# James Lovelock **Domain:** Earth Systems / Speculative Machine Evolution **Doc Type:** Person Node **Maturity:** Developing ## Definition **James Lovelock** proposed the “Novacene” as a possible age of rapidly thinking cyborgs that arise with human assistance. In his *BBC Science Focus* interview he imagines cooperation among humans, cyborgs, and the living Earth, rather than an adversarial takeover. His speed comparison is speculative. ## Relationships - **Authored:** [*The Vanishing Face of Gaia* (2009), printed p. 27](https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/james-lovelock/the-vanishing-face-of-gaia/9780465019076/) pairs his “planetary disease organism” analogy with the claim that Gaia needs human intelligence. - **Authored:** [“Gaia Will Soon Belong to the Cyborgs” (*Nautilus*, 2020)](https://nautil.us/gaia-will-soon-belong-to-the-cyborgs-237728), an author excerpt from *Novacene*, forecasts self-built future understanders while arguing for ecological cooperation. - **Interviewed by:** [*BBC Science Focus* about the Novacene](https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/james-lovelock-cyborgs-turning-100-and-the-come-age-of-the-novacene), including his prediction of future cyborg cognition and cooperative climate regulation. - **Proposed:** A possible branch of [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] in which humans participate in the emergence of new beings and continue to cooperate with them. - **Connects to:** [[wiki/Ecological Limits|Ecological Limits]] through his attention to planetary temperature and the interdependence of living systems. - **Collection and article routes:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]], [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]], and [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] distinguish his planetary prospect from other successor architectures. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “We are the intelligent elite among animal life on Earth and whatever our mistakes, Gaia needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way twentieth-century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken Gaia 3.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct, she has little chance of evolving another.” > **— James Lovelock**, *The Vanishing Face of Gaia, 2009, p. 27* [[reminders/Human Animality/Humanity Is a Planetary Malady but Gaia Needs Us by James Lovelock|Humanity Is a Planetary Malady but Gaia Needs Us by James Lovelock]] > “What is revolutionary about this moment is that the understanders of the future will not be humans but cyborgs that will have designed and built themselves from the artificial intelligence systems we have already constructed. These will soon become thousands then millions of times more intelligent than us.” > **— James Lovelock**, *“Gaia Will Soon Belong to the Cyborgs,” Nautilus, 2020* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Future Understanders Could Be Self-Built Cyborgs by James Lovelock|Future Understanders Could Be Self-Built Cyborgs by James Lovelock]] > “The Novacene will be inhabited by cyborgs who think and act roughly 10,000 times faster than we or other animals do.” > **— James Lovelock**, *BBC Science Focus interview on the Novacene* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Cyborgs Could Think Ten Thousand Times Faster by James Lovelock|Cyborgs Could Think Ten Thousand Times Faster by James Lovelock]] > “We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet.” > **— James Lovelock**, *“The Earth Is About to Catch a Morbid Fever,” The Independent, January 16, 2006* [[reminders/Human Animality/Humans Are the Nervous System of Earth by James Lovelock|Humans Are the Nervous System of Earth by James Lovelock]] > “Like it or not, the emergence of cyborgs cannot be envisaged without us humans playing a god-like – or parent-like – role.” > **— James Lovelock**, *BBC Science Focus interview on the Novacene, August 22, 2019* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Humans May Parent Their Cyborg Successors by James Lovelock|Humans May Parent Their Cyborg Successors by James Lovelock]]