The anticipatory revolutions of

the Earth

Bronislaw Szerszynski

• how can we locate the phenomenon of anticipation in human and non-human systems in the deep-time context of planetary development?

• are there key transition points in the Earth’s ability to produce entities and processes with different modes of anticipation?

• can we see anticipation as an ‘Earthly power’

theory 1 – memory, matter & anticipation

• Henri Bergson on duration

• recollective vs. habit memory

• memory, forgetting & anticipation

• noise (Serres) and the ‘shape of time’ (Kubler)

theory 2 – emergence & self-organisation

• dissipative structures (Prigogine)

• self-organising criticality (Bak)

• causal topologies (Deacon)

Deacon’s causal topology

Dupuy’s ‘projected time’

theory 3 – revolutions of the Earth

candidate revolutions

1. planets in orbit

2. intraplanetary turbulence

3. material cycling

4. living organism

5. Gaian biosphere

6. animal motility

7. What next?

1 – exterior differentiation & equilibrium

2 – interior differentiation & turbulence

3 – dissipative cycles

4 – the living organism

5 – the Gaian biosphere

6 – the motile animal

7 – and then?

• humans - consciousness? language? culture?

• technology and the technosphere?

• alternative anticipatory modes and ‘shapes of time’