Still in mid-reading of Lovelock's latest: The vanishing face of Gaia. Lovelock treats the biosphere as a complex system, so intricate as to be virtually a living organism.
Multifarious geochemical factors interact within the earth's biosphere, but not inevitably so, Lovelock considers. The mood of the sun, the biases of mankind, the life-drives of all organisms compete and cooperate to move a variety of variable equilibria around, in seafch of -- shall we say -- comfort? Of safistaction, or beauty?
I wonder where we are in this search? Can it end?
When I have read more, i will report more. Until then, I am also reading Scared to Death, which is a more physicalist and bureaucratic rendering of the same far-reaching problem.
