--- title: "Astrobiologists Suggest the Earth Itself May Be an Intelligent Entity" description: "A team of scientists have posit the idea “planetary intelligence,” which describes the collective knowledge and cognition of an entire planet." date: "2022-02-17" modified: "2022-02-17" authors: - name: "Tony Ho Tran" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/ttran.md" url: "https://futurism.com/astrobiologists-earth-intelligent-entity" categories: - "Climate Change" - "Environment" - "Science & Energy" tags: - "aliens" - "climate change" - "earth" - "planets" --- # Astrobiologists Suggest the Earth Itself May Be an Intelligent Entity ![A team of scientists have posit the idea “planetary intelligence,” which describes the collective knowledge and cognition of an entire planet.]() *Brain planet, conceptual computer illustration. \Image: Getty\* A group of researchers have posed a fascinating — and downright mind bending — thought experiment: If a planet like Earth can be "alive," can it also have a mind of its own? The team published [a paper exploring this question]() in the *International Journal of Astrobiology.* In it, they present the idea of “planetary intelligence," which describes the collective knowledge and cognition of an entire planet. Though it seems like something ripped off the [screen of a Marvel movie](), they believe that the concept might actually help us deal with global issues such as climate change, or even help us discover extraterrestrial life. The researchers point to evidence that underground networks of fungi can communicate to suggest that large-scale networks of life could form a vast invisible intelligence that profoundly alters the condition of the entire planet. One of the primary species driving that change at the moment, they point out, are humans — and currently, from the climate to the plastic crisis, we may well be irrevocably changing the environmental balance. "We don’t yet have the ability to communally respond in the best interests of the planet," Adam Frank, professor of physics at the University of Rochester and coauthor of the paper, [said in a press release]() about the paper. The researchers believe that such thought experiments can help humans to understand their impact on the Earth and serve as a guide on how to better it. Interestingly, they also believe that it could aid in the search for aliens too. "We're saying the only technological civilizations we may ever see — the ones we should expect to see — are the ones that didn't kill themselves, meaning they must have reached the stage of a true planetary intelligence," Frank said. "That's the power of this line of inquiry," he added. "It unites what we need to know to survive the climate crisis with what might happen on any planet where life and intelligence evolve." **READ MORE:** [Can a planet have a mind of its own?]() \[The University of Rochester\] **More on our weird planet:** [*Scientists Claim Earth’s Core Is a Weird New State of Matter*]() ## Author Tony Tran is a former reporter for Futurism, and now an editor at the Daily Beast. His work has been seen in Playboy, HuffPost, Narratively, and wherever else fine writing is published. He lives in Chicago where he frequently plans tabletop gaming sessions for his friends. ## More - [Study Asserts That Earth is Not The First Intelligent Civilization In The Universe]() - [Maybe We Haven’t Found Aliens Because They All Died From Climate Change]() - [Alien Probes May Have Already Visited Earth, Scientist Says]() - [NASA Sponsored Researcher Suggests It Might Be Possible to Change the Laws of Physics]() - [Do Advanced Alien Civilizations Exist? Astrobiologists Provide a New Take on Drake’s Equation]() - [Scientists Perform “Health Check” on Planet Earth, Alarmed by What They Find]() - [Scientists: Extraterrestrials May Exist, But We Won’t Find Human-Like Intelligence]() - [Climate Scientist Warns That Countries Are Going to Start Geoengineering the Earth]()