Earth As An Organism

[In My Memory]

A superorganism to be precise. Just like the way all individual ants working as a single unit can be described as superorganism, the earth is too Lets call this organism Gaia, just for the fun of it.

 

Think about it, the earth is self-regulating in a homeostatic feedback loop (<-- I can just see bascule getting all hot and bothered right now ), and even with some degree of will and complex intelligence. For instance:

 

The mean temperature of the earth, even before people had the capacity to affect the climate, has been relatively constant, when it should be unintelligently drifting between extremes of hot and cold every year. Theres no real necessary reason why the earth should "prefer" one temperature to others, unless its learned to regulate itself.

 

However, since the influence of people is raising the temperature of the earth artificially, beyond the acceptable limits of Gaia's homoestasis. Obviously, Gaia would know that it can maintain its homeostasis by eliminating some people, so maybe extreme whether conditions are Gaia's way of defending herself.

 

And if you've ever seen where humans have interfered substantially, and stripped forests out of the ground, or if you've seen how everything is charred after a major fire, it certainly looks like Gaia is in pain. Fortunately, Gaia detects the damage and repairs it over time, which is unmistakably a sign of intent and will... and if we arent willing to grant that much to Gaia, then hopefully its a little easier to accept that the surface of the earth behaves as if its a physiological system.

 

Ponder that in your pipe and smoke it

[Martin]

A superorganism to be precise. Just like the way all individual ants working as a single unit can be described as superorganism, the earth is too Lets call this ...

 

If i go along, can I call it Gaius instead? "just for fun" as you say?

 

IMM, did you ever look at Smolin's book The Life of the Cosmos?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195126645/103-2060670-2365418?v=glance&n=283155

 

 

Here is a review by Susan Stepney

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/bib/nf/s/smolin.htm

Susan Stepney has a bunch of reviews of popular science books

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/index.htm

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/bib/index.htm

[Sisyphus]

I'll buy the superorganism part, but not the "will" part. If anything, it's more plant than animal.

[padren]

A superorganism to be precise. Just like the way all individual ants working as a single unit can be described as superorganism' date=' the earth is too Lets call this organism Gaia, just for the fun of it.

 

Think about it, the earth is self-regulating in a homeostatic feedback loop (<-- I can just see bascule getting all hot and bothered right now ), and even with some degree of will and complex intelligence. For instance:

 

The mean temperature of the earth, even before people had the capacity to affect the climate, has been relatively constant, when it should be unintelligently drifting between extremes of hot and cold every year. Theres no real necessary reason why the earth should "prefer" one temperature to others, unless its learned to regulate itself.

 

However, since the influence of people is raising the temperature of the earth artificially, beyond the acceptable limits of Gaia's homoestasis. Obviously, Gaia would know that it can maintain its homeostasis by eliminating some people, so maybe extreme whether conditions are Gaia's way of defending herself.

 

And if you've ever seen where humans have interfered substantially, and stripped forests out of the ground, or if you've seen how everything is charred after a major fire, it certainly looks like Gaia is in pain. Fortunately, Gaia detects the damage and repairs it over time, which is unmistakably a sign of intent and will... and if we arent willing to grant that much to Gaia, then hopefully its a little easier to accept that the surface of the earth behaves as if its a physiological system.

 

Ponder that in your pipe and smoke it [/quote']

 

 

 

I suppose if there were intelligent mites living on humans, who could analyze how the human brains worked, they'd see a complex neural system that tied electro-chemical responses to conditions that maintained (ie self-regulating) the human's homeostatic feedback loop...I mean - they would see our eyes detecting light in the same way that a sunflower follows the sun, just a little more complex.

 

I say it because while we can explain the Earth's systems as just a natural series of cause and effects, our own conscious selves could also be viewed as such if we could understand our own complexity.

 

 

 

Still, I don't think self regulation is a real test for will or consciousness. I suspect that the reason the Earth is so good at regulating itself, is because planets either stabilize or "tip" into uninhabitable environments, like Venus or Mars.

 

It does make sense:

 

1) we wouldn't exist without a fairly stable environmental system

2) we exist

 

Therefore, on any planet life looks like us, it would have to be one that developed stabalizing traits.

 

 

The stability of our world's system has been tested by many a volcano, asteroid impacts, green stuff growing on it...and has managed pretty well to be fairly stable. Its like a good boat - you think its going to tip over, but has managed to right itself with every wave.

 

However, its never been tested by technological humans before, so that is quite uncharted territory. It will likely respond in its self-stabilizing manner to many things we do that mimic natural conditions that it has proven to withstand in the past, but with no more "Will" than a boat wants to right itself when leaning hard to one side.

[swansont]

Venus may be uninhabitable, but its temperature appears to be regulated as well. No real need to assign intelligence to the process, for either planet. Unless perhaps one considers that a thermos is smart.

[Martin]

... No real need to assign intelligence to the process, for either planet. Unless perhaps one considers that a thermos is smart.

 

of course the thermos is smart! otherwise how could it know when to keep stuff hot and when to keep it cold. My thermos always does the right thing and I never have to tell it.

[bascule]

Why stop at earth? Why not extend the idea to the entire universe?

 

http://biocosm.org/

 

Why is the universe bio-friendly? Bioastronomy, once an intriguing and speculative sideline, has become a major focus for cosmologists. James N. Gardner presents a startling hypothesis for how our apparently bio-friendly universe began and what its ultimate destiny will be. Originally presented in peer-reviewed scientific journals, his radical “Selfish Biocosm” hypothesis proposes that life and intelligence have not emerged in a series of Darwinian accidents but are essentially hardwired into the cycle of cosmic creation, evolution, death, and rebirth. He argues that the destiny of highly evolved intelligence (perhaps our distant progeny) is to infuse the entire universe with life, eventually to accomplish the ultimate feat of cosmic reproduction by spawning one or more “baby universes,” which will themselves be endowed with life generating properties. In this explanation of the role of life in the cosmos, Gardner presents an eloquent and lucid synthesis of the most recent advances in physics, cosmology, biology, biochemistry, astronomy, and complexity theory. These disciplines increasingly find themselves approaching the frontier of what was once the exclusive province of philosophers and theologians. Gardner’s Selfish Biocosm hypothesis challenges both Darwinists and advocates of intelligent design, and forces us to reconsider how we ourselves are shaping the future of life and the cosmos

[padren]

Why stop at earth? Why not extend the idea to the entire universe?

 

http://biocosm.org/

 

I still wouldn't call it "intelligent design" since it would really be more a matter of getting the initial "ingredients" right to produce a universe that naturally unfolded in a bio-friendly manner, but would likely be limited to macroscopic parameters, not design of individual aspects of the world we live in, and certianly would require darwinistic natural selection to produce intelligent life from earlier lifeforms.

 

It also wouldn't involve any "will" on the part of "gaia" or the universe, as all the will would have gone into creating the conditions prior to the big bang, and the rest is the result of the "natural condensation" that has followed.

 

The interesting idea is that an original biocosm would have to have occured naturally, and created the first artificial designed universe, and who knows how close to "perfection" they got it...it could be that they made a moderately improved one, which in turn had longer to develop intelligent life and spawned an even more improved one...it is entirely possible that each biocosm takes the improvements of the mix of the last (not by knowing their mix but by simply having more hospitable conditions for intelligent life to thrive and thus more time to perfect the methods) and builds a better universe.

 

 

Unless they had the means to build in a giant field of stable stars that write out "Please direct all complaints to the Mansento Corporation" into our universe...we likely will never actually know.

[swansont]

of course the thermos is smart! otherwise how could it know when to keep stuff hot and when to keep it cold. My thermos always does the right thing and I never have to tell it.

 

We had an admiral through for a tour a while back, and he made a similar remark. My boss started explaining the physics of heat transfer and the effect of a vacuum, whereupon I had to point out to him that it was a joke. (and my boss has a pretty good sense of humor, just that the desire to explain physics got in the way)

 

But I think my point stands. The earth regulates temperature because there are feedback mechanisms in place with the appropriate sign and phase to allow it; it follows the laws of physics. It doesn't "know" to regulate it any more than a ball "knows" to roll downhill. Don't anthropomorphize nature, she hates that.

[Martin]

it is a complex problem, we have to keep Lady Nature happy

but we also have to keep IMM happy

 

in a small group like this every mind counts.

[Martin]

Why stop at earth? Why not extend the idea to the entire universe?

 

http://biocosm.org/

 

Louis Crane published a paper in around 1994 with this variant of Smolin fecund' date=' in which intelligent life appears and increases the rate of black hole production (because they use BH to produce energy).

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/9402104

[b']Possible Implications of the Quantum Theory of Gravity[/b]

Louis Crane

5 pages

"We consider the implications of some simple assumptions about the nature of the quantum theory of gravity which are plausible for a class of possible theories I have been attempting to construct. The simple assumptions turn out to have surprizingly wide implications of a type one might call philosophical. The paper is short and nontechnical. ( This builds on recent unpublished work of Lee Smolin, but comes to opposite conclusions)."

 

Crane is a non-string quantum gravitist at U Kansas

and you know this new foundation FQXi that just announced its first round of grants?

 

the FQXi mission is specially to support "foundational questions" research.

 

Louis Crane GOT ONE! a roughly $100,000 grant if I remember.

http://www.fqxi.org/awardees.html

look at the guys picture, and read his research proposal abstract!

http://www.fqxi.org/aw-crane.html

 

he got one of the biggest grants of the 30 they just awarded.

he is kind of the mad scientist steretype so one doesnt want to say it because stereotypes arent nice and often misleading. but I still think he is. let's say abnormally creative. and also brilliant.

============

Smolin doesnt assume that life has any effect on cosmic evolution.

the difference is that Crane does assume that. it accelerates evolution

 

I am afraid this kind of talk will make swansont a bit uneasy, it is so SciFi borderline visionary. But it is all IMM's fault that we have this discussion at all. I certainly didnt bring it up!

[Martin]

Why stop at earth? Why not extend the idea to the entire universe?

 

http://biocosm.org/

 

this may seem off topic but it isnt really.

 

Crane's 1994 idea was that in future people may use small hot black holes as an energy source in orbit.

(small BH are very hot by Hawking, and give off abundant energy, the problem is making and handling them)

Crane's spinfoam QG has been comparatively successful and holds out some promise of eventually having a quantum description of BH replace Hawkings semiclassical description, and quantum corrections. Crane thinks that it may eventually be possible to manufacture BH for use as energy sources. Perhaps a quantum BH model will help.

 

In the Smolin picture, THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS EVOLVE because universes procreate, with some slight random mutation in the physical constants. Procreation is by BH bounce. The more BH a universe makes, the more progeny---more or less resembling itself except for slight mutations of the physical constants.

 

Crane observes that if intelligence takes a hand in producing BH this has a big effect on reproduction and quite a bit accelerates evolution, maybe even guides it----and so i guess you could say that the U is more essentially alive if that happens. or more "animal-like" and less "plant-like" if there is some meaningful difference.

 

FQXi has Frank Wilczek on the advisory board (Nobel) and prominent people like Max Tegmark in the directorship. It is quite remarkable that they funded this research proposal by Louis Crane.

 

I found the news refreshing. It redefines the borders of the mainstream a little.

[Sisyphus]

The interesting idea is that an original biocosm would have to have occured naturally' date=' and created the first artificial designed universe, and who knows how close to "perfection" they got it...it could be that they made a moderately improved one, which in turn had longer to develop intelligent life and spawned an even more improved one...it is entirely possible that each biocosm takes the improvements of the mix of the last (not by knowing their mix but by simply having more hospitable conditions for intelligent life to thrive and thus more time to perfect the methods) and builds a better universe.

[/quote']

 

So in a sense we would still be dealing with biogenesis and natural evolution, just on a much greater scale.

 

Of course, I think bascule believes in some kind of crazy cyclic universe, so there I suppose you never have to account for the original creation.

[bascule]

In the Smolin picture, THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS EVOLVE because universes procreate, with some slight random mutation in the physical constants. Procreation is by BH bounce. The more BH a universe makes, the more progeny---more or less resembling itself except for slight mutations of the physical constants.

 

I really like the whole fecund universes idea. If I were to try to reconcile that with Biocosm, my idea would be that life is, somehow, responsible for the system as a whole (i.e. the common ancestor of all fecund universes) rather than just creating baby universes from our own.

 

For our own, biofriendly universe, it seems like you could just apply the weak anthropic principle to the fecund universes idea and claim that there are innumerable other non-biofriendly universes out there and ours just happened to be a biofriendly one.

 

Crane observes that if intelligence takes a hand in producing BH this has a big effect on reproduction and quite a bit accelerates evolution, maybe even guides it----and so i guess you could say that the U is more essentially alive if that happens. or more "animal-like" and less "plant-like" if there is some meaningful difference.

 

FQXi has Frank Wilczek on the advisory board (Nobel) and prominent people like Max Tegmark in the directorship. It is quite remarkable that they funded this research proposal by Louis Crane.

 

I found the news refreshing. It redefines the borders of the mainstream a little.

 

Hmm, so you're saying that when/if black holes took off as a power source, we'd eventually produce more of them than are produced naturally, and vicariously give birth to tons of biofriendly fecund universes?

[bascule]

And didn't mean to derail the entire thread here..

 

However, since the influence of people is raising the temperature of the earth artificially, beyond the acceptable limits of Gaia's homoestasis. Obviously, Gaia would know that it can maintain its homeostasis by eliminating some people, so maybe extreme whether conditions are Gaia's way of defending herself.

 

Well, in such a case, Gaia is no better than a vengeful God flooding the Earth because man has been noddy. The apes that are jacking with the climate system will just sweat it out and use increasingly advanced technology to survive, and in the meantime, havoc will be wreaked upon thouands and thousands of animal and plant species who can't use the benefits of technology to adapt to a changing climate.

[Martin]

 

 

Hmm' date=' so you're saying that when/if black holes took off as a power source, we'd eventually produce more of them than are produced naturally, and vicariously give birth to tons of biofriendly fecund universes?[/quote']

 

I think that is what Crane hinted at in his 1994 paper (which incidentally was picked up by some Omega website I happened to see) and then again in his grant application and in the abstract that FQXi posted

http://www.fqxi.org/aw-crane.html

 

life is part of a process that tunes the physical constants (like alpha = approx. 1/137) progressively more favorable to life

or maybe could affect them in other ways

so life, and conscious life in particular, is partly responsible for characteristics of the U (like the periodic table of chemical elements which depends extensively on alpha)

 

yeah, so your concise summary is right, I am just spelling it out.

 

did you look at Crane's picture? (is there something funny about Kansas that makes people there different from us?)

[Martin]

Well' date=' in such a case, Gaia is no better than a vengeful ...[/quote']

 

Gaius Julius Caesar?

 

Gaius Caligula?

 

Obviously, Gaia would know that it can maintain its homeostasis by eliminating some people, so maybe extreme whether conditions are Gaia's way of defending herself.

 

poor critter, like a dog with fleas.

you can scratch at em but they are very hard to get rid of