Ecology: biology of interaction. 2.02. Noosphere

Ukrainian Language (latest version) / Russian Language (update stopped)

2.01. Biosphere

D. Shabanov, M. Kravchenko. Ecology: Biology of Interaction Chapter 2. Biospherology

2.03. Gaia Hypothesis

{ "title": "Ukrainian language (latest version) / Russian language (update discontinued)", "summary": "The article discusses the concept of the noosphere, tracing its origins from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and V.I. Vernadsky, examining their philosophical and scientific interpretations, and evaluating later developments by scholars such as N.N. Moiseev. It highlights the transition from biosphere to noosphere, the role of human consciousness, and contemporary analogies with the Internet (Web 2.0). The text also presents critical views on the scientific validity of the noosphere and its implications for humanity’s future evolution.", "body": "2.01. Biosphere\n\nD. Shabanov, M. Kravchenko. Ecology: the biology of interaction\nChapter 2. Biospherology\n\n2.03. Gaia hypothesis\n\n2.02. Noosphere\nI feel so solidary with all living beings that it does not matter to me where an individual begins and ends.\nAlbert Einstein\n\nOne of the frequently cited achievements of twentieth‑century scientific thought is the concept of the noosphere. There is no universally accepted definition of this term. The idea of the noosphere is not a scientifically substantiated generalisation but an attempt to verbalise an intuitive conjecture that humanity must change in the future.\n\nThe principal author of the notion “noosphere” was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French priest and evolutionary scientist. Teilhard was a member of the Jesuit order, and therefore his publicly expressed ideas were constrained by the order’s discipline. The Jesuit leadership did not hinder Teilhard’s paleoanthropological research, but it was concerned that, as a priest and order member, he would not voice views that would revise Christianity. Consequently, the idea of the noosphere, originated by Teilhard, was publicised in 1927 by his friend, philosopher and mathematician Eduard Leroy. As Teilhard and Leroy emphasized, an important source of this idea were the geochemistry lectures given by V.I. Vernadsky in Paris in 1922–1923. Later, the representations of the noosphere were developed independently by both Teilhard and Vernadsky.\n\nConsidering the evolution of the Universe (i.e., the cosmos, all that exists), Teilhard regarded both the emergence of life and the emergence of humanity as regular stages of this process. The increasing complexity of developing systems during evolution, according to him, leads to the formation of systems of ever higher order. To describe the integration of evolving systems into higher‑level supersystems, Teilhard devised a specific version of dialectics whose chief principle was a differentiating (difference‑enhancing) unification. Functional differentiation leads to greater interdependence and integration… Human psyche, according to Teilhard, is the most complex result of the Universe’s evolution. Overcoming fragmentation, individual human personalities unite in a planetary sphere of mind—the noosphere. For Teilhard, the emergence of the noosphere is a prolonged and still unfinished process in which each of us participates. The most important quality that arises in cosmic evolution at the human level is the capacity for reflection, the creation not merely of a model of reality but also of an image of oneself within it.\n\nThe evolution of the Universe has given us the ability for self‑knowledge. The Universe arrived at this state after passing through many cycles of differentiating unification. Will this process stop with us? What will happen next? Here Teilhard finds an answer that, among other things, allows a novel solution to the problem of theodicy (the justification of God). As a veteran of the First World War and a witness to the Second, Teilhard could not ignore the cruelty and injustice of our world. How can a benevolent God permit such horror? According to Teilhard, God has not cleansed the world of evil because He himself is in a process of becoming through evolution. Biogenesis passes into noogenesis, and noogenesis into christogenesis. The noosphere is one of the stages in the development of God (as Teilhard understands the very God taught by Christianity). At the end of times a God will appear in the Universe into whom all human souls will flow. His atemporal attraction will become one of the factors driving the Universe’s evolution, ensuring differentiating unification.\n\nThe idea of the noosphere in Teilhard’s formulation is a dizzying thought, one stage in the development of concepts concerning the relationship among God, man and the world, but certainly not a scientific concept. It bears the imprint of the remarkable personality of its creator—a priest, scientist and mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.\n\n“The main achievement in P. Teilhard de Chardin’s approach to the noosphere was precisely what was missing in V.I. Vernadsky’s approach. He discovered the internal source of reason—reflection. By this word he meant the consciousness’s ability ‘to focus on itself and to master itself as an object of thought’, the ‘ability not merely to know, but to know oneself; not merely to know, but to know that one knows.’ By encompassing with his reflective mind not only himself but the entire surrounding Nature, man, in a sense, becomes the focal point of the Universe, which, with his help, begins self‑knowledge and thereby self‑consciousness of itself.\nIn the fundamental resolution of the problem of mind, Teilhard de Chardin was undoubtedly aided by his deeply felt faith, religious culture and theological education. <...> At its core, Teilhard’s rational‑religious doctrine diverged from the “Book of Genesis” only by replacing two perfect‑aspect verbs with imperfect‑aspect verbs: ‘God’s design is not only unfolded but continues to unfold before us in the form of the world He has been creating up to the present day’ (A.S. Rautian, 2001).”\n\nVernadsky’s ideas expressed in connection with the noosphere were closely linked to his principal field of interest—geochemistry. Their main points are:\n— humanity is a geological force;\n— the source of humanity’s power is its mind and will, the result of its sociality;\n— humanity transforms geochemical cycles, altering biospheric functions;\n— humanity evolves toward separation from the rest of the biosphere.\nAccording to Vernadsky, the transition of the biosphere into the noosphere is regular and inevitable. In some passages Vernadsky treats the noosphere as something that will arise in the future; in others he identifies its manifestations already in the first half of the twentieth century.\nOverall, the noosphere can be described as a state of the biosphere in which intelligent human activity becomes the principal factor of its development, although the interpretation of this notion varies even among its originators. Conceptions of the relationship between the biosphere and the noosphere cannot be considered settled to this day. One semi‑humorous formulation concerning the modern ecological catastrophe reflects an aspect of this relationship: “the biosphere has felt the noosphere and is trying to shed it.”\n\nIn any case, Teilhard’s noosphere lies outside science, while Vernadsky’s noosphere failed to transcend the realm of dream‑like speculation, highly vulnerable to criticism. Nevertheless, an interesting contemporary thought has been the search for parallels between Teilhard’s noosphere and the modern Network, the Internet. Today there is no doubt that the aggregation of a large number of people (merely through communication channels, not through mystical unity) has led to an emergent new quality that significantly influences human evolution. Of particular interest in this regard is the interpretation of the network ideology called Web 2.0. Web 1.0 denotes sites owned by specific individuals or organisations and developed by particular persons according to a preset plan. The main figure in Web 1.0 is the administrator (site administrator, network administrator). Web 2.0 comprises structures in a decentralised network that become more powerful the larger the number of people using and developing them. Their development is determined not by individual persons but by society as a whole. Social networks, Wikipedia, the Linux community are examples of Web 2.0 (even though administrators play an important role in their functioning).\n\nSome scientists consider the notion of the noosphere to be devoid of concrete content.\n\n“It is necessary to say a few words about the commonplace (especially in popular ‘green’ ecological publications) term ‘noosphere’, which was introduced independently into ecological discourse by P. Teilhard de Chardin and V.I. Vernadsky. However, while Teilhard de Chardin understood the noosphere primarily as the global development of a ‘collective mind’, Vernadsky believed that this ‘collective mind’ should transform the biosphere, improving conditions for human life on the planet.\nVernadsky proceeded from a scientistic view of human‑nature relations, i.e., he thought science could solve virtually any problem, up to managing the main material cycles and shifting humanity to ‘autotrophic nutrition’ with direct use of solar energy for food production (bypassing the mediating role of plants).\nVernadsky’s views on the noosphere are an example of ecological utopianism. The system of connections in the biosphere (‘biospheric market’) is so complex that a person cannot manage it (M.B. Mirkin, L.G. Naumova, 2005).\nAt the end of the twentieth century the concept of the noosphere was re‑interpreted by the Soviet and Russian cyberneticist N.N. Moiseev within his theory of co‑evolution (joint evolution) of the biosphere and human society. From this perspective, the noosphere is a state of humanity in which it evolves together with the biosphere.\n‘…I believe that fulfilling the conditions of co‑evolution is indeed necessary for securing our future, because humanity can exist only within a biosphere whose parameters meet very strict conditions. If humanity does not enter the era of the noosphere, degradation and gradual disappearance from the face of the Earth await it. But can humanity really achieve such a transition? The answer does not appear as obvious to me as Teilhard de Chardin and Vernadsky thought.\nIt seems to me that half a century ago both thinkers had more grounds for optimism. <...> At that time they knew nothing about nuclear weapons and did not anticipate that humanity would soon have to overcome an extremely acute global ecological crisis. The transition to the era of the noosphere will not be a smooth, painless merging of ‘race, Nature and God’, as Teilhard de Chardin imagined, but will most likely be a bifurcation with an unpredictable outcome.\nIndeed, such a transition will mean a radical restructuring not only of the social structure of humanity but of the very character of its evolution. We face not merely the creation and use of new technologies, nor the creation of a new ecological niche. Humanity will have to learn to reconcile its needs with the planet’s dwindling capacities. People will have to subject their lives to new and very strict constraints. In essence, to create a new morality and to follow it in everyday life. <...> This will be a completely new stage in the evolutionary history of the species Homo sapiens’ (N.N. Moiseev, 1994).\n\nAdditional materials:\nColumn: Noosphere: rational forecast, scientistic vision or a commonplace charm of scientific charlatans?\nUkrainian / Russian\n\n2.01. Biosphere\n\nD. Shabanov, M. Kravchenko. Ecology: the biology of interaction\nChapter 2. Biospherology\n\n2.03. Gaia hypothesis" }

2.01. Biosphere

D. Shabanov, M. Kravchenko. Ecology: Biology of Interaction Chapter 2. Biospherology

2.03. Gaia Hypothesis