“In system-science terms, we say Earth is materially closed. The Earth is also energetically/informationally open: sunlight pours in, and information comes and goes.”
“”Closed” means separated from the flow.”
“”System” means interconnected. Things in a system are intertwined, linked directly or indirectly into a common fate. In an ecospheric world, shrimp eat algae, algae live on the light, microbes survive on the “wastes” of both. If the temperature soars too high (above 90 degrees), the shrimp molt faster than they can eat; thus they consume themselves. Not enough light and the algae won’t grow fast enough to satiate the shrimp. The flicking tails of the shrimp stir up the water, which stirs the microbes so that each bug has a chance to catch the sunlight. The whole has a life in addition to the individual lives.”
A forest needs the severe destruction of hurricanes to blow down the old and make space for the new. The turbulence of fire on the prairie unloosens bound materials that cannot be loosened unless ignited. A world without lightning and fire becomes rigid. An ocean has the fire of undersea thermal vents in the short run, and the fire of compressed seafloor and continental plates in the long geological run. Flash heat, volcanism, lightning, wind, and waves all renew the material world.
“We might as well develop a science of synthetic ecosystem creation since we’ve been creating them anyway in a haphazard fashion. Many archeo- ecologists believe that the entire spectrum of early humanoid activities — hunting, grazing, setting prairie fires, and selective herb gathering — forged an “artificial” ecology upon the wilderness, that is, an ecology greatly shaped by human arts Closed systems are a particularly intense variety of coevolution.”
“The ecology of the cosmos is this type: a universe of isolated systems (planets), furiously inventing things in that mad way of a chameleon locked in a mirrored bottle. Every now and then marvels from one closed system will arrive with a shock into another.”
Free mind on "free space" 