Biosphere

Discussion

Excerpted from "The Biosphere and the Noophere: by W. I. VERNADSKY:

"LIVING matter is the totality of all organisms present on the earth at any one time. It is usually such a totality that is important, though in dealing with the effect of man on the processes of this planet, a single individual may be of importance. The living matter of the earth may be regarded as the sum of the average living matter of all the taxonomically recognizable groups. Each of these groups is said to consist of homogeneous living matter. Living matter exists only in the biosphere m. This includes the whole atmospheric troposphere, the oceans, and a thin layer in the continental regions, extending down three kilometers or more. Man tends to increase the size of the biosphere. The biosphere is distinguished as the domain of life, but also, and more fundamentally, as the region where changes due to incoming radiation can occur. Within the biosphere, matter is markedly heterogenous and may be distinguished as inert matter or living matter. The inert matter greatly predominates in mass or volume. There is a continual migration of toms from the inert matter to living matter and back again. All the objects of study in the biosphere are to be regarded as the natural bodies of the biosphere. They may be of varying complexity, inert, living, or bio-inert as in the case of soil or lake water. The study of all phenomena has a unity, leading to the production of a body of systematized knowledge, the corpus scientiarum, which tends to grow like a snowball; this corpus includes all systematized knowledge, and is contrasted to the results of philosophy, religion, and art where truth may be reveAled intuitively; the systematized history of these activities belongs to the corpus."

(https://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Vernadsky_WI_1945_The_Biosphere_and_the_Noosphere.pdf)