they often say that the hills are alive with the sound of music but if that's
the case Julie Andrews aside then who's singing it our planet is a wondrous
place and our pale blue dot has been through so much turmoil and cataclysmic
instances of geological phenomenon that it's hard not to appreciate the
resilience of our third Rock from the Sun but here's a question that perhaps
is relatively easy to overlook especially now in the 21st century where
we happily go about our business a reverent - the fact that we're hurtling
through the cosmos at 67,000 miles per hour safe in the comfort of our own home
but despite all of this and we lost sight of what's actually beneath our own
two feet hello into that what's going on and once
again welcome back to the most inquisitive channel on YouTube life's
biggest questions as per usual you listen body flow and voice Jack Finch as
today we curiously ask the question what if the earth was alive pulip
for the curious amongst you that scene was from 27 teams life starring Jake
Gyllenhaal which is fitting really as after all this is a large biggest
question about the only known astronomical entity that harbors
sentient life that we know of anyway and if you've seen the ending to that film
you'll know there's some kind of veiled warning hidden beneath that one but will
digress because this question has many many layers most of which are seeded
deep into the age-old interpretations of Mythology religion culture and science
all of which approach this particular notion with equal parts intrigue and
wonder in many respects the earth is very much alive but perhaps not in a way
that meshes well with our modern civilization the idea that our planet is
alive may perhaps be as old as humankind itself
the ancient Greeks in all their Pantheon equisetum quickly came to that same
notion they gave her the all-powerful name Gaia and they looked upon her as a
goddess the mother of all life and this same idea emerges time and time again
throughout ancient mythology as the embodiment of the bounty of Earth a
mother earth so to speak that gives life and harbors life all the same there was
terror Matt Zemlya Pachamama Prithvi the spider grandmother of negative American
tradition ancient Venus of Gobekli Tepe in fact across a planet's history as
life and civilization emerged so did the seed of the idea that our earth was a
living and breathing entity in a more contemporary setting the renowned
psychoanalyst Carl Jung suggested that this archetypal figure was the result of
a formation of a collective unconsciousness of all human life and
that the universality of the earth-mother hearkened back to an innate
knowledge that we all want shared in fact it was up into the early 20th
century that science was on the exact same page - in most respects it has only
been in the modern era that we've considered our planet to be some massive
spinning rock with no feelings in 1790 a man named James Hutton who is otherwise
considered to be the father of Audiology declared in a lecture at the Royal
Society of Edinburgh that the earth should be considered as a super organism
a mass collective of living systems biospheres and environments that were
all delicately inter woven as one and so the only logical approach to study our
planet would be by means of physiology James Hutton would later go
to make the analogy of the human body's circulation of blood to be exactly the
same as our planet's circulation of the nutritional elements of the earth and
that the process of sunlight distilling water from the oceans so that it may
later fall back down as rain were one and the same
you can draw many many parallels but the most important instance is that james
hutton seed of an idea later went on to be completely overshadowed by
contemporary science in the next few centuries science boomed in developed
rapidly throughout the Industrial Revolution and the emerging modern era
splintering off into independent schools of thought and the interdisciplinary
view of the earth as a super organism quickly became overshadowed however in
the 1970s to scientists formulated a different outlook one that was viewed
upon as pseudoscience at the time a chemist named James Lovelock and a
microbiologist named Lynn Margulis formulated what is now known as the Gaia
hypothesis and as time went on they seemed to have gathered some pretty
startling evidence the strangest and most intriguing thing about our planet
is that from a scientific perspective it breathes as they studied Earth's global
biosphere Margulis and Lovelock quickly realized that it has all of the
properties of a life form if we approached it from a parts for parts
basis planet Earth is very much a living organism for the most part our planet
seems to display what is known as homeostasis or the ability of
self-regulation a process that is exhibited in all living creatures in the
necessity to maintain a state of equilibrium to keep something alive in
fact many of Earth's life-sustaining qualities exhibits a remarkable
stability the temperature range of our climate the oxygen content of our
atmosphere the pH level chemistry and salinity of our oceans all of these are
biologically mediated after hundreds of millions of years all of these processes
have stayed within a range where life can thrive and thus the totality of all
life on Earth is interacting with its environments in an intricate and
majestic way that regulate these global qualities in this respect Earth is very
much a living organism a creature Gaia when we take a look at other planets to
their properties only serve to confirm the Gaia hypothesis when we pay through
our solar system with an infrared lens Mars and Venus have atmospheres that are
dominated by carbon dioxide which is what you'd expect from those
distributions of elements but when we take a look at Earth it is an entirely
different and beautiful kettle of fish when we look at the interplanetary
atmospheres of Mars and Venus Earth sticks out like a sore thumb
we have methane hydro carbon and oxygen reacting all the time burning like a
flame and because of that if you were looking at our planet from deep within
the cosmos and took one look at our atmosphere it would be as if the planet
itself was shouting out we're alive what's up what's going on my name is
Earth and I'm a superorganism if these systems exist which they do
then something must be regulating it and that's because earth itself is
regulating it through all of these interwoven and intricate systems of
idiosyncratic life in fact even more clearly defined evidence is coming to
light in recent times Tim Lenten and Earth System scientists
at the University of Exeter explains that we can even witness earth breathing
through scientific processes in fact you can pick up Earth's breathing patterns
from the co2 that has been captured by detectors spread out across the planet a
rhythm that moves with the night and the day isn't that incredible the earth
breathes and we can witness it in real time through science we could sit here
all day and talk about revelation after revelation bearing witness to our
astounding planet Earth in all of its infinite wonder but like I said in our
opening few statements this isn't anything new the notion of our planet
being a living entity has long been a part of our shared consciousness it just
seems that we may have forgotten the reality of the matter and if that's the
case I think we may well have a little bit of making up to do well there we
have it our long and short answer to the question what if the earth was alive it
is and we better Wildtree our good ass we'll probably end up like Mars or
something and if like me you hate getting sand in your socks and nobody
wants that what did you guys think do you have any interesting insights to add
to the matter why don't you let us know your thoughts down in the comment
section below before depart from today's video though
let's first take a quick look at some of your more resounding remarks over the
past few days Wilson's Craddock says my uncle fell into Jupiter once and he was
fine afterwards oh wow that's pretty impressive actually Wilson I tried it
once and then that whole Red Spot thing happened yeah
that was my finest moment and finally I break stuff says to save you nine
minutes you die ha ha but not in this video I break stuff because this video
is the complete opposite to that so what a bamboozle well unfortunately folks
that's all we've got time for in today's video to stick around all the way until
the end if you were a fan of this video just life's biggest questions in general
then please be it there and hit that thumbs up button as well as that
subscriber and obviously you and the next one as per usual I've been your
disembodied floating voice Jack Finch you've been watching life's biggest
questions and until next time you take it easy