A couple of weeks ago I walked into the Totnes bookshop to purchase a book. I had just read John Gribbin's review of it in the July 2019 issue of Literary Review. The book was Novacene written this year by James Lovelock with Bryan Appleyard. James Lovelock is an internationally revered independent scientist who many claim has changed the way we think of Earth and our place in it. He uncovered the impact of chlorofluorocarbons on the ozone layer, and in the 1970s he introduced the concept of Gaia, the theory that the Earth is a self-regulating body.
Usually I write about my younger days, my teaching, residential and social work with children and families, my work in the psychotherapeutic field, or about my reading of poetry and fiction but James Lovelock's book is a scientific treatise though my reaction to it is subjective and emotional and I admire that Lovelock goes against the scientific grain when he insists science like any other endeavour is a subjective one but Novacene has been an inspiration to me and has, for the time being, diminished my desire to wallow in self pity.
Many reading this will know about James Lovelock and his ideas. It will be clear that I've only just discovered him and them, and on reading Novacene I am captured by the originality and plausibility of Lovelock's ideas. They are all new to me, yet convincing, so clearly developed and argued are they. He believes that in the cosmos we are alone in having intelligent life. In Novacene Lovelock predicts a future in which new beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and will regard human beings in the same way as we now view plants - benign, necessary, but very slow acting organisms. These new beings will not be the cruel, violent robotic machines that want to conquer the planet as often portrayed by sci-fi writers and film-makers. They will hyper-intelligent beings as much dependent on the planet as we are. Just as we do they will need the protection of the planetary cooling system of Gaia to guard them from the increasing heat of the sun and since Gaia depends on organic life, human beings will remain partners in the project of continuing life on earth.
I read these ideas from the standpoint of a 74 years old man who had a fast developing mindset that I am not - to quote from a Proclaimers song - 'worth my room on this Earth.' I have been feeling fed up about the way the world has been going, and feeling too old and 'past it' to imagine that I have even a modicum of influence left that might change what happens in my daily life in a personal or public way and now I discover James Lovelock is 100 years old today, July 26th.
The idea of a man still writing groundbreaking books at the age of 100, lightens my weariness and gives me cause for optimism, and if I am fortunate to be spared for a few more years, there are things I can yet do - though hardly on the scale of James Lovelock - that may be of some use to myself and others. I take from Lovelock's ideas the sense that for all time we are all dependent on each other.
Yesterday I drifted into the Totnes Bookshop again and purchased Lovelock's autobiography James Lovelock Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist which was first published in 2000 and has been reprinted this year.
Last evening I was sitting in my room reading the book, with the summer evening light falling on my desk and through the open window I heard what sounded like a Jethro Tull record playing across the air. A hope came to me that there is life in this old dog yet and a desire that my new found optimism for the future will not be dashed too soon. Perhaps I'm not too old to rock n' roll or too young to die. Thank you James Lovelock.
Notes
'When Computers Rule the World' John Gribbin in Literary Review issue 477, July 2019, p10
Novacene The Coming of Age of Hyperintelligence James Lovelock with Bryan Appeyard, London, 2019
James Lovelock Homage to Gaia The Life of an Independent Scientist James Lovelock Souvenir Press, 2014, re-published 2019
James Lovelock BBC interview with Mishal Husein, 4th July, 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-48858692/james-lovelock-on-the-future-of-ai-and-climate-change
You're Never too old to rock n' roll but you're to young to die Jethro Tull, 1975 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtwMMqRihx0
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| A single organism |
Many reading this will know about James Lovelock and his ideas. It will be clear that I've only just discovered him and them, and on reading Novacene I am captured by the originality and plausibility of Lovelock's ideas. They are all new to me, yet convincing, so clearly developed and argued are they. He believes that in the cosmos we are alone in having intelligent life. In Novacene Lovelock predicts a future in which new beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and will regard human beings in the same way as we now view plants - benign, necessary, but very slow acting organisms. These new beings will not be the cruel, violent robotic machines that want to conquer the planet as often portrayed by sci-fi writers and film-makers. They will hyper-intelligent beings as much dependent on the planet as we are. Just as we do they will need the protection of the planetary cooling system of Gaia to guard them from the increasing heat of the sun and since Gaia depends on organic life, human beings will remain partners in the project of continuing life on earth.
 |
| Novacene: the coming age |
The idea of a man still writing groundbreaking books at the age of 100, lightens my weariness and gives me cause for optimism, and if I am fortunate to be spared for a few more years, there are things I can yet do - though hardly on the scale of James Lovelock - that may be of some use to myself and others. I take from Lovelock's ideas the sense that for all time we are all dependent on each other.
 |
| James Lovelock: independent scientist |
Yesterday I drifted into the Totnes Bookshop again and purchased Lovelock's autobiography James Lovelock Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist which was first published in 2000 and has been reprinted this year.
Last evening I was sitting in my room reading the book, with the summer evening light falling on my desk and through the open window I heard what sounded like a Jethro Tull record playing across the air. A hope came to me that there is life in this old dog yet and a desire that my new found optimism for the future will not be dashed too soon. Perhaps I'm not too old to rock n' roll or too young to die. Thank you James Lovelock.
_______________
Notes
'When Computers Rule the World' John Gribbin in Literary Review issue 477, July 2019, p10
Novacene The Coming of Age of Hyperintelligence James Lovelock with Bryan Appeyard, London, 2019
James Lovelock Homage to Gaia The Life of an Independent Scientist James Lovelock Souvenir Press, 2014, re-published 2019
James Lovelock BBC interview with Mishal Husein, 4th July, 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-48858692/james-lovelock-on-the-future-of-ai-and-climate-change
You're Never too old to rock n' roll but you're to young to die Jethro Tull, 1975 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtwMMqRihx0
