Planetary Intelligence
Definition
Frank A, Grinspoon D, Walker S:
"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. One nascent example would be the global response to the planetary-scale crisis of ozonosphere erosion by CFCs. Another, still very much a work in progress, could be a global response to the crisis of anthropogenic global warming. However, we call these examples ‘nascent’ because, while they involve a global coordinated response to a potential existential threat, the decision-making is at the level of localized activities of individuals and governments. As wewill describe, a transition to global planetary intelligence should include a kind of intelligence that is more than the aggregate sum of the localized activities of life on smaller scales. We are interested in properties that exist at the scale of biospheres and/or technospheres (where technospheres are the aggregate planetary activity of technology; Herrmann-Pilath, 2018), and in their coupling to other planetary systems (e.g. geospheres), that are not apparent in individual organisms and subsystems comprising a biosphere or technosphere. Thus, the cognitive activity we are interested in must operate via feedback loops that are global in scale, coordination and operation. The concept of ‘human computation’ is one relevant example. Human computation includes examples where humans are computational elements in information processing systems, such as crowd-sourced activities like wiki editing or human-assisted AI (Michelucci et al., 2015). In addition, by defining planetary intelligence in terms of cognitive activity – i.e. in terms of knowledge that is only apparent at a global scale– we are explicitly broadening our view of technological intelligence beyond species that can reason or build tools in the traditional sense. We note that terms such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘cognition’ are usually reserved to describe individuals, but it is exactly our goal to push these concepts and determine in what sense they can apply to planetary-scale processes. We will clarify these points in the sections that follow. There are successive distinct domains where we wish to explore the operation, and effect, of planetary intelligence. We will argue that each relates to a different, but successive, phase of planetary evolution."
Typology
Frank A, Grinspoon D, Walker S:
Four possible domains of planetary intelligence.
(a) On a planet with an immature biosphere (such as the Earth during the Archean Eon) there are insufficient feedback loops between life and geophysical coupled systems to exert strong co-evolution.
(b) On a planet with a mature biosphere (such as Earth after the Proterozoic) the biosphere exerts strong forcing on the geophysical state establishing full co-evolution of the entire system. This feedback may provide some degree of long-term stabilizing (i.e. Gaian) modulations for the full system.
(c) On a planet with an immature Technosphere (represented by the current Anthropocene Earth) feedbacks from technological activity produce strong enough forcing on the coupled planetary system to drive it into new dynamical states. These forcings however are unconstrained by intention relative to the health of the civilization producing the technology.
(d) On a planet with a mature Technosphere, feedback loops between technological activity and biogeochemical and biogeophysical states have been intentionally modified to ensure maximum stability and productivity of the full system. Alongside each planetary image, we show a schematic atmospheric spectrum.
An immature biosphere would show an atmosphere mostly in equilibrium dominated perhaps by CO2. In a mature biosphere life would have changed atmospheric chemistry leading to a highly non-equilibrium state such as perhaps high concentrations of O2. In an immature Technosphere new ‘pollutant’ species appear, such as CFCs, while industrial activities such as combustion may alter the abundance of other preexisting gases like CO2 and methane. In a mature Technosphere all atmospheric constituents may have their concentrations modified to produce long-term stable and productive states for the full (civilization + biosphere) system. This is represented via a range of possible peaks for different constituents."