Our story, the story of Earth, couldn’t possibly be more surreal and miraculous at the same time. Even the smartest team of human designers would almost certainly have failed to imagine, not least create, our world from scratch – even if they had access to all the tools and elements in the periodic table. How could they succeed, after all, since they themselves are a mere tiny piece of this creation? They would miss the mark by a long shot.
The planet’s “designers” would probably think that trees are thermodynamically impossible: how can these huge complex structures support their weight in the wind, towering over the land, sometimes hundreds of feet tall? How could they “grow and expand from the inside”, and produce millions of bright green leaves that feed on just thin air (CO2) and water? How would they cope in winter? The very thought of a tree sounds impossible, too good to be true. It sounds like someone’s acid trip. Yet this miracle of life exists.
The same designers would not even know where to start when assembling the planet’s climate machine, and its renewable, cyclical processes: a collection of interdependent systems which recirculate temperature, water, nutrients, magma, air, electrical charge, radiation and oxygen throughout the planet in ways that are too ingenious for us to fully understand. This is a living planet where everything is recycled, including civilizations.
Yet all these seemingly chaotic processes are in balance with each other. All these terrains and microclimates, all these very different worlds, these dynamic and often aggressive and antagonizing processes, are in full communication with each other via the Earthnet of Things. The level of complexity of the Earth’s machine is so vast, so deep, that it will never be fully understood by humans, and possibly even a deep mind AI. Earth is a Swiss watch with an infinite number of gears, springs and feedback loops, and even living beings are an active part of its central mechanism.
George is an author, researcher, chemist, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons or enjoy his books
George Tsakraklides 
I think it’s always a shame when people use machine metaphors for Earth. I understand why – we live in the age of The Machine. Still, it does such a great disservice to the Earth.
But you are a machine as well, a biological machine which follows a DNA code and a set of physics laws. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t diminish your existence, or importance. Think of machine in broader terms, as a system
I prefer to make a distinction that preserves the definition of “machine” as, e.g., “an apparatus [made by humans] using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task.” It’s worth differentiating us, or other life forms, as “organisms” or “animals” or “plants,” or what have you. People are confused enough without an Orwellian re-definition of common words.
( life is love – machine is a set of rules )
? Which Earth : ? Biosphere , ? Complement in Planet-Set , ? Everything Earth . . .