The Gaia Hypothesis: Nice But Unlikely

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“The Gaia Hypothesis is the idea that the Earth's biosphere itself is a complex, conscious, self-regulating living being₁. It was named by James Lovelock in the 1980s. Lovelock, born 1919, was a British scientist who specialized in atmospheric chemistry and an environmental theorist. The concept of "emergent properties" and our Human (all-too-biological) biases may mean that we are poorly equipped to understand, or perceive, life-forms such as Gaia₂. After all, if all the paint daubs of a painting were sentient, they would never be able to perceive themselves as part of a greater living picture. Lovelock writes that the way many parts of the Earth's ecosystem are self-regulating and balanced is so intriguing that it seemed to behave in the same way as a single organism₃.”

"The Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock" by Vexen Crabtree (2015)

1. Is Gaia a Coherent Concept?
2. James Lovelock, Church of All Worlds and Lynn Margulis