The collective activity of life—all of the microbes, plants, and animals—have changed planet Earth.
The collective activity of life—all of the microbes, plants, and animals—have changed planet Earth.
Take, for example, plants: plants ‘invented’ a way of undergoing photosynthesis to enhance their own survival, but in so doing, released oxygen that changed the entire function of our planet. This is just one example of individual lifeforms performing their own tasks, but collectively having an impact on a planetary scale.
If the collective activity of life—known as the biosphere—can change the world, could the collective activity of cognition, and action based on this cognition, also change a planet? Once the biosphere evolved, Earth took on a life of its own. If a planet with life has a life of its own, can it also have a mind of its own?
These are questions posed by Adam Frank, the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester, and his colleagues David Grinspoon at the Planetary Science Institute and Sara Walker at Arizona State University, in a paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Their self-described “thought experiment” combines current scientific understanding about the Earth with broader questions about how life alters a planet. In the paper, the researchers discuss what they call “planetary intelligence”—the idea of cognitive activity operating on a planetary scale—to raise new ideas about the ways in which humans might tackle global issues such as climate change.
Reae more at University of Rochester
Image: In a self-described "thought experiment," University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank and colleagues David Grinspoon at the Planetary Science Institute and Sara Walker at Arizona State University use scientific theory and broader questions about how life alters a planet, to posit four stages to describe Earth's past and possible future. (Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw)
