Earth is full of intelligent life, at least 7.5 billion, but what about Earth? Is the earth itself intelligent? Is Earth a planetary intelligence?
A team from the University of Rochester and Arizona State University studied this question and found that the collective activity of life on Earth is changing the world, and our planet really has its own life, but does it have its own thoughts?
Researchers believe that the creation of planetary intelligence is entirely possible. For example, many recent studies have shown that the root system of trees in the forest is interconnected through underground fungal chains, forming a forest nervous system. This network of fungi enables forests that stretch for hundreds of miles to recognize and respond to changing natural conditions, and if one part of the forest needs nutrients, other parts will transport the nutrients they need to survive through the mycorrhizal network to the stressed parts, thus maintaining the forest's own viability.
Bees and other gregarious insects, for example, have shown evidence of collective intelligence, and a single bee may have only a small amount of information about the world, but when combined into a swarm, they can respond to the environment as a whole.
The researchers believe that planetary intelligence is a complex system with dense feedback loops and interactive networks that appear as a higher-level phenomenon in the activities of countless low-level participants, a planet that truly realizes planetary intelligence, and life will not be destroyed over time. Scientists believe that the development of planetary intelligence will go through four stages, and our planet is in the third stage.
The first stage is the immature life circle. Life appeared on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, but at this stage life was less than 5% capable of using energy today, making it unable to exert force on the atmosphere, hydrosphere, or other planetary systems. At this time, although there was life on Earth, there was almost no global feedback loop, so there was no sign of wisdom.
The second stage is the mature life circle. Between about 2.5 billion and 540 million years ago, due to the formation of stable continents, plants "invented" photosynthesis— an ability to absorb water and carbon dioxide and spit out oxygen, thus becoming game-changers. Oxygen accumulates in the atmosphere, the ozone layer protects life from dangerous ultraviolet radiation, and feedback loops composed of life and non-life preserve and respond to information in a meaningful way, and the lifesphere has a strong impact on the earth, helping to maintain the habitability of the earth. In other words, this is when Earth begins to become intelligent, and that's when planetary intelligence begins to work on developing self-sustaining habitability for the entire system.
The third stage is the immature technical circle. This is the stage at which our planet is now located, with intelligent life emerging on Earth and the development of interconnected communications, transportation, technology, electricity, and computer systems. However, the current technological circle is immature because it is not integrated into other systems of the Earth, such as the atmospheric circulation, but instead draws material and energy from the Earth system, thus pushing the entire system into a new state that may not include the technical circle itself. In other words, the technosphere is foolishly working against itself and expelling itself from the planet, leading to the death of the planet, making it difficult to say that the Earth at this time is a complete planetary intelligence.
The fourth stage is the mature technical circle. The planet at this stage is a truly intelligent entity, forming true planetary intelligence, with a technological system that benefits the entire planet, and will no longer actively reduce the habitability of the planet. We don't yet know how planetary intelligence will manifest itself, but at least in the way energy is collected, it will no longer allow the use of fossil energy that destroys itself, but will use solar energy and other forms of energy that do not harm the lifesphere, and the mature technological circle will integrate the technical system with the planet by building a complex system with a network of feedback loops, thus forming a self-sustaining planetary intelligence.
So from now on, our planet already has signs of intelligence, but the 7.5 billion so-called intelligent beings that inhabit it are killing it and pushing it to the brink of destruction. Destroying the ozone layer that protects life is just one of the foolish acts, and even more stupid is the crazy act of pumping out the fossil fuels that countless lives have buried deep underground to create a livable environment, and starting to self-destruct and heat up the entire planet. Sure, some truly intelligent beings are aware of this and are making efforts to steer evolution in the fourth stage of the planetary intelligence, but can this effort resist the forces of greed and stupidity?