Would an alien race with diffused organs be viable?

Question

The purpose of this question is to get an alien race with a diffused set of organs, which makes any part of their body interchangeable. Why would a species need this? Well for one it might be because they are prone to injury due to the wildlife of their planet. Just like us they make us of tools and have formed a civilization. The main difference between them and us is that they are more similar to jellyfish or starfish in biology. They are capable of regenerating far better than us humans but are also flimsy and soft.

How do they work? What are the advantages and disadvantages of their biology?

Their natural form is a mass of tentacles but after making contact with humans they found it enjoyable to mimic the human form (some kind of trend), although their walk if more of a clumsy wobble. They are mute so humans communicate with them using sign language and writing instead. So far in the story everything is well and good until scientists grab a deceased one for dissection, which is why I need this information.

If the question needs refining go ahead and point out what is lacking and editing shall ensue.

Answer 1

Having no organs would not be viable.

But have many very small organs might be. Though it is still very challenging. It's just not very efficient to spread organs out in this fashion.

Instead of a central nervous system they might have clusters of nerves all over their bodies. This might be backed up with chemical retention of memory. So if such a critter got chopped in half, each half could grow back the nervous system and use the chemical backup to restore memory.

So instead of a heart, they might have a large number of little pumping stations. Possibly this consists of specialized muscles combined with valves in blood vessels. Instead of lungs they might have many small breathing tubes to many small gas-exchanging structures distributed through their bodies. Instead of kidneys they might have a large number of small filtering structures, each with a duct to the surface. It might make their sweat quite noxious. Instead of a pancreas they might have little secreting bodies distributed over the body.

To eat they might excrete some digestive chemical on their food, then reabsorb the results. Again, it might happen through many small ducted glands near the surface.

Having the lungs, kidneys, and digestion act in this fashion would probably put very harsh limits on how big this critter could be. The old cube-square ratio gets troublesome very quickly. Double the average size of an object, you make the volume go up by 2 x 2 x 2 = 8. But the surface area only goes up by 4. So quickly, the space available for breathing and excreting waste becomes insufficient. This might be in line with them starting out as mostly "tentacles." A long tubular critter can escape the cube-square by staying the same thickness and getting longer.

They could have many little "eye pits" that detected light only in one direction. They would need some very good proprioception. Then, by combining their proprioception with the view from many of these pits, they could build an image. This is yet another competing factor for their limited skin surface.

Answer 2

Not Possible

I really don't want to say this, because the concept of an alien able to do this is pretty cool. Not to mention the obvious upside that they'd be able to lose body parts with no negative effects. However, you're asking for a reality-check, and in reality? Not a chance.

It's not even that you're underestimating just how good specialization is - it's also that organs have far too much to do. Let's go through a list of some major organs: Heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidneys, stomach, large intestine, small intestine, bladder, muscles, gonads, spleen, pituitary gland, thyroid gland... etc. The list goes on. A lot.

What you're asking is basically, 'How do I make an alien which can have any organ do the work of any other organ'? and the only possible answer is simplify. Notice that you compare these aliens to jellyfish, which falls on the 'incredibly simple' end of the spectrum. It doesn't even have a nervous system - that's the kind of thing you're looking at, something which doesn't require complex things to be done to function. You can't have an organ that can purify blood, or sometimes just pump blood, or have the ability to oxidate blood, or occasionally be responsible for controlling hormones.

True, alien biology might be different. But there's a list of things they need to do. They need some way of producing energy, they need some way of circulating that energy throughout their body, they need a waster to remove their own waste products, they need the ability to move, and they'll need the ability to regulate homeostasis. And these aren't simple things, especially at the level of complexity that would be required to produce a creature with the cognitive capacity of human being. Admittedly, it'd be really cool to have an alien creature which is reminiscent of Sergeant Schlock, but I'm afraid that, in reality, it's just not possible.

Answer 3

The only way I can think of this working is if the biological cells themselves of the aliens could rearrange and adapt rapidly enough to form new organs based on what was needed. I think of kandras. Whether it's possible for all (or most) of the cells in an alien body to function as rapidly adapting stem cells is beyond my knowledge of science, but I think differentiating cells is the only way this could work.

Answer 4

This is unlikely to work unless...

I may be wrong in how I interpret your meaning of diffused organs, but I gather this as meaning that the organs are completely free floating and rely on diffusion to supply the body. The reason this is unlikely to work is because specialized tissues and organs rely on being able to be supplied specific inputs and produce specific outputs. In a diffused body layout you lose the ability for the alien to ensure these inputs and outputs get where they are needed. Let's take an example of a few systems and how they lose their ability to function properly without strictly controlling the system.

Digestive system
Imagine you go to eat something and as soon as you swallow your food starts free floating around your body. This is problematic for your stomach as it would be difficult to absorb the large chunks of food or drink and later release it again without accidentally releasing digestive acids and enzymes.

Circulatory system
Without having a looping track of veins and arteries it becomes incredibly unlikely that an organism is able to guarantee a consistent supply of blood and nutrients to each of their cells as it becomes more and more likely for the lack of flow to isolate cells further away from the lungs, heart and intestines.

Now for the unless part.

If your alien species has managed to create an extremely flexible, elastic and quick to repair connective tissue that could connect the organs regardless of how far away they floated from each other it would become possibly viable. This is a challenging feat however, being able to stretch and lengthen without constricting would be vital to avoid loss of blood pressure or blockages. It would also need to be able to quickly repair and have knowledge of what it was connected to in the case it gets severed, I think this would be the most alien and as such is beyond what I can suggest.

alternatively, as a frame challenge, while you mention the aliens mimic the human form you never mention their size. The smaller the aliens are the less important it is to have specialized cells performing dedicated tasks, as such it may be your alien mimics the human body while being a single celled organism!