Biosfera and Noosphere

In my previous post, I mentioned the three stages of cosmic evolution. The Russian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky, along with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and other neo-Darwinists, developed an entire philosophy for cosmic evolution along..

...nine levels of complexity, which can be grouped into three stages: the lithosphere (levels 1 to 5, the "dead" matter, organised by elementary physical laws), the biosphere (levels 6 to 8, the "living" matter, organised by genetic codes and reflexes), and the noosphere (level 9, the "thinking" matter, organised by the software of the human brain). The notion of Noosphere refers to the process of reorganising humans and humanity from a chaotic, conflicting level into a harmonic, constructive and creative cooperation. It includes all the developing knowledge and social structures for the realisation of this aim. (- via the Noosphere Website)

Vernadsky is generally agreed upon as the first to popularize* the term 'biosphere' ("biosphera") through "a scientific understanding of the 'Biosphere' - the thin strata where life exists on the Earth and the "'Noosphere' - the realm of the activity of human thought."

In his work, Vernadsky argued that even as humanity establishes itself as a geological force in terms of its impact on the ecology of earth, the "strength of human reason" would prevail and that scientific thought would overcome the negative results of technogenesis and would secure "the rational transformation (and not annihilation) of the natural components of the biosphere." [1]

Almost 75 years ago, "reflecting on his world, he (Vernadsky) made a startling observation: through technology and sheer numbers, he wrote, people were becoming a geological force, shaping the planet's future just as rivers and earthquakes had shaped its past. Eventually, wrote the scientist, Vladimir I. Vernadsky, global society, guided by science, would soften the human environmental impact, and earth would become a ''noosphere,'' a planet of the mind, ''life's domain ruled by reason.'' - via Managing Planet Earth, NY Times.

Lets hope he was right!

(* Wikipedia enlightens: "He is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere (review) in which he inadvertently worked to popularized Eduard Suess’ 1885 term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth.")

Related: Read this excerpt from an essay by VI Vernadsky on the Bisphere and the Noosphere, translated by his son for the American Scientist in January 1945. Also, 5 essays from Russian scientists about Vernadsky and his profound impact on a large number of fields he studied and philosophized about.

The preface to the essays at the link points out an interesting tidbit that brings this full circle back to Freeman Dyson and his discourses about the atom bomb.

His research broadened our knowledge about the biosphere. It was Vernadsky who predicted its inevitable transformation into the noösphere under the influence of scientific development and collective human activities. His ideas about evolution have lost none of their practical value to this very day. As a result, he is even closer to us than to his contemporaries who failed to appreciate the significance of his biospheric concept and many other ideas. His analysis of atomic power prospects bears out his phenomenal far-sightedness. The phenomenon of radioactivity was discovered at the turn of the century. Ten years later, in December 1910, Vernadsky made a report at the General Assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in which he predicted that in a short while man would learn to control the disintegration rate which would give him an unprecedented source of power. Few people agreed with him then. He returned to the subject in 1922 and asked if mankind was ready for the inevitable and early advent of atomic energy and whether it will use this energy for its own good or for self-destruction.

Related book to read: The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change by Vaclav Smil, which coincidentally is reviewed by Freeman Dyson for the New York Review and is also included (Chapter 5) inf the previously discussed book, The Scientist as Rebel .) Also, recommended is Dyson's collected series of the Gifford Lectures, titled "In Praise of Diversity", given at Aberdeen, Scotland in November 1985 and published later as a book - Infinite in All Directions. In the book he focuses on the diversity of the natural world and the diversity of human reactions.

Kind related: Nature of Global Consciousness: this "Noosphere project" at Princeton aims to "examine subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world."