Can a planet have a mind of its own? – University of Rochester

February 16, 2022

The collective activity of lifeall of the microbes, plants, and animalshave 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 lifeknown as the biospherecan 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 planetwith life has a life of its own, can it also have a mind of its own?

If we ever hope to survive as a species, we must use our intelligence for the greater good of the planet, says Adam Frank.

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 Walkerat 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 intelligencethe idea of cognitive activity operating on a planetary scaleto raise new ideas about the ways in which humans might tackle global issues such as climate change.

As Frank says, If we ever hope to survive as a species, we must use our intelligence for the greater good of the planet.

Frank, Grinspoon, and Walker draw from ideas such as the Gaia hypothesiswhich proposes that the biosphere interacts strongly with the non-living geological systems of air, water, and land to maintain Earths habitable stateto explain that even a non-technologically capable species can display planetary Intelligence. The key is that the collective activity of life creates a system that is self-maintaining.

For example, Frank says, many recent studies have shown how the roots of the trees in a forest connect via underground networks of fungi known as mycorrhizal networks. If one part of the forest needs nutrients, the other parts send the stressed portions the nutrients they need to survive, via the mycorrhizal network. In this way, the forest maintains its own viability.

Right now, our civilization is what the researchers call an immature technosphere, a conglomeration of human-generated systems and technology that directly affects the planet but is not self-maintaining. For instance, the majority of our energy usage involves consuming fossil fuels that degrade Earths oceans and atmosphere. The technology and energy we consume to survive are destroying our home planet, which will, in turn, destroy our species.

To survive as a species, then, we need to collectively work in the best interest of the planet.

But, Frank says, we dont yet have the ability to communally respond in the best interests of the planet. There is intelligence on Earth, but there isnt planetary intelligence.

The researchers posit four stages of Earths past and possible future to illustrate how planetary intelligence might play a role in humanitys long-term future. They also show how these stages of evolution driven by planetary intelligence may be a feature of any planet in the galaxy that evolves life and a sustainable technological civilization.

University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw

Planets evolve through immature and mature stages, and planetary intelligence is indicative of when you get to a mature planet, Frank says. The million-dollar question is figuring out what planetary intelligence looks like and means for us in practice because we dont know how to move to a mature technosphere yet.

Although we dont yet know specifically how planetary intelligence might manifest itself, the researchers note that a mature technosphere involves integrating technological systems with Earth through a network of feedback loops that make up a complex system.

Put simply, a complex system is anything built from smaller parts that interact in such a fashion that the overall behavior of the system is entirely dependent on the interaction. That is, the sum is more than the whole of its parts. Examples of complex systems include forests, the Internet, financial markets, and the human brain.

By its very nature, a complex system has entirely new properties that emerge when individual pieces are interacting. It is difficult to discern the personality of a human being, for instance, solely by examining the neurons in her brain.

That means it is difficult to predict exactly what properties might emerge when individuals form a planetary intelligence. However, a complex system like planetary intelligence will, according to the researchers, have two defining characteristics: it will have emergent behavior and will need to be self-maintaining.

The biosphere figured out how to host life by itself billions of years ago by creating systems for moving around nitrogen and transporting carbon, Frank says. Now we have to figure out how to have the same kind of self-maintaining characteristics with the technosphere.

Despite some efforts, including global bans on certain chemicals that harm the environment and a move toward using more solar energy,we dont have planetary intelligence or a mature technosphere yet, he says. But the whole purpose of this research is to point out where we should be headed.

Raising these questions, Frank says, will not only provide information about the past, present, and future survival of life on Earth but will also help in the search for life and civilizations outside our solar system. Frank, for instance, is the principal investigator on a NASA grant to search for technosignatures of civilizations on planets orbiting distant stars.

Were saying the only technological civilizations we may ever seethe ones we should expect to seeare the ones that didnt kill themselves, meaning they must have reached the stage of a true planetary intelligence, he says. Thats the power of this line of inquiry: it unites what we need to know to survive the climate crisis with what might happen on any planet where life and intelligence evolve.

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Can a planet have a mind of its own? - University of Rochester