Biosphere Earth — 3, Architectural Wonder
This blog is part of a series on Biosphere Earth.
To review other posts in this series, visit the TOC.
Here’s part 3:
Mars…
We’ve been investigating it for something like 60 years. Conclusion? There is absolutely no life of any consequence on this planet.
And when you look at how Earth compares to Mars as a planetary biosphere, a planetary life-support system, Earth has at least a four billion year head start.
So what does this mean in architectural terms?
Biosphere Earth.
Well, for starters, Biosphere Earth is self-building. Its organisms created and are creating it. It’s not like the buildings we design and then build. Biosphere Earth’s structure builds itself and then keeps building.
Whoah.
Therefore, Biosphere Earth is literally a process, not a fixed structure but a process — a kaleidescope of continuous creativity carried out by multitudes of organisms of all sizes. Each organism, be it insect, microbe, human, animal, or plant, is interacting with other organisms of all kinds and the conditions each organism is in at (probably) infinite scales. It’s mind boggling. I’d like to see the relational interactions of one organism in the biosphere tabulated... But i digress.
Here’s the point: Cycles of life are the architecture and engineering of Biosphere Earth. The qualities, actions, and life cycles of each organism in the biosphere collectively result in the creation and continuation of the biosphere.
For comparison — Mars has no organisms, so no biosphere.
But on Earth, the bio-physical interface among micro to macro organisms across grasslands, forests, mountains, coasts, oceans, deserts, rivers, riverbanks, subterranean rock, etc.—creates our planet’s reproductive, net-positive, self-building, life-support system.
Cycles of Life.
This is the basis for human existence.
Cycles of Life.
Biosphere Earth’s cycling of bio-physical elements — which is literally the process of moisture being captured by individual organisms and then utilized to continue or enhance that organism’s life journey — this process is continuously creating everything for us, our reality and our life support system, from psychological identity to emotional bliss to physical survival.
Biosphere Earth is a giant bio-physical process. Materials for life, processed by life, are just cycling around and around and around as individuals and communities live and in so doing build ecosystems.
This is how our only planetary life support system, was designed and built — from the ground up; function-first. Emergence, behavior, architecture. Repeat.
Self-building, architectural wonder.
More tomorrow, thanks.
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Citations
- Science re: all life lives on Earth, the biosphere is 4 billion years old, the biosphere is our life support system, and Biosphere Earth is a bio-physical interface continously created by the actions among organisms living on Earth, in oceans, lands, freshwater, atmosphere, and subterranean rock, can be found in this draft of my forthcoming paper, “Biosphere Earth = all GDPs + all lives.”
Read the previous blog, “Biosphere Mars.”
