Is our planet alive?

[hermanntrude]

I think there is too much opportunity for divergence. I think it would be different. It would also depend on the environment and the other lifeforms which evolved simultaneously. So many factors would be different to the first time round. I think we'd see something in totally new form, but still with recognisable organs and sense organs.

 

[karrie]

yes... shows do get it wrong at times.... scientists make mistakes and the producers interpretting their findings make mistakes. I guess we'll know in 5-10 000 years. lol.

 

[Tonington]

It's kinda mind boggling to run all the possibilities I can think of through my head. The microbes have developed resistances to so many of our anti-biotics, perhaps the environment would be very similar by the time higher life forms came about. Too many possibiliteis, fun to think about though. Hehe, maybe large super intelligent cockroaches like the movie Men In Black.

 

[hermanntrude]

i work in nanotechnology, and there was a big documentary on it on UK TV. it was terrible. They didnt interview a single reputable scientist. They looked for the freaks and waifs and strays. they looked at the scariest possible outcomes of nanotechnology and basically ruined nanotechnology's name in the UK. I sitll have people ask me if i make nanobots which eat people alive. How stupid

 

[Tonington]

I read an article on nanotechnology in National Geographic not too long ago. I also remember a brief lecture from my Chem Prof. Interesting stuff really, the different properties and all.

 

[karrie]

I think there is too much opportunity for divergence. I think it would be different. It would also depend on the environment and the other lifeforms which evolved simultaneously. So many factors would be different to the first time round. I think we'd see something in totally new form, but still with recognisable organs and sense organs.

Here's a show you might be interested in... I think it was called Extraterrestrial. National Geographic commissioned some scientists to create speculative worlds, based on conditions that they thought might occur on some other planet, somewhere else. Blue Moon and Aurelia were the planets they created, and the life forms they forecasted evolving were quite interesting. It was an attempt to illustrate how different lifeforms will look when conditions are different from Earth. It helped dispell the Star Trek view of the world, that there will be human like creatures to find all over the place. lol. But it helps illustrate how different the next wave of population on Earth would look with just a bit of environmental difference.

http://www.answers.com/topic/aurelia-and-blue-moon

 

[karrie]

i work in nanotechnology, and there was a big documentary on it on UK TV. it was terrible. They didnt interview a single reputable scientist. They looked for the freaks and waifs and strays. they looked at the scariest possible outcomes of nanotechnology and basically ruined nanotechnology's name in the UK. I sitll have people ask me if i make nanobots which eat people alive. How stupid

I just critiqued an essay for class which discussed doomsday scenarios. The man who wrote it actually used sci-fi writers to help justify his theories. he'd give an example of a sci-fi story, and then show that scientists do similar experiments to what went wrong in the story.... SO!? lol. Nanotechnology was one of the ones he really harped on. All I could think is, if my microwave isn't taking over the world or killing people, would it suddenly if I made it microscopic?

 

[hermanntrude]

there was something like that in the UK,where they guessed at what might evolve from today's creatures over the next few million years. they showed the mediterranean dried up with weird pig like animals in it and so on. interesting but pure fancy. you just cant predict it

 

[Tonington]

Found the vid on youtube here.

 

[talloola]

Yes, I think the earth is alive, though I suppose that would depend on what you think "alive" means. It isn't going to reproduce, for instance, which according to the biologists is one of the defining characteristics of life, but I think we need a broader definition than that.

"us" and all the animals/birds/fish are a result of the "life production" of the earth, as well as all
the "plant" life.
The EARTH produced "us"as a result of it's "vitality" including water.

There's an immensely complex web of life at the earth's surface, which I'd roughly define as a thin layer about 10 kilometres thick centred on the actual physical surface. It's full of complex feedback loops we haven't even begun to understand, but it seems pretty clear to me that all life depends on all other life, and humanity, with our unfortunate aptitude for laying waste to large parts of it, is by any reasonable definition a plague upon the planet. The geological record shows at least five great extinction events in the planet's history, and there's currently a sixth one going on that is entirely due to human activities. We're raping the planet, there are at least twice too many of us here for planetary health, but nature has a way of taking care of such things. There will be plagues, famines... 6 billion people cannot live here at the levels of consumption we enjoy in America, Canada, and western Europe.
If some of the "middle east" and "some far east" countries, and "africa" could progress to a stage where
they realized the harm we are all doing as a result of "population" they could help, and the rest of us are justoo greedy, and don't think of our earth "first" and ourselves "last".

And the sorriest fact to me is that we have the know ledge and the means to save ourselves and our planet in our hands right now, but greed and folly and short-sightedness prevent us from applying them. We have the means and the knowledge, but not the will,
Yes, I second that.

and nature will exact a horrible price for that unless we take control ourselves. The basic fact is that there are just too many of us and we're reproducing too fast. It's not sustainable. If we don't control ourselves, nature will, in very unpleasant ways
Yes, I suppose that is correct, but again, it seems impossible, as the people on this earth can't seem
to do that, it is very sad, as our earth is our "creator" and if we would give it the same respect and
admiration that the religious people give their "god" we would probably accomplish so much more.

 

[hermanntrude]

thnaks for the lecture on the state of the planet and human's role in it. I think this is probably one of the most widely known things in the modern world. we're screwing it up. We all know it but we dont do anything about it. collective responsibility, individual lethargy and greed. surprise.

maybe the thing about humankind is that no other life form solely depends on it... maybe that's not true? anyone got any examples?

 

[Tonington]

That's hard to say, there are plenty of animals and plants which have been domesticated, I believe a preofessor told me once that the corn we grow wouldn't survive without our intervention. Maybe also some of the endangered animals we've "saved" like bison or whooping cranes, though they never would have been selected for extinction without our hand.

 

[hermanntrude]

symbiotic bacteria maybe?

 

[Tonington]

Like the ones that colonize our gut and skin after birth?

 

[hermanntrude]

maybe. probably they exist in other animals too though