{"id":10313,"date":"2022-02-18T22:34:26","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T22:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1380919"},"modified":"2022-02-18T22:34:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T22:34:26","slug":"scientists-say-humans-are-part-of-a-planetary-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=10313","title":{"rendered":"Scientists say humans are part of a \u2018planetary intelligence\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What if we could zoom out past our own myopic point of view and see the planet Earth and all of its inhabitants as one giant global intelligence?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question a trio of researchers recently tackled in a paper<\/a> titled \u201cIntelligence as a planetary scale process.\u201d<\/p>\n

AKA: the \u201cBy your powers combined, I am Captain Planet\u201d theory, as we like to call it here at Neural.<\/p>\n

This one\u2019s a bit of a doozy. The paper itself is intriguing, but my first instinct was to call it ironically boring and painfully optimistic.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a snippet from the abstract:<\/p>\n

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We consider the ways in which the appearance of technological intelligence may represent a kind of planetary scale transition, and thus might be seen not as something which happens on a planet but to a planet, much as some models propose the origin of life itself was a planetary phenomenon.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anybody else getting \u201cDune<\/a>\u201d vibes?<\/p>\n

Aliens<\/h2>\n

Oh you weren\u2019t expecting this to be about aliens? Neither were we. Thank goodness for PR.<\/p>\n

A press release<\/a> from the University of Rochester implicates this research in the quest for extraterrestrial life:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe\u2019re saying the only technological civilizations we may ever see\u2014the ones we should expect to see \u2014 are the ones that didn\u2019t kill themselves, meaning they must have reached the stage of a true planetary intelligence,\u201d[lead author Adam Frank] says. \u201cThat\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Okay, so this is really about climate change. Basically, if we live long enough to solve climate change, we\u2019ll meet aliens?<\/p>\n

Kinda, yeah. The researchers seem to be positing that observations on how Earth\u2019s climate adjusts to technological advancements will give us great insight into what we should be looking for when we search for signs of advanced intelligence in the universe.<\/p>\n

Climate change<\/h2>\n

The researchers describe a sort of evolutionary ebb and flow between the unfettered world before the advent of technology, the destruction of the climate by the use of technology, and the ultimate saving of the planet by\u2026 more technology.<\/p>\n

In their words:<\/p>\n

\n

We believe the concept of planetary intelligence holds promise in providing a framework for understanding possible paths of long-term inhabited planetary evolution that is both broad and deep. Most important, it may ultimately help unite disparate perspectives into a single explanatory paradigm for the transitions in the Earth-system observed in the past, with what we are experiencing now and will experience in the future evolution of the Earth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In this view, it seems like humans are an infantile species who\u2019ll ultimately grow up to save the planet from the harm we\u2019ve caused. Climate change is our responsibility, but it\u2019s not our fault because we are the world and the world is us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to be off the hook, but we\u2019ve still got to figure out how to fix the problems. And that\u2019s where the researchers say we should literally<\/em> start thinking globally.<\/p>\n

Per the paper:<\/p>\n

\n

Our explicit definition of planetary intelligence is the acquisition and application of collective knowledge, operating at a planetary scale, which is integrated into the function of coupled planetary systems.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sure thing science people. We\u2019ll just grab ground-truth data from the whole planet and shove it in our \u201ccoupled planetary systems.\u201d That\u2019ll solve the problem.<\/p>\n

Was that grouchy? Sorry. It\u2019s just that I don\u2019t feel very much like a single, blameless neuron in a planetary intelligence scheme.<\/p>\n

Counterpoint: Humans are parasites<\/h2>\n

The researchers\u2019 paper concludes:<\/p>\n

\n

An exploration of an exploration of planetary intelligence can draw together three domains of study: the evolution and function of Earth\u2019s biosphere; the current emergence of the technosphere in the Anthropocene; and the astrobiology of worlds inhabited by technologically capable exo-civilizations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Our takeaway is a little different. Perhaps a thought experiment wherein we view intelligence from a planet-scale point of view is helpful when it comes to imagining the ramifications of human-caused climate shift.<\/p>\n

And it sure feels nice to think of this whole climate crisis thing as mere teething troubles as we ultimately find our place as part of the Earth\u2019s self-preservation machine.<\/p>\n

But the fact of the matter is that humans aren\u2019t bystanders working to overcome the hand we\u2019ve been dealt.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re the architects of our own nightmares<\/a>. Every system the Earth built to protect itself is faltering under the strain of humanity, from the individual biospheres separating savannah lions from jungle panthers that no longer exist to the polar ice caps that stood in place for millions of years until air conditioning was invented.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re parasites. We\u2019re the only living beings that take more from the planet than we contribute.<\/p>\n

Maybe climate shift is a natural function of our evolution towards planetary intelligence. And maybe it\u2019s just the planet slowly becoming uninhabitable because humans are greedy and dumb.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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