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March '04: Menu
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The Biosphere and the NoösphereDrew WhitworthPage 1 ¦ Page 2 ¦ Page 3 ¦ Page 4 ¦ Printer-friendly version 2. The noösphere.Humans are unique amongst animals in being able to act upon the biosphere -- that is, transform matter and energy -- at a distance. When I turn on a light I am transforming the environment of not only the room I am in, but also around the power station supplying the energy. I can even pick up the phone, or use e-mail, and ask someone on the other side of the planet to turn on a light. Though this seems banal, it is in fact of crucial importance, for in a purely biological sense where information is coded and transmitted genetically, this is impossible. In human society, the agent of transmission is communication. The unit of information is harder to establish, but a possible idea might be Richard Dawkins' memes. As he says, examples of memes are "tunes, ideas, catchphrases, clothes, fashions, ways of building arches or making pots. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool... so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation" [6]. Cultural transmission of this sort has been recorded amongst birds, but it is only in humans that the technique is fully developed. When human systems meet or clash, it is almost exclusively their cultural characteristics which determine the outcome of this interaction, rather than genetics. Even the most mundane communication makes use of memes, as to understand and appreciate the communication of others, we have to refer to relevant elements of the "stock" of human memory, culture and language. Even brand new concepts can be deconstructed by our minds, as this stock -- effectively a record of all prior communication -- stands "behind" any utterance we make, and therefore, the communication of others is always expressed in terms with which we are intuitively familiar. Interacting with another human is not just a matter of hearing the sounds made in speech or viewing actions, but being able to place these signs in some kind of context. (It is true, and important, that interpretations of these signs may differ greatly, and conflict thereby arise: but we still recognise communication as communication, signs as signs. The issue of differing interpretations is, essentially, the basis of postmodernism; this issue is returned to both below and in the feature essay.) What is the relationship of this stock of information to the biosphere? Does it "reside" anywhere there, and if so where? Consider the following thought experiments. Could one destroy the Mona Lisa? We would probably consider this possible, if security in the Louvre were breached. But could one set out to destroy Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, even in principle? If by some heroic and expensive effort of will, one tracked down every printed copy of the text and, indeed, videos or DVDs of the various film versions and destroyed them all; if one remembered also to delete every WWW copy too; would the play cease to exist? Unlike the Mona Lisa, the concept of "an original" here is irrelevant. Besides, there are doubtless many Shakespearian actors and scholars with considerable portions of the text in their minds. Romeo and Juliet would probably not be too hard to reconstruct, even if all its material manifestations were gone. The only conclusion is that Romeo and Juliet "resides" somewhere other than purely physical reality. The stock of human culture, memory, language and so on exists in a sphere that is intangible, but nevertheless very real [7]. Just as energy flows through the atmosphere in the form of wind, and genetic information through the biosphere via heredity, so cultural information flows through this fifth sphere. This is the noösphere, the sphere of mind, mental activity and communication. (The word comes from the Greek nous, meaning mind: it should not be pronounced as if the first syllable rhymes with "zoo", but more like "Noah-sphere", with the two Os separate.) As well as being a living planet, Earth is also a thinking planet; human thought and activity could be detected from beyond the Earth. Radio waves, for instance, carry our communication outwards across the galaxy and could in principle be detected from a great distance away [8]. A well-known proponent of the noösphere idea was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his 1959 work, The Phenomenon of Man. This book has, however, been subject to some vituperative criticism [9] due to its blithe optimism about the imminent fulfilment of humanity's "destiny" - an Omega Point, or spiritual unification within the noösphere that is the teleological "purpose" of evolution. (See also this month's page of links.) Yet if the noösphere idea can be purged of the trappings of spiritualism, there is much in it that provides a useful model for how humanity constructs the world and then interacts with it. The noösphere therefore has relevance for the study of politics and society. Indeed, it is hard to define concepts such as "society" or "community" without recourse to some intangible but real "place" from where shared values, histories and so on can be drawn. The rest of this essay explores some of the analytical possibilities which the biosphere/ noösphere model opens up. Valuable insights come through thinking about our use of resources and our construction of environments, by reasserting the interlinkages between the various spheres, and by considering how each is built up from small processes which scale themselves up through repetition over long periods of time. Footnotes6. Dawkins, Richard (1976). The Selfish Gene, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 192. return 7. Samson, Paul R. and David Pitt, eds. (1999). The Biosphere and Noösphere Reader: Global environment, society and change, London, Routledge, p. 9. return 8. See Carl Sagan's novel, Contact (1986, Century Hutchinson) or Robert Zemeckis' film adaptation. return 9. Notably by Medawar, Peter (1961), The phenomenon of Man, Mind 70, pp. 99-106. return | |