In the spirit of mothers day ive been thinking… what about mother earth? To what extent can the earth be considered to be alive? I want to discuss the similarities and differences between the earth and living organisms. When i took biology in high school i remember learning about certain aspects that define living as opposed to non-living things (reproduction, locomotion, synthesis, ect. cant remeber the rest).
IMO, if there are any non-living things that really resemble living things, i would think that the earth would be at the top of the list.
Ive got a couple theories on similarities but i just want to get a few responses first.
The Earth as a whole doesn’t actually reproduce, neither does it consume or independently move, in fact by most ‘standard’ defintions of life, it isn’t.
The Gaia hypothesis simply postulates that multiple independant lifeorms to regulate the Earth’s biosphere.
However the theory never postulates that the planet itself is alive. Certainly there is nothing like a ‘mother erath’ in there anywhere. It requires independant lifeforms to work at all and falls apart if all the system has to work with are totally interdependant lifeforms.
Eburacum45, that reproduction possibility is very interesting, never thought of that…
Well the earth obviously moves, but as mangetout said, it is not independent. On the other hand who says it has to be? If the earth was alive maybe it wants to run around in circles…
I do believe that the earth consumes energy from the sun. This energy is the source for all processes that take place on the earth, just think of what would happen if the sun disappeared; the earth wouldnt function the way it does now. Weather, volcanic activity, life forms (or cells in a sense) would cease to function.
I tried to look up these things that define what life is but i didnt really find a good source, can someone help me with the definition of what life is?