Abstract
Consistent with the ideas of V. N.Beklemishev, the concept of individuality of morphoprocess is introduced and utilized for the characterization of the biosphere. Morphoprocess is defined as a regular growth and change of the indefinitely lasting form amid a flow of stochastic changes. Any living system is a part of theglobal morphoprocess, which is never interrupted even when the subsystems transform or disintegrate. Accordingly, there are no ‘organisms’ from this viewpoint, there are only more or less individualised biosystems representing only the moments in the development of the global morphoprocess. That is why life can be defined only as a planetary phenomenon.
The concept of individuality expresses a degree of organization of biological phenomena. There are three basic criteria of the individuality of the morphoprocess: (1) the degree of the functional harmony; (2) the rhythm of a morphoprocess; (3) the degree of the morphogenetical secludedness.
The biosphere, examined from this viewpoint, appears as a living system of the highest order and “the largest unit of life”. At the same time the biosphere, being both arhythmic and morphogenetically open, is a faintly individualised morphoprocess. The low grade of individuality of the biosphere is a cost of its high complexity and distinguishes the biosphere from most of the ‘trivial’, Linnaean individuals.
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Levit, G.S., Scholz, J. The biosphere as a morphoprocess and a new look at the concepts of organism and individuality. Senckenbergiana lethaea 82, 367–372 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03043795
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03043795