Most people consider sentience and cognition to be characteristics of individual creatures, but the authors of a new research contend that intelligence occurs on a global level and that all biology on Earth functions as a single conscious system.
The researchers argue in the International Journal of Astrobiology that humanity is now out of sync with the total planetary intelligence and that our capacity to synchronize our activities with the global mind may be critical to our future survival.
Unlike the traditional understanding of evolution as a mechanism of conflict and struggle between different species, the authors’ model suggests that life is a single, cooperative network. Rather than competing with one another, each species arises to play its part in sustaining the biosphere’s equilibrium.
Earth systems science is the exploration of life from this viewpoint, and it aims to reveal how various species operate together rather than versus one another to help maintain planetary systems.
The four stages of planetary evolution
Four phases of planetary evolution are described by the researchers. The first is an immature biosphere, which involves the advent of living organisms that have not yet gained the capacity to collaborate in order to control planetary systems.
The mature biosphere follows, in which all creatures on a planet work together to preserve the ideal circumstances for life to flourish. The immature technosphere, on the other hand, is defined by the emergence of technologies that have an impact on the globe but are not unified with the remainder of the biosphere, eventually working against it.
This is the stage at which humanity presently finds itself, according to the writers. We can only be members of the planetary intelligence and ensure our destiny as a species by advancing to a mature technosphere, where our industrial endeavors begin to assist the planet.
Such perfect collaboration, on the other hand, takes time to establish, and species must adapt in order to blend into this global awareness.
