Is life itself programmed to self-destruct?

[Speck Tater]

In The Medea Hypothesis, renowned paleontologist Peter Ward proposes a revolutionary and provocative vision of life's relationship with the Earth's biosphere--one that has frightening implications for our future, yet also offers hope. Using the latest discoveries from the geological record, he argues that life might be its own worst enemy. This stands in stark contrast to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis--the idea that life sustains habitable conditions on Earth. In answer to Gaia, which draws on the idea of the "good mother" who nurtures life, Ward invokes Medea, the mythical mother who killed her own children. Could life by its very nature threaten its own existence?

According to the Medea hypothesis, it does. Ward demonstrates that all but one of the mass extinctions that have struck Earth were caused by life itself. He looks at our planet's history in a new way, revealing an Earth that is witnessing an alarming decline of diversity and biomass--a decline brought on by life's own "biocidal" tendencies. And the Medea hypothesis applies not just to our planet--its dire prognosis extends to all potential life in the universe. Yet life on Earth doesn't have to be lethal. Ward shows why, but warns that our time is running out.

Breathtaking in scope, The Medea Hypothesis is certain to arouse fierce debate and radically transform our worldview. It serves as an urgent challenge to all of us to think in new ways if we hope to save ourselves from ourselves.

more at: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8855.html

Clearly not only is the human race doomed, but all life, everywhere in the universe is doomed. DOOMED I tell you! DOOMED!!!!111!

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. That would help to explain the Fermi Paradox. n/t

[theoldman]

2. Virtually all of the great extinctions were caused by an

astronomical or geological disaster. Not until humans evolved did the problem of self destruction arrive.

[Speck Tater]

4. Virtually all great extinctions were caused by

the Egyptian dung beetle.

In other words, offering a claim without any justification, documentation or evidence is just spouting empty words. Anybody can do that. It's easy. And meaningless.

[elocs]

3. Humans are a virus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn6WZh17BF4

[phantom power]

5. It will be...

Destroyed!

[GliderGuider]

6. I don't know about "life"

But there's a reasonable chance that human beings are programmed like that.

How the heck did it come to this?

[Ready4Change]

11. I agree.

I think this article is inaccurate to say life it programmed to destroy itself. All of these mass die-offs didn't end 'life.' They ended species. Other species made it through, and I suspect many profited from the destruction.

But humans are just a species. We may kick the bucket for any of many reasons, and if/when we do, life will most likely continue on without us.

[phantom power]

7. I find this "gaia" or "medea" kind of framing...

to be counterproductive. "Life" is not programmed to maintain homeostasis, and neither is it programmed to self destruct. "Life" is a bunch of organisms that locally adapt, both spatially and temporally. The resulting behavior of that kind of system is self-organized criticality. A scale-free distribution of catastrophe, where there are many minor disasters, somewhat fewer major disasters, and very occasionally a mass extinction of biblical proportions.

It's time for people to stop being surprised by these properties, and stop attributing "intent" to a biosphere. It's a waste of time.

[kristopher]

8. Well said. nt

[bananas]

9. The biosphere has intent now

in that humans are part of the biosphere, and humans are now acting with a common intent to maintain homeostasis of the biosphere. The biosphere is now effectively a cyborg, using remote-sensing satellites, computer modeling, and electric/fiber-optic/radio communication networks in maintaining homeostasis.

[phantom power]

10. Yes, in a way. However...

even when we're actually trying, humans remain another kind of creature with finite look-ahead. We may change the scale of the catastrophe distribution, but not its shape.

And, as we see here year after year, it's debatable how hard we're actually trying.

We should try. Changing the scale of the distribution is a useful goal. I'm far from sure we're on track to do that. Arguably, we are currently acting as the chief agent in the latest mass-extinction, as opposed to an agent for reducing their frequency.

[skids]

12. I think the framing is productive, actually...

...it argues the point with the same terminology that those that buy into the "gaia" hypothesis prefer. Instead of talking past each other, the point is communicated in their favored memes, depriving the "gaia" hypothesis of a monopoly on that mindset.

Besides, while anthropormorphization may be an incredibly inaccurate way to represent emergent behavior at an extra-species level, at least it doesn't ignore it.

[phantom power]

13. Could be. I worry that the mindset itself is part of the problem.

It sets the wrong expectations, and prescribes the wrong solutions. I see it as a bit analogous to convincing Dominionists that God expects us to be good environmental stewards. It's arguably an improvement on having them think God expects us to use up the biosphere in any way we please, but it still reinforces the world view that there is some God out there who gave it all to us, and who probably wouldn't let us goof it up too bad anyway, since he's God after all. It's just not so.

[hunter]

14. Ah yes, the "shit happens" theory.

"Intent" does not exist in any form, it's only a useful processing tool for dealing with other animals, including people. People usually don't overestimate the usefulness of intent when dealing with people or animals (and when they do they are sometimes ridiculed on reality television) but we do tend to slip into realms of greater fantasy when attributing intent to other complex systems.

You can look at a mosquito circling your head and think "Yikes! That mosquito intends to suck my blood!" but there's no processing going on in the mosquito's nervous system that most people would label "intent." The process of finding a warm blooded creature, landing, piercing the skin, tapping the blood, and flying away is simply what the mosquito does with no intent.

Yet the processes we attribute to "intent" are simply more of the same thing but at a more sophisticated level. If I'm carrying a spear in the woods and a bear and I unexpectedly cross paths, we both immediately assess the other's intent in exactly the same manner, with exactly the same mammalian processing systems. With any luck we both decide to go our own separate ways. But if we were able to examine the encounter on a very fine scale, if we could measure all the processing activity of both animals' nervous systems and link that processing to the outcome of the encounter, then "intent" would evaporate.

Likewise if we could build a sophisticated robot that seemed to display intent, but we understood the functioning of the robot so well that we could predict it's actions in response to certain circumstances perfectly, and even manipulate those responses, then on a very fine scale of observation it would impossible to attribute any intent to the robot. It might still be useful, however, for us to attribute some kind of intent to the working robot because these processing systems for judging "intent" are built into our own nervous system.

But in the big picture the biosphere is all a big chaotic swirl of stuff with no purpose and no intent. Believing in "intent" or "purpose" requires the same sort of leap of faith as believing in God. That's probably why we have religion.

Our common understanding that the bear and I crossing paths in the woods are two separate entities, and not simply swirling patterns of life within swirling patterns of life is an illusion projected by our genes. "Intent" in this encounter is another sort of projection favored through evolution because these particular bear and human genetic patterns are more likely to persist whenever these sorts of close encounters are non-violent.