Gaia Hypothesis - what do you think of this philosophy?

I enjoy the theories presented by John Lovelock concerning life and science on planet Earth. I like the ideas of the "the sum of the parts of the whole". My understanding of this hypothesis is all about putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to make one truly all encompassing understanding of how life works on Earth.

What do you think about this controversial and refuted idea?

"The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. Topics of interest include how the biosphere and the evolution of life forms affect the stability of global temperature, ocean salinity, oxygen in the atmosphere and other environmental variables that affect the habitability of Earth."

The problem with this theory is according to evolution organisms compete and while organism will cooperate with other organism they do this to compete with other organisms. Evolution has no foresight and there is often an incentive to cheat the system. Unfortunately as mass extinction events has shown everything is not working together.

Vesha wrote: The problem with this theory is according to evolution organisms compete and while organism will cooperate with other organism they do this to compete with other organisms. Evolution has no foresight and there is often an incentive to cheat the system. Unfortunately as mass extinction events has shown everything is not working together.

This is true. Life isn't working together for some all encompassing goal. As far as I can tell its all about diversity. Life creates diverse life in order to have a greater chance to survive. Though this planet has gone through a number of mass extinctions its because of this diversity that our planet isn't lifeless.

How ever, with the exception of humans so far, there is NO cheating the system. Anything that cheats the system dies. :dry:

All life on earth might not be working towards some obvious goal but they also dont compete to destroy them selves either. Those that do are cheating the system and in turn die.

Baru if you'd like to learn more about how life works on earth I'd recommend learning about the ABC's of ecology. ^.^

This sounds a lot like what I believe in. I do a lot of work with plants and animals. I've done experiments with my greenhouse to create microclimates and it's crazy what happens. Buckminster Fuller had a word "synergetics" which was a good start down the road to understanding nature. Synergy is where you get more out of a system than you put in due to the interactions in the system. So maybe our biosphere is more than just a zero sum phenomenon. Maybe we are all more than the sum of our parts and therefore the biosphere is more than the sum of its inhabitants. C'est non?

All life evolved through symbiosis - through cooperation things became increasingly complex. That is accepted.

The idea of super-organism is explored interestingly, with a LOT of scientific and anthropologic research, in the book 'the Lucifer Principle' which explains collectivist behavior in humans. Although I don't like the name of the book, it makes a compelling case for super-organism behavior.

However, to conclude that the Earth itself is a living being .... kinda stretches it. For instance, we breathe the oxygen emitted by trees and they breathe our carbon, and animals and trees for a sort of superorganism ... but we don't share consciousness or oneness in the same way that the cells in our body make up who we are.

All life evolved through symbiosis - through cooperation things became increasingly complex. That is accepted.

Er, no...

The introduction of free oxygen almost killed everything on the planet.

Life evolved through persistence and adaptation, and even then, not everything did. Some things went extinct.

Things became more complex in order to continue on, and complex in itself is a strange word to use.

Life competes for resources, for survival, adapting hopefully at a faster rate,if you watch, certain plants reach higher for the sun, and effectively starve other plants below.

Animals fight over prey, or food, space, places in the pack, pride, etc.

There is also the fact that the earth and what it is is not simply just the planet itself, there are factors outside of the planet that allow us to survive as well, such things as simple as our placement in where we are in conjunction to the sun.

I think the general goal of life is to perpetuate life. Yes we've had mass extinctions, but life, in general, survived and got to spread it's diversity, ensuring that as long as one species can self-perpetuate, life will continue to exist.

This works in a smaller scale, too. The purpose of every cell in your body is to keep you going. Yes, you can lose a limb, but our bodies are remarkably resilient. Increase the scale, and BAM, planet Earth.

SMullinax wrote: I think the general goal of life is to perpetuate life. ensuring that as long as one species can self-perpetuate, life will continue to exist.

I love this statement. I do believe the Earth is trying to "reproduce". I feel that is why humans are drawn to the stars. We are the pollen of the Planet. We will go out - to where noone else has gone before - to fine M class planets and "Reproduce". All like reproduces. If the Earth is a self regulating organism - it would want to bare fruit and prosper just like the Micro-organisms living on its skin.


I like that the Gaia theory brings in and allows for the wonder and mystery. Lovelock states (based on my memory) that we need to allow for 20% magic, unknown and mystery (the Force, lol) in all science. We only know what we know with what we have to know it with - we cannot know everything because we are limited in our perspective and scope. This kind of "real" science is amazing to me. I call it a Medium Science - like Archaeology - verses a hard science like Math or a "soft" science like psychology. Gaia is open to the possibility that we could be "wrong" or that there is something even bigger happening.

Lovelock states (based on my memory) that we need to allow for 20% magic, unknown and mystery (the Force, lol) in all science

More than that.

The fact that we dont know things,and that there is mystery is why we have science.

However,answers too, come with there own awe,and magic.

Many things open the possibility that we could be wrong, but then again, we could be right, which comes with its own possibilities, and I think that those possibilities get there due.

This is the closest I get to contemplating the Gaia theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrYYqCfHJmA

Blue Star wrote: All life evolved through symbiosis - through cooperation things became increasingly complex. That is accepted.

The idea of super-organism is explored interestingly, with a LOT of scientific and anthropologic research, in the book 'the Lucifer Principle' which explains collectivist behavior in humans. Although I don't like the name of the book, it makes a compelling case for super-organism behavior.

However, to conclude that the Earth itself is a living being .... kinda stretches it. For instance, we breathe the oxygen emitted by trees and they breathe our carbon, and animals and trees for a sort of superorganism ... but we don't share consciousness or oneness in the same way that the cells in our body make up who we are.

I also work with bees, which are super-organisms. I think people mix and match "Earth" and "Biosphere" interchangeably because the Earth includes the biosphere. Although bees form their own superorganism, they would die without pollen from flowers and now they are a super-duper organism. Similarly, most plants would die without pollinators and most animals would die without plants.

I think we all understand the symbiosis but there's another effect. It's the effect that results from a dynamic system. For example, a human is a dynamic system and the consciousness is the effect. Throw in a bunch of humans and you get a collective consciosness which allows people to work together and do more things than one alone. Then throw in humans, plants, animals, etc and you get this biosphere