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YOU WILL FIND GAIA IN THE "RELIGION" CONFERENCE TOPIC 242. SIMPLY
DO "ADD ENTRY AITG::RELIGION".
INTERESTING BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT NOT MENTIONED THERE ARE:
PETER RUSSEL, THE AWAKENING EARTH: THE GLOBAL BRAIN, ARK PAPERBACK,
1984 (FIRST PUB. IN 82)
GAIA, AN ATLAS OF PLANET MANAGEMENT, DR NORMAN MYERS EDITOR,ANCHOR
PRESS, 1984
YVON
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John Varley wrote a series of novels (Titan, Wizard and Demon) in
which one of the main protagonist is the neurotic central brain/god
of an artificial ecosphere which is detect and investigated by a team
from Earth. This being, who has been studying the Earth for millenia,
calls herself Gaea, and the various regions of the ecosphere, and their
subordinate brains, are named after the Titans (in Greek mythology, the
twelve children of Heaven and Earth). These novels make the concept
reasonably scientifically plausible--Gaea is a gigantic genetically
engineered life-form.
Is this the sort of thing you meant?
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| There's a theory kicking around ecology these days called the
Gaia Hypothesis. It was originally proposed by Lynn Margulis, a
microbiologist at Boston Univ., and James Lovelock, a English
scientist and inventor. (He came up with a way to detect
extremely small concentrations of chlorofluorcarbons, which led
to the orginal concern about their effects on the ozone layer).
I believe their book on it is called the Gaia Hypothesis.
The idea is that the earth is a self-regulating system, with the
feedback provided by biological organisms. The earth's
temperature, rainfall, oxygen, and carbon dioxide levels are
maintained within fairly narrow limits by the action of life.
If the temperature rises too high, perhaps because of a change in
the output of the Sun, less CO2 is produced and so more heat is
radiated away. If too much greenery produces too much oxygen,
fires break out to consume it. Other loops control other items.
The net result is that the conditions for life are maintained by
life, even over the course of hundreds of millions of years.
Some interpret this in mystical terms. They see the whole earth
as alive. We are all cells of this super-organism. It has lived
for billions of years and will live for billions more. The
atmosphere is its skin, the earth is its bones, and humanity is
its nervous system. That might be a blow to one's racial pride,
but isn't it better to be part of something immortal and grand
rather than a mayfly bag of chemicals? That's the way the
eco-mystics see it anyway.
Others question the whole idea, saying, a) the earth's
environment is not particularly stable (witness the Ice Ages),
and b) there are mechanical means by which certain variables can
be controlled. Excess CO2 can be sucked up by combining it with calcium.
Temp levels can be controlled by cloud cover or icecap extent.
The scientific debate is quite vigorous, and will probably end up
with a combination of mechanical and biological mechanisms. The
theory has inspired a lot of controversy, perhaps because of its
religious overtones.
/jlr
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