A Self-Aware Biosphere
by Dr. Richard Pritzlaff, President, Biophilia Foundation
Around Christmastime when I was eight years old, my family and I were over at a friend’s house celebrating the season. It was 1968, the night Apollo 8 first circled the moon. We watched on our friend’s color TV (still somewhat of a novelty at the time) as astronauts James Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman read from the Book of Genesis. This occasion had a profound effect upon me, as it did for many of us fortunate to be able to witness the event. It was the first time I began to contemplate who I am on this Earth and in this Universe.
Morality of Self-Aware Macro-Organisms
I've had several other fantastic moments of personal insight. Over time these have led me to understand that there are several ways to view our existence. One of these is as self-aware macro-organisms. Or perhaps, in a larger sense, our self-awareness can be described as the Universe being aware of itself.
One of the implications of this is how we as self-aware macro-organisms for the first time must, as opposed to can, bring morality to an otherwise amoral biosphere. What do I mean? We, meaning humans, have by nature been given a prejudice regarding co-travelers on this star-circling planet; all those other various non-human beings. This evolutionary anthropocentrism has allowed us to survive and more than flourish. In fact, for many reasons our over-flourishing threatens the well-being of all future generations of life, human and non-human, the most pernicious of which is human caused global warming.
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