Planetology

We are living on a different planet than that of our ancestors because we are able to alter the world in more significant ways than they ever could- they re-acted to geologic events, we can enact geologic events. As is written in the beginning of Making the Geologic Now, “These [geologic] are forces to be reckoned with existentially, creatively, conceptually, and pragmatically as humans work to meet the fact that not only is our species increasingly vulnerable to the geologic, we also have become agents of planetary geologic change”. New possibilities are available, when man can grasp the geologic, but they make deeper understanding of all organisms and the networks that interconnect them even more necessary.

In the Miyazaki’s movie, the Toxic forest is an example of how human-created pollution has become a “System Event”, a  change in the way material flowed through the overall growth system on earth, at the scale of the geologic. The pollution that is stuck within the layers of earth , is absorbed by the plants that grow on earth’s outermost layer, and alters the way the plants grow so much, that when they bloom, they release toxic gases. The toxic gases spread with the spores that are released and cover the world in more toxic plants, steadily coating the world in an environment poisonous to people. Later in the movie you realize that there is a pure space underneath the Toxic forest, so that the forest is a purifying tool to cleanse the pollution left by humans.

What defines the boundary between a network of life and systems that is one organism and the greater network in which that organism lives?

In our discussion last Wednesday, it was mentioned that “I” is sort of superficial because “I” (referring to a single human body) is actually referring to a combination of systems and networks including, the digestion system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, the vascular system, and all of the tissue networks that make up those systems. So when was “I” distinguished as an organism?

In part, “I” is  classified an organism because it has a certain amount of (but far from complete)  independence. As Johnson describes in Emergence, emergent systems are not necessarily intrinsically good or intrinsically bad, but  “rely extensively on feedback, for both growth and self-regulation” The human body is able to regulate itself and adapt to dynamic conditions in the systems within which it lives based on feedback loops within the body. The other part that Separates “I” from the sea of networks inside it and surrounding it is an identity, which encompasses all of the systems inside, but not all of the networks outside.

By this logic a city could be considered an organism if it has some amount of independence from other systems outside it and an identity that encompasses all of the systems and people inside it, but not those that live elsewhere. Or any part and population of a city that has its own identity that is separate from others in the city can be its own organism. Maybe when Mumford’s said, that a city cannot grow beyond a certain size because it will loose its “vibrant public culture”, what it meant was the city-type organism cannot grow beyond a certain size before it must split into a city made of multiple organisms. At some point the organism decoheres.

[“at the onset of a process of self-organization…the mechanisms become extremely sensitive to minor fluctuations in the environment…”naturally selecting” one assembly pattern over another” -Manuel DeLanda, Nonorganic Life ]

Many of our networks can be described as “alive” because, while they are not made of biological tissue, they have become so complex, that the initial care that was needed for upkeep now emerges from the system itself. Basically, the system started as a few materials (maybe including people) that organized themselves along some kind of pattern. As the pattern repeated itself and spread through different systems it was changed based on what the system dictated most appropriate for those interactions, much like the self-organizing systems, described by DeLanda, that may have lead to life on earth. Once a certain level of complexity was achieved the human decisions that initially directed the networks almost seem decided by the systems within the networks. Humans become the worker bees building the nest according to the nest’s direction.