The Planetary
Organism

What does it mean to be alive? The concepts of life and living organisms deserve renewed attention. The traditional materialistic perspective presents life and individuals as highly organised matter within a limited and closed space. However, any material organism continuously and fully renews itself through a perpetual exchange of matter, energy and information with its environment. The alternative processual perspective identifies life as a dynamic and open process rather than an object – as a wave that propagates and transforms, rather than a static block. This approach allows us to conceive of the Ocean and the Earth as a living organism at a planetary scale.

The cognitive realisation of one’s environment is an entirely subjective process. An organism’s environment emerges through active exploration and participation, constituting what is known as enactive knowledge: reality arises from doing and living, rather than from thinking. This session will explore the links between emotions, place and narrative in our relationship with the Ocean, the history of marine sciences as a framework for cross-scalar reasoning, and the notion of the anima mundi and its connection to contemporary oceanic ecosystems.

The climate and environmental crises are clear expressions of our lack of harmony with Nature. The over-exploitation of planet Earth by a minority impacts the most vulnerable populations and threatens the security of future generations. The recognition and lived experience that we all are Ocean can serve as a powerful antidote against individualism and selfishness. This session will address the rights of Nature, ecological justice, scientific-environmental diplomacy, citizen science, and the implications for personal and planetary health of our connection to the Ocean.

The climate and environmental crises compel us to rethink our relationship with the planet. Recognising that we are part of the Earth’s living organism, that we are Ocean, can provide an expanded cognition rooted in lived experience, capable of generating a feeling of true interconnection. At the core of that connection, at the essence of collaborative and hopeful work, we find genuine love –intense, total and permanent– as the driving force behind our reconnection with the living Earth.