting a gene for rat insulin into bacterial cells which is reproduced when the cells divide, and it will soon be possible to switch the gene on as well. By cultivating insulin-making DNA, keeping it supplied with the raw materials and energy it needs, hybridized cells can be harvested for hormones much as a farmer reaps a field of wheat.

Along these lines, Drs. Herbert Boyer, Arthur Riggs, and Wylie Vale spliced the gene for somatostatin into the DNA of E. coli bacteria. Somatostatin is a hormone in the brains of mammals that inhibits the secretion of pituitary growth hormone. The hybridized bacteria multiplied and began producing somatostatin in copious quantities. Before, nearly half a million sheep brains were needed to isolate 5 milligrams of somatostatin. Using the E. coli "hormone factory," scientists required only 8 liters of bacterial culture to obtain the same amount.

The key to genetic cultivation is the synthetic gene — artificial nucleic acid sequences that have never occurred in nature. The first total synthesis of a complete gene starting from scratch was first accomplished by Nobelist Har Gobind Khorana and his team at MIT. The experiment involved the re-creation of a "tyrosine transfer RNA gene" found in E. coli which is 207 nucleotide base pairs in length. While it took the MIT group nearly a decade to do it, they are confident that genes as complex as those of humans (1000-3000 nucleotide base pairs long) will be amenable to synthesis in the next fifty years.²⁶⁴⁶ It is then a relatively simple step to the production of "unnatural" genes.

With the ability to create artificial genomes with specific desired characteristics, alien bioneers can better exploit the whole animal kingdom. Domesticated beasts with augmented intelligence and specially modified limbs and organs might function as excellent animal servants. Genetically altered horses might be used as intelligent, self-steering, self-feeding, self-cleaning, self-reproducing personal transport vehicles. Arthur C. Clarke points out that something resembling a compact elephant might be preferable in this regard, since it is the only quadruped with sufficient dexterity to carry out delicate handling operations while remaining a quadruped.⁵⁵ Such animal slaves should be herbivorous because "carnivores are much too expensive to feed and might take a fancy to their riders."

Lesser lifeforms may be pressed into service by ETs. Genetically upgraded birds could be used as aerial messengers and scouts, and would be trained to speak some simple language. Traitor fish could be developed to steer schools of their unsuspecting fellows into the waiting nets of fishermen. Vicious insects, giant crustaceans and monstrous mollusks could be bred as offensive weapons of tactical warfare.

Freeman J. Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University has suggested the possibility of exotic, genetically-modified artificial mining organisms, trolling the seas of planets for valuable minerals and metals. Says Dyson:

Oysters might extract gold from seawater and secrete golden pearls. A less poetic but more practical possibility is the artificial coral that builds a reef rich in copper or magnesium. Other mining organisms would burrow like earthworms into mud and clay, concentrating in their bodies the ores of aluminum or tin or iron, and excreting the ores in some manner convenient for human harvesting.²⁷

At least one mining company already uses bacteria to help recover copper metal from a variety of low-grade ores.⁸⁸

The extraterrestrial bioneers may themselves be the subjects of genetic modification. Instead of creating expensive, cumbersome artificial environments to sustain their lives after planetfall, ETs may decide to undergo a change in basic physical form enabling them to survive the natural conditions encountered on each new world. Conforming to the alien environment should facilitate both exploration and first contact, should it occur, with sentient natives.²⁶⁵¹

Advanced xenobiotechnology will allow extraterrestrial astronauts to decide which form was most convenient. Should they wish to explore and inhabit Jupiter for a period of time, for example, they could infect themselves with a carefully tailored virus containing modified genetic material. Cells in their bodies would be taken over by the intruders. Some would metamorphose into, say, jovian "gasbag beasts," while the rest would simply die away and be sloughed off like molted skin. Later, the gasbag genes might be replaced with new ones coded to produce a large-chested surface creature capable of breathing the 0.1% oxygen atmosphere of Mars. Finally, their survey completed, the ETs would be returned to their normal spacefaring designs using yet another application of a different transmutation virus — perhaps a small, agile humanoid form with a dexterous prehensile tail and a high tolerance for conditions of low gravity and sudden atmospheric decompressions.

When first contact with extraterrestrials occurs, we won’t know if the aliens are truly as they appear or rather inhabit genetically doctored bodies. Perhaps those tan-skinned humanoids we just shook hands with are really a race of chlorine breathers with twelve greasy tentacles and porcupine-bristled fur.

* In 1976, researchers at Florida Atlantic University at Boca Baton created the first "interkingdom protoplast" which they call the "plantimal."¹⁶¹⁷ Joined were a human cell nucleus and a tobacco cell nucleus, and, in another experiment, a human nucleus and a carrot nucleus. Extraterrestrial bioneers may have developed photosynthetic meatlike "blobs" to serve as protein livestock, shapeless amorphs which convert sunlight directly into edible meaty material. Autotrophic animals such as "plant men" similarly may be possible.

Ectogenesis is the process of "test tube pregnancy" as exemplified by Aldous Huxley’s science fiction classic Brave New World.  If an artificial placenta can be designed, complete artificial development of an entire human being will be possible starting only with sperm and egg. As long ago as 1959, a plastic womb designed by Italian surgeon and medical experimentalist Daniele Petrucci carried developing human embryos for nearly two full months. There are recent reports that the first human test tube birth has already taken place,²⁸⁷¹ although these are discounted by most reputable scientists.²⁸⁷²

Aside from using ectogenetic techniques to control birth rates or maintain rigid biological castes, aliens might find test tube birth an ideal solution to the problem of interstellar colonization. Instead of keeping adult ET travelers in suspended animation for hundreds of years in transit between stars, compact frozen embryos could be dispatched to the target solar systems. Upon arrival, these ectogenetic astronauts would be fertilized and carried to term in an artificial womb. At birth, cybernetic devices or RNA memory molecules could be used to teach the infants about their culture, their science, and their mission. The starship would then enter orbit around the new world and finally land, the now-adult alien colonists emerging to begin life on foreign soil.

Cloning is a related biotechnology that ETs will probably have. It’s a form of genetic engineering by which many exact duplicates of the original organism may be produced. Except for blood corpuscles, every cell in the mammalian body has identical and complete sets of genes which uniquely specify the entire organism. The nucleus from a human skin cell transplanted into an ovum and carried to term ectogenetically should produce an exact twin of the original donor. In 1969, Dr. John B. Gurdon at Oxford University succeeded in creating countless cloned frogs by transplanting genes from adult frog cells into the nuclei of frogs’ eggs.

Aliens will find many interesting uses for cloning. According to technologist Robert W. Prehoda, a combination of cloning and cryobiology (low-temperature preservation) could permit useful plants and animals to be conveniently transported with interstellar colonizers to make it easier to quickly populate barren planets with the flora and fauna of home.⁶⁷ Cloning may also allow alien plants and animals to be reproduced in great numbers back on the home world, after interstellar expeditions across the Galaxy return with frozen cell samples of exotic foreign lifeforms. Extraterrestrial bioneers may also clone duplicates of themselves as successors in political office,¹⁹⁴⁷ as standardized military units, or as nonsentient living warehouses for biological spare body parts for organ transplantation operations.

The basic survival instinct must be very deeply ingrained in many alien races. This, in concert with a sophisticated biotechnology, provides both motive and opportunity for the development of immortality among extraterrestrial civilizations.

Recalling Medawar’s assertion about human nature cited earlier, can we be as certain that aliens too "would rather be alive than dead"?

Maybe not. Consider the alternative forms of sentience discussed in {tip content="Reference: 14.2 Juvenile Extraterrestrial Intelligences
Paragraph #8, Begins: From these three curves,"}Chapter 14{/tip}. Beings with genetic sentience — "intelligent ants" — may harbor no desire for personal immortality whatsoever. Since they aren’t aware of their individual selves, they could never sympathize with Ionesco’s very human lament: "Why was I born if it wasn’t forever?" Since the society of these creatures would be virtually immortal, genetic-sentient ETs may have no use for the concept of (effectively) perpetual personal existence.

Similarly, beings with communal sentience (visceral social awareness) may be able to take solace in the comparatively eternal character of society. It may be that the appetite for immortality displayed by many humans is a hunger unique to brain-sentient species. Only among these races must the individual deal with personal death in the absence of any strongly-felt, well-internalized and supportive societal framework.

Of course, even among brain-sentient extraterrestrial species there may be cultural, psychological, or biological reasons why the drive for immortality might be suppressed. Yet the basic survival instinct must be very deeply ingrained in many alien races. This, in concert with a sophisticated biotechnology, provides both motive and opportunity for the development of immortality among extraterrestrial civilizations.

Brain cells do not reproduce and cannot replace themselves once destroyed. Each human possesses ten billion irreplaceable neurons; when some are lost due to concussion, consumption of alcohol or tobacco, or from natural causes, our brains are permanently diminished.

Dr. Harold Brody of the State University of New York at Buffalo attempted to measure the rate of natural attrition of brain cells. While losses range from none at all to very many in various parts of the organ, the approximate brainwide average runs about 100,000 neurons lost per day. At this rate, Brody calculates, the organ should entirely decay away in a period of about 250-350 years.²⁶⁴⁸ Whether cell loss would actually continue to the vanishing point or would taper off asymptotically is unknown at present.

There are at least three solutions to the so-called "brain barrier" problem. First, genetic engineering could permit each individual to start out with a larger brain. If the ETs have 100 billion neurons — ten times more than we — and the same neural attrition rate, senility might not set in for thousands, instead of hundreds, of years. The full millenium of Stage 3 aging would then become available to the aliens.

A second solution is to cause brain cells to regenerate and reproduce them selves as others died. If neuron division could be exactly balanced against cell losses, the brain would remain the same size and theoretically could go on forever. This again will only be found among extraterrestrial races capable of advanced bioneering, since there is no natural selective value in developing complex brain regeneration mechanisms which aid survival only if the organism manages to pass the primary and secondary self-destruct systems of the body. What if aliens did have divisible brain cells? In his book The Immortality Factor, Osborn Segerberg, Jr. writes:

[Brain cells] store our memories, experiences, knowledge and learning as well as operate voluntary and autonomic nervous systems. New brain and nerve cells presumably would "forget" what their predecessors knew. If the [being] survived the neurological havoc, he might not be able to retain his identity. He would forever be turning into someone else.⁶⁹

Or, as another writer puts it: "What would be the fun of attaining great longevity if the lucky winner couldn't remember what had gone before?"²¹³⁷

Of course, the counterargument goes like this: We know we lose 100,000 neurons every day. If this causes personality change from day to day, we certainly do not notice it. Why should the random addition of 100,000 neurons every day wreak any more cerebral havoc than their random subtraction? Brain regeneration may be quite possible, after all.

A third solution to the brain barrier problem is simply to prevent neural cells from dying at all, or at least to significantly slow the rate of attrition. We don’t know how to do this yet — perhaps more robust and wear-resistant cells could be designed — but alien sentients elsewhere may have already found the answer.

Assuming ETs and earthlings manage to lick the brain barrier problem, then exactly what are the limits to immortality? Saving the organ of sentience doesn’t get us out of the woods yet, because there is still the problem of accidental death associated with Stage 3. Individuals may be hit by a truck, slip in the bathtub, be shot in battle, or die in a plane crash.

Still, the lifespan in Stage 3 may be an order of magnitude greater than in Stage 1 (where humans are now). For example, the death rate in the United States in 1973 was 942 deaths per 100,000 people. The maximum lifespan attainable was about 100 years. If all purely medical deaths were eliminated, leaving only suicide, homicide and accidental causes (fire, drowning, lightning, and other sudden traumas), the death rate would have dropped to 78 cases per 100,000 people. This works out to a maximum attainable lifespan of nearly 1300 years, as shown in Figure 16.1.

Is this the upper limit, then? If accidental causes of death can be eliminated we can get more. But how could this be done? One recent science fiction story proposes the development of a sense of precognition or foreknowledge to enable the creature to anticipate accidents in the near future and avoid them.²⁶⁵⁰ This accomplished, there should be no further real limits to immortality, save boredom or a brain jammed to capacity with memories like a well-worn palimpsest. Death would occur only as a matter of affirmative, intelligent choice.

As we have seen, there are few limits to the possible accomplishments of alien biotechnologists. But the biological forms which nature has provided are especially well-adapted to a pretechnological planetary environment. ETs may need to design new forms to accomodate the requirements of a fast-paced industrialized technical society. Genetic manipulation might turn out to be a natural prerequisite to man-machine coupling. For example, gene surgery may permit body proportions to be altered to better fit the dimensions of mechanical systems such as computers and starships.

Sentient extraterrestrials thus may turn to synthetic biological or to bionically-augmented designs which possess the desired characteristics of high reliability, great longevity, and which interface more perfectly with various technological aspects of the environment. There are three general classes of such entities: Androids (purely biological), cyborgs (part biological and part mechanical), and robots (purely mechanical).

Table 16.2 Human Organ Transplant Biotechnology as of 19762365

Exactly what is an android? There seems to be much confusion on this score even among science fiction writers. Some hold that an android is an automaton in human form; others describe it as a robot that can think. Still others require it to be biological, while a few permit both biological and mechanical "androids." Perhaps the most consistent traditional definition is the one offered by Groff Conklin in 1954: "An android is a living being that has been created partly or wholly through processes other than natural birth."¹⁸³⁶

The classic biological android was the fictional Frankenstein monster created by the pen of Mary Shelley — a living organism assembled in pieces by men. Under the Conklin definition, clones would probably also be regarded as androids.

What of nonhumanoid forms? Arthur C. Clarke has coined the word "biot" (short for "biological robot") to refer to all animal androids, nonhuman beasts created by the hand of sentience. Remarks Freeman J. Dyson of the biot:

I would say that when we learn to use these biological techniques ourselves, and to build machines with biological materials, we shall probably be able to create intelligence. I think it will not look like an electronic computer, but rather more like a living organism.¹⁵⁵⁸

Jeremy Bernstein, Professor of Physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, echoes this sentiment when he states:

The lesson of modern biology is that the distinction between living and nonliving material is almost arbitrary. So it is possible that one would be able to make machines biologically, in test tubes rather than in an electronics factory, and then it will be almost an arbitrary question as to whether one wants to call such objects machines or living animals.¹⁵⁵⁸

Terrestrial organ transplant technology has advanced markedly in the 1970s. As shown in Table 16.2, transplants of virtually every major human organ have been attempted with increasing success.* Furthermore, the art of microsurgery — essential fine detail work with tissues and capillaries involved in transplantation — has made fantastic progress. Skilled microsurgeons now suture tiny capillary walls and can reconnect delicate wisps of nerve tissue, working under a microscope with needle and thread smaller than human hair.²⁸⁸² For more than a decade, Chinese doctors have been replacing severed limbs with great success — arms, legs, feet and fingers. (Since the thumb accounts for 50% of the efficiency of the hand, microsurgeons can salvage it even when it's smashed beyond repair. One of the patients big toes is transplanted onto the thumb stump. "Close up it looks a little strange," remarked one writer, "but it does the job."²⁶⁵²)

Where might replacement organs come from? They could be cloned from the patient’s own cells, but this takes time. Another way would be to store donated or pre-cloned organs "on ice" until needed. Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a technique which may soon make it possible to store human organs for a century or more before thawing for use in a transplantation procedure.²⁶⁵³

William Gaylin, President of the Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences, has proposed the controversial idea of using living cadavers, which he calls "neomorts," for medical experimentation and salvaging body parts. Neomorts — living, breathing, feeding and excreting organisms — would nevertheless be legally dead because of the cessation of electrical brain activity (brain death). Gaylin suggests that "bio-emporiums" be maintained using the victims of suicides, homicides and other accidents. Neomorts would serve as body part banks. Organs would be preserved in the still-living bodies, and there would be a regular supply of blood since the living corpses "could be drained regularly."²⁶⁵⁴

Science fiction writer Larry Niven predicts that widespread demand for donor organs might create a new type of crime which he calls "organlegging." As body parts change from a luxury for the few to a necessity for the many, demand will almost certainly outstrip supply. Niven claims that a black market in illegally-obtained organs would spring into existence, offering disassembled kidnap victims to the local Organ Bank at inflated prices.²⁰²⁰ As man becomes more android, will his crimes become more heinous?

What about brain transplants? About a decade ago, Dr. Robert J. White of the Brain Research Laboratory at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital carefully removed the brains of six dogs. Each organ was placed into the cranium of a new canine and connected to its bloodstream. Some animals perished within six hours of the operation, but one survived for two days. During this time, the living transplanted brain produced electrical signals on the electroencephalograph that was monitoring it.¹⁶⁴⁶ Similar experiments have been conducted successfully on monkeys.²⁶⁵⁶

But to transplant an entire brain and restore it to full capacity, extraterrestrial microsurgeons must be capable of severing and reconnecting countless millions of individual nerve endings in a very brief span of time. This will be a most challenging operation because the neural configurations in the donor brain, much like the uniqueness of fingerprints, will display a complicated pattern that probably won’t match the connections in the recipient’s cranium.

If the whole head is transplanted, however, the cranial nerves continue to function normally.²⁶⁵⁵ For this reason it has been suggested that aliens may prefer to transfer heads rather than brains. Human scientists have already tried this. In 1957 a Russian surgeon named Vladimer Demikov grafted a second head onto the neck of a dog. The two-headed monstrosity survived nearly a week with apparently "normal" functioning. For instance, when exposed to light and sound both heads responded by trying to bark.²³⁶⁵ Aliens may use similar methods to graft old heads onto freshly-cloned headless neomorts.

* A review of the medical literature available in 1976 fails to produce a single instance of penile transplantation.¹⁶²¹ However, 13 cases of replantation of the traumatically amputated penis are noted, and 10 cases of penile reconstruction are recorded in which a new penis was fashioned from other neighboring tissues. A major impasse to penile transplantation appears to be donor organ procurement.

What about the possibility of totally bionic brains? Might extraterrestrial biotechnologists be able to transfer personality and consciousness into virtually indestructible and immortal bionic bodies? In theory, there are no technical objections to "total prosthesis," as it is sometimes called. Using advanced atomic or molecular electronics, fully synthetic brains which function as well as or better than the originals can easily be imagined. However, one major difficulty is frequently overlooked.

In most schemes, the subject’s brain contents are somehow "read out" and recorded using sophisticated high-capacity computer data storage devices. This data is later played back and imprinted upon the tabula rasa bionic brain. The mortal flesh-and-blood organ is then replaced by the immortal synthetic one in the cyborg body. Upon awakening, it is discovered that the words, thoughts, and behavior of the new entity are indistinguishable from those of the original in every way.

But it is not the original! The cyborg is only a copy. A duplicate person has been created and the original (presumably) destroyed — its sentience, its self-awareness, its personal consciousness. The new bionic brain, perhaps graced with a blissful continuity of memory, may not be aware of the change at all. But the original self is dead nevertheless. (The author, for one, would hesitate to accept such immortality by proxy.)

This fundamental problem is difficult, but by no means impossible, to resolve. It may turn out to be relatively easy to transfer from a biological to a synthetic brain without any loss of self or interruption of consciousness in the original. Dr. Jonathan Boswell, a nuclear physicist at the University of Virginia, recently gave me one simple example of such a process:

I visualize the process of consciousness transfer as taking many years. First, biocybernetic electrodes would be implanted permanently in the brain of the aging patient. Many of them, so that the data pathways are wide. As the body decays — let us suppose it first goes blind — the consciousness inside finds that it can "see" through the cameras of the machine it's connected to. Later, it could hear, touch. … Placed in direct contact with the bionic brain, the two minds would begin to share the thinking function. Ultimately, when the old hulk of the body finally shrivels up and dies, the shared mind lives on without interruption in the synthetic brain.²⁶⁶⁵

Artificial intelligence expert Hans Moravec has come up with a somewhat more elaborate scheme:

You are in an operating theater, and a brain surgeon (probably a machine) is in attendance. On a table next to yours is a potentially human equivalent computer, dormant now for lack of a program to run. Your skull, but not your brain, is under the influence of a local anaesthetic. You are fully conscious. Your brain case is opened, and the surgeon peers inside. Its attention is directed at a small clump of about 100 neurons somewhere near the surface. It examines, nondestructively, the three dimensional structure and chemical makeup of that clump with neutron tomography, phased array radio encephalography, etc., and derives all the relevant parameters. It then writes a program which can simulate the behavior of the clump as a whole, and starts it running on a small portion of the computer next to you. It then carefully runs very fine wires from the computer to the edges of the neuron assembly, to provide the simulation with the same inputs the neurons are getting. You and it check out the accuracy of the simulation. After you are satisfied, it carefully inserts tiny relays between the edges of the clump and the rest of the brain, and runs another set of wires from the relays to the computer. Initially these simply transmit the clump’s signals through to the brain, but on command they can connect the simulation instead. A button which activates the relays when pressed is placed in your hand. You press it, release it and press it again. There should be no difference. As soon as you are satisfied, the simulation connection is established firmly, and the now unconnected clump of neurons is removed.

The process is repeated over and over for adjoining clumps, until the entire brain has been dealt with. Occasionally several clump simulations are combined into a single equivalent but more efficient pro gram. Though you have not lost consciousness, or even your train of thought, your mind has been removed from the brain and transferred to the machine. A final step is the disconnection of your old sensory and motor system, to be replaced by higher quality ones in your new home. This last part is no different than the installation of functioning artificial arms, legs, pacemakers, kidneys, ears and hearts and eyes being done or contemplated now.³²³³

Moravec then goes on to point out the many advantages that would become apparent as soon as the process was complete:

Somewhere in your machine is a control labeled "speed." It was initially set to "slow," to enable the simulations to remain synchronized with the rest of your old brain, but now the setting is changed to "fast." You can communicate, react and think at a thousand times your former rate.

Major possibilities stem from the fact that the machine has a port which enables the changing program that is you to be read out, nondestructively, and also permits new portions of the program to be read in. This allows you to conveniently examine, modify, improve and extend yourself in ways currently completely out of the question. Or, your entire program can be copied into a similar machine, resulting in two thinking, feeling versions of you. Or a thousand, if you want. And your mind can be moved to computers better suited for given environments, or simply technologically improved, far more conveniently than the difficult first transfer. The program can also be copied to a dormant information storage medium, such as magnetic tape. In case the machine you inhabit is fatally clobbered, a copy of this kind can be read into an unprogrammed computer, resulting in another you, minus the memories accumulated since the copy was made. By making frequent copies, the concept of personal death could be made virtually meaningless. Another plus is that since the essence of you is an information packet, it can be sent over information channels. Your program can be read out, radioed to the moon, say, and infused there into a waiting computer. This is travel at the speed of light. The copy that is left behind could be shut down until the trip is over, at which time the program representing you with lunar experiences is radioed back, and transferred into the old body. But what if the original were not shut down during the trip? There would then be two separate versions of you, with different memories for the trip interval.

When the organization of the programs making up humans is adequately understood, it should become possible to merge two sets of memories. To avoid confusion, they would be carefully labeled as to which had happened where, just as our current memories are usually labeled with the time of the events they record. This technique opens another vast realm of possibilities. Merging should be possible not only between two versions of the same individual but also between different persons. And there is no particular reason why mergings cannot be selective, involving some of the other person’s memories, and not others. This is a very superior form of communication, in which memories, skills, attitudes and personalities can be rapidly and effectively shared.³²³³

Table 16.3 Molecular Fineness and the Thermodynamic Significance of Patterns of Information (modified from Morrison1704)

Can machines live? Evolve? Think? Many scientists would answer in the negative. Gears, relays, and integrated circuits certainly aren’t alive in the traditional sense. Evolution typically involves reproduction and natural selection, but no Earthly machines are known to reproduce themselves. And, it is said, cold steel cannot cogitate.

From the xenological point of view, however, we’ve already determined that the most useful definition of life involves the concept of negative entropy, or negentropy.

That is, to be considered "alive" an entity must:

• Feed on negentropy (absorb order from the environment)
• Store negentropy (create order within itself)

Figure 16.3 Microstructure in Machine Lifeforms and Biological Lifeform Inhabiting the Planet Earth

The amount of stored information in a living organism determines exactly how alive it is.

Philip Morrison at MIT has taken a first stab at a quantitative analysis of "how much life" is present in any entity of specified complexity.

It will be recalled from {tip content="Reference: 6.2.3 Towards a Definition of Life
Paragraph #29, Begins: The refrigerator in my house"}Chapter 6{/tip} that a refrigerator or other similar contemporary machine technically is "alive" by our definition, because it feeds on negentropy and uses this to create internal order.

But most machines "alive" today aren’t very alive because they store only miniscule amounts of information at the molecular level.

Morrison has shown that patterns imposed on lumps of inert matter will not begin strongly to affect the matter thermodynamically "until the pattern is constructed with molecular fineness."¹⁷⁰⁴

His calculations, summarized in Table 16.3, pertain to an hypothetical black-and-white
checkerboard pattern superimposed on a slab of otherwise inert matter.

We may view the last column of Table 16.3 as representing, in a sense, the intensity of life achieved by an information-laden pattern imposed on inanimate matter, Clearly, the finer the pattern (Figure 16.3), the more "alive" is the entity.

By implication, we cannot concede that machines are "very alive" until their components are constructed with molecular fineness. Only then will the information storage in machines be comparable to those found in biological lifeforms.

The need for a biochemistry as a prerequisite of organic life is far less compelling for beings of purely artificial construction. As such creatures perhaps can be modified or repaired simply by replacing modular parts, the only fundamental requirement appears to be Morrison’s "molecular fineness of construction." The distinction between biological and mechanical life be comes quite blurred — are not machines constructed of iron and silicon with molecular patterns examples of "ferrosilicon-based lifeforms"?

Robots are now on the human scene in all but their most advanced forms. One writer has observed that "robots are at about the same stage as electronic calculators about a decade ago… . Specialists in the field suggest that ten years from now robots will be as common as calculators are today."²⁶⁸¹

The word "robot" itself comes from a 1920 play written by the late Czech author Karel Capek entitled Rossum’s Universal Robots. In this early science fiction tale of the future, sentient robots revolt against human-enforced slavery and conquer the world themselves.

One of the first writers with the courage to portray intelligent mechanical beings as benign, or at least indifferent, was Dr. Isaac Asimov. His well-known Three Laws of Robotics — intended to be incorporated into the basic psychology of every sentient machine — were designed to prevent a revolt against biological creators such as was envisioned by Capek:

While these rules may guide human planners, there is no guarantee that extraterrestrial robots will obey the Three Laws or any similar failsafe system. ETs may choose to give their automatons considerably greater freedom of action, especially if they are the products of "total prosthesis" (biological consciousness transferral). Mechanicals from other worlds designed to perform military, emergency rescue, or political functions may require considerably more autonomy than Asimov’s Laws would permit.

Figure 16.4 Humanoid Robot-Building Technology: Terrestrial State-of-the-Art Figure 16.4 Century I Klatu Leachim Figure 16.4 Humanoid Robot-Building Technology Figure 16.4 Humanoid Robot-Building Technology: Terrestrial State-of-the-Art Century I Century I is a 2-meter, 300-kilogram (7-foot, 650-pound) bullet-proof automated security guard. The $75,000 robot was unveiled at the 1977 annual seminar of the American Society for Industrial Security. The humanoid’s sensors detect movement, body heat, or noise and lock onto the source. At speeds up to 30 kph (20 mph), Century I closes on its quarry. When it gets within about 3 meters, it orally instructs the intruder to halt with an imperious voice. If disobeyed, the robot gets tough. Standard equipment includes an ultrasonic sound transmitter that causes extreme pain in the inner ear. A blinding strobe light, an electronic pistol that shoots powerful shocks, and a spray gun filled with laughing gas are also available. While admitting that Century I could be programmed to kill, Anthony J. Reichelt of Quasar Industries Inc. (Rutherford, N.J.) added that his firm plans to use only "nonlethal restraint" in its machines. Quasar is also developing a $125,000 Century II robot for the U.S. Army. "Once he’s put on program," explained inventor Reichelt in regard to the improved model, "nobody can stop him."2702 Klatu Another product of Quasar Industries, Klatu is seen as a possible prototype for the first "domestic android." At 1¼ meters tall and 80 kilograms (5 feet, 180 pounds), the robot reputedly may be programmed to accept a wide variety of household chores. According to Reichelt, president of Quasar, Klatu can: Vacuum floors, greet guests and take their coats, serve drinks and dinner, guard the house, walk the dog, clear dishes from the table, wash windows, speak "intelligently" with a 250-word vocabulary, and play nursemaid to the children and the bedridden. Robotologists and other experts in the scientific community are skeptical. The price — a cool $4000.2703 Leachim Grade school students at Public School 106 in the Bronx receive instruction from a robot substitute teacher. The picturesque 1¼-meter, 90-kilogram (5'5", 200-pound) automaton with black plastic arms and legs was created by Dr. Michael Freeman for only $1000. (The legs are motorized, but the robot is chained to a table for security.) The humanoid’s brain is a computer, made partly from components cannibalized from an RCA Spectra 70. Leachim has memorized parts of Compton’s Encyclopaedia, Webster’s New World Dictionary, a Ginn science book, a thesaurus and a Macmillan reading series, as well as the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, Aesop’s fables, a round of jokes, a few words in Spanish, and detailed biographical and educational information for each student.2693

Terrestrial robotics technology is actually fairly advanced in the area of physical locomotion (Figure 16.4). Human roboticists at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) have constructed an computer-directed automaton with wheels, two retractible arms, and a television camera mounted in its "head." The device, nicknamed "Shakey," is free to roam about a room strewn with objects of various shapes and sizes. The SRI robot can be programmed to perform specific lifting, moving and stacking operations. (E.g., "Pick up the smallest cube and take it to the doorway."¹⁷⁷⁹

The Russian automated lunar rover Lunakhod is a mobile eight-wheeled robot with TV camera eyes, able to navigate the surface of the Moon. Soviet scientists also are developing a spider-like surface exploratory vehicle that will be able to cross obstacles impassable by wheeled or caterpillar-tracked machines. This device, now under development at the Leningrad Institute of Aviation Instrument Makers, has six legs, a computer "brain," and a laser eye that scans ahead for trouble.¹¹³⁸ It reportedly can negotiate steep slopes, stairs, narrow corridors with sharp turns, and landscapes littered with stones or fallen trees.²⁶⁹⁴

Mechanical "feeding" has also been accomplished. Robots have been designed that are capable of searching for "food" and thus of maintaining their own active existence. Dr. W. Grey Walter designed a small electronic turtle in his laboratory in Bristol, England, decades ago. Dubbed Machina speculatrix by its creator, Walter’s "machine lifeforms" each consisted of two tiny radio tubes, a photoelectric cell and a touch sensor, motors for crawling and steering, and a light bulb for "speaking," all hooked up to a miniature 6-volt storage battery.¹⁷⁸³

Each robot exhibited various interesting behaviors. When the battery ran low, the turtle was programmed to hunt for its "hutch" where it could plug in and recharge.* When placed in front of a mirror, the device displays a primitive form of self-recognition. An encounter between two mechanical creatures is described by Walter thus: "Each, attracted by the light the other carries, extinguishes its own source of attraction, so the two systems become involved in a mutual oscillation, leading finally to a stately retreat."²¹⁰⁶ Later models were equipped with microphones so they could respond to whistles. More complicated circuitry allowed more variable behavior as well as the ability to "learn."⁶⁰ With a behavior repertoire attributable to no more than 1000 bits, the intelligence of Machina speculatrix probably rivals that of the rotifer.

The purpose behind Walter’s work was to demonstrate that quite simple machines could fairly well mimic the goal-seeking ability of animals. All the major attributes of life on Earth — feeding, metabolizing, mobility, response to stimuli and so forth — can and have been designed into various machines built by humans.¹⁷⁸² We’ve seen that emotions and intellect can be impressed upon artificial structures. There appear to be no real limits to the complexity of organization and behavior that might be displayed by alien robots. Indeed, extraterrestrial automata may even have the ability to reproduce.^{85, 956}

Von Neumann demonstrated during the 1940’s that self-reproducing machines are quite possible in principle.¹⁷²⁶ Basically, the problem is to find the proper parts and to know how to put them together. Von Neumann envisioned a machine that could move around in a special stockroom, selecting the pieces required to build another machine exactly like itself — and then doing so. Such a device necessarily consists of two parts: One part to build a duplicate copy, and another part able to program the duplicate so it can make more copies too. (This is analogous to the distinction between phenotype and genotype in biology.²³⁶⁴) According to one computer scientist, such a reproducing system could be as small as 150,000 bits of information.¹⁷³⁷ [Note added: A general review of kinematic self-replicating machines was published by the author in 2004 and is available online at http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/KSRM.htm.]

A large population of such organisms would constitute an ecology. They will evolve. Wrote von Neumann:

If there is a change in the description … the system will produce, not itself, but a modification of itself. Whether the next generation can produce anything or not depends on where the change is. So, while this system is exceedingly primitive, it has the trait of an inheritable mutation, even to the point that a mutation made at random is most probably lethal, but may be nonlethal and inheritable.¹⁷²⁶

Sentient alien automata thus may be "alive" both in the popular as well as the technical sense.

* Anyone interested in building such a device should consult Huber’s article "Free Roving Machine," which contains specifications and circuit diagrams for a similar system.¹⁷⁸⁴ A more ambitious design for a "mechanical pet" may be found in Heiserman’s Build Your Own Working Robot.²⁶⁸³