Agent Smith

If what you say is what the Harvard report says then it's quite sad. @StringJunky was astute enough to refer to mathematical treatments: The Daisy World Sim looked so convincing. Ok so The Gaia Hypothesis doesn't have takers, but the reasons for that, as far as I can see, seems to be more emotional than evidential. Has the hypothesis been disproven/falsified? Are there alternative hypotheses for the apparent stability of the biosphere?

Hard to say. If by stability you mean whether the earth's geology has "settled down", no. If you mean something else, I don't know. The conversion of kinetic to potential energy, back and forth, is feedback, no? As the marble moves up, the kinetic energy it has transforms into potential energy, which is then used to propel the marble back down and so on. Also, this is a physical phenomenon; what about chemical reactions? Si, earth sciences is a baby when compared to all the other sciences. I haven't had time to read Lovelock's profile. Good points.

The energy levels of Plate tectonics is colossal (?); earth quakes are measured on a logarithmic scale. Where does the energy go? Millions of kilograms of mass moving even at a slow rate of an inch/hour could be the source of huge amounts of energy that has to go ... somewhere. Pure speculation Faint recollections of having seen these images before in chemistry, related to activation energy. Where does the evidence point though? Can you expand and elaborate on without feedback? 👍 Gracias. The simulation proves that The Gaia Hypothesis is possible and is a candidate hypothesis for terran stability. Is there more?

Allow me to clarify. The closedness I refer to is in terms of matter. Is that wrong in any way? It's the solar energy, verum, that sustains the Gaia reaction, if I'm allowed to call it that. I imagine the Gaia reaction to be ubercomplex, but reducible to (chemical) cycles, much like in the human body; after all we are talking about homeostasis, right? You're correct about the upswing in temperature, partly because of increased solar output (some might say, as part of the solar cycle) and mostly due to the greenhouse effect. Going out on a limb, I'd say planetary-level (self)regulation occurs at scales we have yet to understand properly. What timing, eh? 😓 How about if I say ... if the Gaia hypothesis is false, what's the explanation for such long term stability in (let's focus on a small section of the sky) the concentration of atmospheric and marine chemical constituents (despite fossil fuel usage over a century)?

Words are slippery, thought viscous vicious. Apologies for abuse of terminology. My chemistry files are from the late 1990s. Perhaps chemical terms have been revised. Muchas gracias for the correction. I understand "equilibrium" gives us the wrong impression that a reaction has terminated, when in fact all that's happened is AmountProduced(Reactants) = AmountProduced(Products). Correct? Thermodynamic equilibrium meaning cessation of (thermal) energy flux? Very unlike a steady state, if my description of it (vide supra) is accurate. I was under the impression that The Gaia Hypothesis was high fashion, appealing but lacking substance, which in science means lacking supporting evidence or strong counterevidence against it. The latter comes in the form of, among other things, a Wikipage on so-called natural balance, where a few scientists have claimed the exact opposite is true i.e. many ecosystems spiral out of control and collapse; even the extremely credible and popular belief that predators-prey regulate each others' population, so the claim is, is false. @exchemist did good by bringing up the motile set point of the steady state. However, the earth is, as far as I can tell, a closed system. If the two factors in a steady state are A and B then if there's more of A then there's less of B and vice versa. For the set point to move, there's got to be an external source or sink for A and B, which seems unlikely (throwing darts here) because in 4.5 billion years (earth's tentative age) all of these must have saturated, leaving the biosphere as the only "chemical reaction" active in the current geological epoch 🤔 That's evolution. My usual ... miss the finer points. Verum, processes determine the state, in the sense of mechanism I suppose. There may even be supervening states based on the simple chemical processes that I outlined in the OP. I mean, among other thingss, what about systemic (solar system) and galactic (milky way) and intergalactic (Virgo Supercluster) ... you get the idea ... "ecology". I'll leave that thought there. @sethoflagos, really good examples of (positive/negative) feedback mechanisms, but you seem reluctant to jump on board, for good reasons of course. If we have real instances of authentic homeostasis then, at the very least, The Gaia Hypothesis can't be ruled out with confidence. Just curious, what's a lossless cycle? 💯 I would have to agree with you. I have my doubts about the conditions for biogenesis being the same as that for biosustenance. Your point, mutatis mutandis, exactly, oui? Each step in a cycle identifies a specific chemical product, unless you mean physical cycles e.g. the water cycle.

This, the above, is what really happens (self-correction), but we were shown only half the picture.

Is the buffer mechanism so powerful as to stave off the inevitable. Perhaps a combination of buffer + negative feedback loops define Gaia's autocorrect 🙂 Maybe if there are any coders among us, he could do a simulation for us.

A pseudo-closed system then, oui? I don't know how to explain that though.

Si, that's what threw me off, but what about the fact that the earth is a closed system? We're not adding stuff to the system, we're only reallocating it. However, as you said carbon dioxide levels are rising, but that's only over the past century or so, no? What maintained carbon dioxide levels before the oil-gas-coal era? I guess, in a way, the biosphere was in some kind of semi-isolation from the inorganic carbon cycle. It wasn't built to withstand the "pressure" humans are exerting on it, assuming the atmosphere is regulated by living organisms.

Gracias for bringing up Le Chatelier's principle; Cogito the point in re natural equilibrium I was making is precisely this principle. @exchemist is right, the set point will change i.e. if the initial equilibrium point was maintained at levels of constituents A, the subsequent equilibrium would've moved away from A. However this would require an external source for the constituents of a chemical reaction. Since the earth is, as far as I can see, a closed system in that respect, there's a good chance that the equilibrium point is constant i.e. the Gaia hypothesis could be true. However, according to paleoclimatologists there was time when the earth had very high levels of oxygen; the evidence being gigantism as can be seen in the fossil records of insects and dinos. I suppose you're on the right track there insofar as the Gaia hypothesis is concerned. Unknown to me initially, Gaia is the whole, the whole enchilada, encompasses both living and nonliving dimensions. The Gaia hypothesis isn't restricted to the biosphere and also includes the nonliving aspects of earth, such as volcanism, ocean sinks, etc. However I have yet to figure out how the set point of our earth's thermostat (equilibrium point), so to speak, remains constant, instead of rising and falling with changes in the levels of the reactants and products. Isn't the earth a closed system when it comes to that? With a beaker of chemicals the only way I can alter the level of the components is with an external source; that can't be done with the earth (cycles are the way things are done on earth).

What's a "filter bubble"? A good remark there. Are you in any way acquainted with the Gaia hypothesis? What mechanism sustains the purported equilibrium? @exchemist made a valid criticism - the equilibrium point in chemical systems are labile. Anyone willing to confirm/disconfirm these beliefs of mine? 👋

That is correct methinks. That'll be most helpful, gracias. Interesting thought! Perhaps, the feedback loop doesn't allow the levels of the reactants and products to rise to levels that would reset the thermostat 😊. How exactly this is achieved is a mystery to me. In human body temperature regulation, heat up and cool down physiological processes like shivering/sweating don't result in the hypothalamic thermostat being reset to a new temperature. Do you know? 🤔

Initially, I thought The Gaia Hypothesis was restricted to the biosphere. Turns out it includes the inorganic component of the earth as well; so marine carbon sinks, if that's what you're referring to, are also part of the overall "equilibrium". The earth as a whole is what the hypothesis considers as being in some kind of self-sustaining equilibrium. You disagree then. What's the current status of the hypothesis among ecologists/biologists? Sorry, scientific journals are not on my reading list. 😁

Arigato for your response. The negative feedback loop you're looking for would be the pushback from accumulating products. For photosynthesis, as oxygen accumulates in the atmosphere, it would slow down photosynthesis and speed up respiration and vice versa if carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere. This is homeostasis or self-regulation ... cogito. Reduction means removing protons/adding electrons, oui? Oxidation is adding protons/losing electrons? It's been so long, I'm a bit rusty 😄. In the chemical reaction for photosynthesis, carbon in carbon dioxide gets hydrogenated to glucose. Is this also reduction, adding hydrogen?

Gaia Hypothesis, in short that the earth is in some kind of self-balancing system. Proposed by late James Lovelock and promoted by Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. This hypothesis gained some notoriety because of novelty, but lacked scientific evidence; in fact some scientists have claimed that in most ecosystems, imbalance is the norm. I offer below 2 chemical reactions for review by members: 1. Carbon dioxide + Water -> Sunlight -> Glucose + Oxygen [Green Plants] 2. Oxygen + Glucose -> Energy + Carbon dioxide + Water [Plants + Animals] These are converse reactions in that one is the reversal of the other. From the chemistry that I know, these 2 reactions are subject to the laws of chemical reactions, a few of which I recall are: 1 1. Increase the reactants and the reaction will speed up 2. Remove the products and the reaction will speed up 3. Product accumulation means the reaction will slow down 4. Product accumulation and the reaction might reverse Aren't these the hallmarks of homeostasis, the essence of self-regulation? So do these 2 chemical reactions support the Gaia Hypothesis?

Si, that's correct. Could one reason be that RNA isn't protected by complementary strand pairing like DNA? ssRNA I know exists, but dsRNA, my files return null.

Quite possibly it's more correct to say [math]s < n \iff P(all \space numbers \space deleted) = 0[/math]

Perhaps due to their usual function/purpose, RNA is more unstable than DNA. 🙂

For [math]n[/math] random numbers, [math]P(all \space numbers \space deleted) > 0 \iff s \geq n[/math]

That's on target, but not all viruses are like that. Per my files (rather outdated), the polio virus has not undergone any significant mutation in the last 50 or so years, at least none that would affect the efficacy of the 2 vaccines that are around (one live, the other killed). I wonder why some viruses have such high degrees of genomic instability. There origins too remain a mystery, to me at least.

Would I be correct if I said that if we make radio contact now, the alien civilization has to be on/within a radio bubble that has a maximum radius of 4.5 billion light years?

Looks like a good place to build a launch pad.

What's this unifying psychological theory you refer to?

So Newton is inconsistent with Einstein. So, depending on the theory we use, either no work is being done or some work is being done. 🧒 Thank you for the reply

Some of these galaxies are moving away from us at speeds exceeding the speed of light I believe. Does that mean anything? Hence the space stretching patch I suppose. From Newton's perspective then the kinetic energy of some of these galaxies = [math]\frac{1}{2}mc^2[/math] which in Einstein's theory should be impossible.