Re: Gaia

[Judith Rosen <***>]

Dan F. wrote:
> RR talked of life as organism, but Gaia is more compatible
> with life as community-ecosystem with environment integral
> to and inseparable from and co-evolving with life.
Dan, there is nothing incompatible with these two points of view. In fact, the RR view of "life as an organismic quality" and the environment being "integral to and inseparable from" life is very much in keeping with RR's theoretical work. Also the aspect that environments "co-evolve" with life. It's an interactive relation. However, his view was that there is no such thing as either "community" or "ecosystem" until there is ORGANISM. The Gaia hypothesis equates all those to each other. 


DF:
> To me, the origin of life is the origin of Gaia,

I'm going to re-word that because I find the label "Gaia" distasteful. So, tell me if you agree when I say I think the meaning is the same when I reword it as: "The origin of life is the origin of the global ecosystem". If you agree, then I can tell you RR would have no quarrel with you on that, either. He would also say that the origin of life is the origin of evolution; it's where evolution begins.


> but more a
> life-environment mutualism of relation

What you refer to here is COMPLEXITY. It can actually be defined as "a life supporting environment of relations". I don't know about "mutualism": it's a word I associate with organismic behavior. But if you mean it as "mutually interactive" then I agree.



> than a superorganism
> or goddess-like super-symbiosis, than the origin of cells or
> organisms. I admit and have learned on this list that it need
> not be either/or, that we can talk of both - co-arising of the
> small discrete, short-lived whole (cell/organism) within the
> large, continuous long-lived whole (community-ecosystem,
> life-environment relation with open-ended evolutionary
> capacity).

I agree that life, as it exists now on Earth, is only possible as it is because of the interactivity of organisms and communities/ecosystems. We have the diversity encoded into our own organization, and likewise our capabilities (as conferred upon us by that organization) interact with and impact on both community and ecosystem. But I would argue that this: the
> large, continuous long-lived whole (community-ecosystem,
> life-environment relation with open-ended evolutionary
> capacity

Again; here I would say this describes complexity, not life. Living systems are just an aspect of a larger set of potential. The entailment for "open-ended evolutionary capacity" is generated by complexity. In other words; the fact that this is a universe where the interactive relations between things can completely alter the expressed behavior of the things, themselves, is a universe with that kind of open-ended, evolutionary capacity.

> If we colonize off Earth it will be with units of Gaia or whole
> community-ecosystems, not humans only or organisms of any
> one type only. Astronaut Rusty Schweikert (sp?) gave a talk
> that is quoted in Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline at the end. He
> said the view of Earth from space gave him the sense of a
> baby about to be born. That would be a baby Gaia, in my
> incurable wholeness view.

Like I suggested: change the name "Gaia" to "global ecosystem" and you would have a statement that my father would agree with. One of the hallmarks of a complex system, in his view, is that it cannot be fractionated from all contextual constraints and remain intact. 

Judith


> Dan
>
> David Macy wrote:
>
> > Hey guys,
> > Listen, I just read a paper by Donald Mikulecky on the web and there was a bit at the end of the paper that seemed to imply that Robert's work supported the Gaia hypothesis.  I have not come to any such conclusion.
> > In fact, I don't subscribe to the Gaia hypothesis.  I also don't think that it's necessary to subscribe to it in order to know (yes intuitively) that we might ought to take care of our environment.  Sustainability and diversity just make common and aesthetic sense to me.
> > I was wondering what some of you guys thought about this?
> > David