The Earth is a planet carrying life. On it, there is the organization of matter that we call life. The Earth is currently the only celestia...
The Earth is a planet carrying life. On it, there is the organization of matter that we call life. The Earth is currently the only celestial body that we know life exists on it. We ourselves, humanity, are also part of the life-bearing part of the Earth, the biosphere. The biosphere covers practically the entire surface of the Earth, in a significant thickness of the surface. Life, which is based on biological evolution — the life-form not created by technical civilization — can be found everywhere on Earth where liquid water is present.
Life on Earth also transforms the surface of the planet. Without the biosphere, the Earth would certainly look completely different. The Earth is in constant change even apart from the presence of life, but life is uniquely transforming the planet. Earth is a living planet.
How does life transform the planet? How does life shape the surface of a planet? What are the characteristics of this process?
Life is a feature of non-equilibrium systems. There can be no life on a celestial body on which the environment is in full balance. Life is the flow of matter and energy, life is based on change, and structural change is only possible in non-equilibrium systems.
An unbalanced system requires a continuous energy intake, is created in the case of a continuous energy intake, and is based on a continuous energy intake. An unbalanced state is only possible with a continuous energy supply. The state of non-equilibrium can be created and maintained by the constantly present, freely available energy. In the case of the Earth, this freely available energy is provided primarily by the temperature difference of the Sun, secondarily by the temperature difference of the interior of the Earth and the Earth's surface, the energy gradient, and energy flow created by the difference.
Life uses the energy flow of the unbalanced environment and uses the flow of matter created by the energy flow, so life uses the unbalanced pressure of the environment for its formation and its operation as a resource.
The functions of life are operated by the non-equilibrium state of the environment. The driving force of life can be provided by any non-equilibrium state that maintains the necessary environmental conditions for life to exist.
Life is a special state of matter. Life is able to change in its structure under the influence of the environment, so that during the change the substance maintains the properties characteristic of the living state. This changing ability is called evolution. Evolution creates different forms of living matter, each of which uses the free energy available by the non-equilibrium states present in the environment to function. Even if the basic working methods are the same in life-forms, evolution creates different living structures of matter and different mechanisms of life for different non-equilibrium states present in the environment.
Life results in a diversity of living matters, and life can use a variety of non-equilibrium pressures through its diversity to function.
The diversity of the life-bearing part of the planet, the biosphere shapes the formation of the unbalanced environment towards equilibrium. A biosphere is built on diversity, as it uses all kinds of non-equilibrium pressures, hence the biosphere is necessarily a negative feedback factor in the environment, which in developed complex form creates the process, which guides the environment towards a state of equilibrium.
What happens in the biosphere when positive feedback processes occur? Despite the fact that the biosphere based on diversity is a negative feedback factor, positive feedback processes can develop in the environment, or processes that significantly and faster than the adaptive capacity of evolution change the material and energy flow processes of the biosphere. These changes can most often be caused by external influences in the environment, such as the impact of a fairly large meteor, or, for example, significant volcanic eruptions. Such effects have occurred several times during our terrestrial life.
The flow processes of matter and energy formed in the biosphere influenced by life itself. Life itself is not an equilibrium process, not an equilibrium system. The diverse biosphere that has evolved through the operation of life, adapted to the non-equilibrium processes present, evolves toward creating balance. However, the environmental change caused by life itself can be faster than the speed of evolution using imbalance.
If the biosphere is not sufficiently diverse, then the biosphere and evolutionary mechanisms do not use the available resources, processes that increase imbalances may develop. This is the case, for example, in the initial phase of life on Earth, the effect of elemental oxygen accumulating in the atmosphere during life, or what is currently happening in the terrestrial biosphere, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the growing impact of the human species on material and energy flows.
A common feature of these processes is that due to changes in the flow processes of matter and energy in the biosphere and the limited operation of the negative feedback factor of the biosphere, some substances accumulate in the environment, others decrease, and imbalances increase.
The stable structure of the biosphere, which was built on the established material and energy flow processes, is distressed as a result of the changing environment. In the overturned biosphere, the living conditions of living organisms change significantly, to which evolution is unable to adapt at a sufficient rate due to the positive feedback from the process. Extinctions and overgrowths occur in the living world. The diversity of the biosphere decreases, thereby increasing imbalances. The possible end result of the process is a collapse across the entire biosphere.
However, if the changed state still carries the conditions necessary for the survival of life, life will not cease.
Life is a feature of non-equilibrium systems. Life is driven by the pressure of energy flow of an unbalanced environment. The driving force of life is the imbalance. In the new environment, a biosphere is emerging as evolution seeks to achieve a new structured balance based on new environmental conditions. There have been examples of this on earth several times. The extinction periods have always been followed by a significant increase in the diversity of life, in which new types of species and a new dominance of existing species are emerging.
The collapses of the biosphere, global extinctions are the catalysts for the formation of new species, the precondition for the formation of new ways of life. The age of dinosaurs, the age of mammals, came into being in this way, and certainly the human race evolved under similar conditions and circumstances.
Currently, positive feedback processes are taking place in the environment. The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a positive feedback factor that helps processes that increase carbon dioxide production. The greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, and the climate is changing at an accelerating rate. Due to rapid climate change, natural food chains are collapsing.
The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been triggered by human activity, and we are continuously contributing to the growth. The growing number of humanity is also accompanied by an increase in human activity and human living space. The dominant species in the current terrestrial biosphere is human, which currently affects the biosphere, the flow processes of matter and energy in the biosphere, to such an extent that these changes result in species extinction.
The extinction of species, the decrease of the diversity of the biosphere is a positive feedback factor in the material and energy flow system of the biosphere. The current terrestrial biosphere is in an accelerating process of collapse.
What is interesting about this process is that the collapse is generated by the human race, but the human race may be the survivor of this collapse. Through its intelligence, biological evolution is no longer the mechanism of adaptation to the changing environment for the human race. It is the technical evolution. The collapsing biosphere also causes significant stress for the human race, but humans, through their intelligence, are able to shape their close environment so that the living conditions can be maintained.
If the human race survives, it will continue on the path of technical evolution, but human behavior will certainly not change. Through his intelligence, humans can adapt to a changing environment, perhaps artificially reduce the positive feedback processes that take place in nature, but we will create new ones over and over again. A species developed by biological evolution, which has the properties and instincts necessary for biological evolution, but which is evolving in technical evolution, necessarily destroys the natural habitat created by nature, the biosphere.
Perhaps this is the context from which it follows that we have not yet found a trace of another intelligent civilization in outer space.
Due to the current positive feedbacks, the existing terrestrial biosphere — if mankind does not intervene consciously and globally, however, has little opportunity to do so because of little time remaining, and limited intention and ability present — will necessarily collapse, resulting in an increase in imbalances.
Yet, the resource of life is a state far from equilibrium. If the conditions for the survival of life are sustained, life will continue. We, the human race, are just now laying the foundations for the new biosphere. Because technical evolution is orders of magnitude faster than biological evolution, there is no possibility for the biosphere to regenerate as long as the species evolved by biological evolution uses the biosphere as habitat for their technical civilization.
Life evolves through evolution in an energetically active, changing, non-equilibrium environment, creating the structure of the biosphere. This is a process characteristic of life as a system. This is the living planet.
Where do we look for a living planet?
Life is a material system based on energy use. A life, which is based on natural evolution is not an equilibrium chemical (intermolecular material and energy flow) system. The components of the living material system are in constant transformation.
(Can it be just an energy-based life of natural origin without material change? No, because evolution is a mechanism that requires the storage and use of information. Information storage is only possible in material-based systems.)
There are well-defined conditions for the natural development of life. Properly active chemical reactions necessarily require a liquid medium where the participants in the reaction can move at a suitable rate and be present at sufficient concentration to allow the structures of the living matter to form spontaneously.
Temperature significantly affects the rate of chemical reactions. The temperature must be high enough for the complex chemical reactions of life to proceed at an appropriate rate, but also low enough that the complex molecules formed for life processes and the structures formed from the molecules do not disintegrate.
The liquid medium for the chemical reactions of naturally functioning biological life and the appropriate temperature range imposes strict environmental requirements.
Liquid water, as can be seen in our terrestrial biosphere, provides a suitable medium and also maintains a suitable temperature for the chemical reactions of life to take place. Water is a particularly suitable material because the liquid state is sustained over a particularly wide temperature range due to the polarity of the water molecule. An object in space can be exposed to large temperature fluctuations. Water can be in a liquid state over a wide temperature range, but at the temperature required for the proper rate of chemical reactions.
Where liquid water is present, the environment is suitable for the natural biological development of life. Ammonia and hydrocarbon compounds may be less suitable, but can also be appropriate materials compared to water.
A liquid medium with the right temperature is a necessary but not satisfactory condition for biological life. Necessary quantities and various forms of chemical constituents must still be present for life to form and survive. Natural biological life on Earth uses many elements to form living structures. Because living structure requires a variety of molecules, this condition appears to be necessary for all kinds of biologically based life. Life can develop on a celestial body where a wide variety of chemical elements are present in great diversity.
Life is a non-equilibrium process that uses external energy. The process has the feature that it requires active, reactive processes based on constant changes in the environment. Life requires energy flow, an energy gradient in the environment. The more active the environment is within the limits necessary to sustain life, the more suitable it is to carry life.
In the case of the Earth, the active environment was provided by several special factors in addition to the Sun's energy transmission, such as water level movements caused by the Moon's presence, climate changes caused by the Earth's axis skew, atmospheric fluctuations, Earth's internal heat dissipation.
The active environment is also provided by the reactive chemical components present. Such an environment is the vicinity of warm water outflows on the seabed, for example.
However, life can also create a chemically active, reactive environment for itself through evolution. In the case of our terrestrial life, the result of this process is an oxygen-containing atmosphere.
The energy gradient is a necessary condition for life. The magnitude of the energy gradient and the rate of change are facilitators of life processes.
Biological life adapts to the changing environment through an evolutionary process based on chemical reactions and creates the biosphere. The rate of chemical reactions in a given environment determines the rate of life processes as well as the rate of evolution. The formation of the evolutionary biosphere is at a rate proportional to the processes of life, but complex at the system level and therefore, a slow process. The minimum conditions required for life for the formation and survival of the biosphere must be maintained for a long time. The Earth is a particularly suitable environment for life because it is able to maintain an energy gradient on a geological time scale within the environmental limits necessary for life.
Can a living planet be recognized from outside by looking at it from a distance?
Life is not an equilibrium process. The result of life is an increase in environmental imbalance. The diverse biosphere created by the evolution of life is a negative feedback factor that reduces imbalances. However, life requires an energy gradient, an imbalance. The life-bearing biosphere is thus an equilibrium process at the non-energetic minimum, negative feedback around an unstable equilibrium state. The biosphere formed by life is, therefore, a system of sensitive stability.
Where is it worth looking for life in space that evolved in a natural way, that is, through chemical reactions, and by biological evolution? There, where a liquid medium is present at a suitable temperature in the companion of rocks providing chemical diversity for a long time in an energetically active environment. This is a necessary condition for the development of life, based on chemical reactions. The atmosphere allows for life on the terrestrial surface to be discoverable from a distance.
Life takes time to develop. Life can only exist where suitable conditions exist for a long time in proportion to the rate of chemical reactions. Life on Earth may have evolved rapidly because the environment, medium, concentration of chemicals, and temperature at the time were conducive to rapid chemical reactions and the formation of complex chemical compounds.
A sufficient condition for the development of life is if the necessary conditions exist for a long time. Time creates life where it is possible. From the outside, however, by observing the system for a moment in time, we cannot know how long the conditions necessary for life have existed, so the presence of the necessary conditions does not necessarily mean the presence of life.
How can life on a celestial body be recognized by remote observation?
Based on the considerations set out above, the presence of life may be a strong indication if chemically active, reactive components are seen in a remotely observable atmosphere or on the surface. Life as a non-equilibrium process itself is capable of creating a gradient of chemical energy in its environment.
Chemical energy gradients can also be created by geological processes. However, in the life-bearing environment, the change in the chemical energy gradient over time has a characteristic shape different from the non-life-bearing environment. A life that has existed for a long time creates diversity, the biosphere. The biosphere is a process of striving for balance, but life in itself is not a system of equilibrium.
Life is a long-standing process due to the negative feedback of the biosphere, showing cyclical phenomena that also operate on a changing time scale. When the conditions of life are favorable, the amount of living matter increases, if the conditions are unfavorable, it decreases. The survival timescale of this process is long, and its cycle is not fixed.
An indication of the presence of a stable biosphere created by living matter may be the aperiodic oscillation on a non-geological time scale around an energetically unstable equilibrium position. Measuring an aperiodic oscillations of any (not limited to what are used by our terrestrial life) chemically active (reactive in the temperature range required for life to survive) component on a non-geological time scale on a celestial body suitable of carrying life may be a strong indication of the presence of the biosphere.
The rate of geological transformation of a distant celestial body (the change of the surface not caused by living matter) is difficult to determine, but if the geological transformation is significantly faster than the rate of change on Earth, it most likely also makes the celestial body unsuitable for carrying biological life (life, which is based on structures created by chemical reactions).
In the case of the Earth, this well-observed active chemical component is elemental oxygen in the atmosphere. The defining sign of the presence of the terrestrial biosphere is the aperiodic and global (whole-surface) oscillation of elemental oxygen concentration on a non-geological time scale. Such changes can be observed remotely.
Such a non-terrestrial biosphere is also possible where the active chemical component is not elemental oxygen but some other substance, still, the general principles set out above certainly apply to all biological life forms.
The conditions and signs of intelligent life evolving through technical evolution are fundamentally different from biological evolution. Technical civilization is based on communication, its characteristic sustaining and operating mechanism is the flow of information, of which remote recognition requires methods other than those applicable to biological life.
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