Living beings do far more than reproduce their own species. The reproduction of the immense and complex relationships in nature could not possibly occur through ecosystem relationships that were incidental to the reproduction of species. Flowers and bees could not be involved in a system of mutual survival and reproductive success unless each contains in its genetic structure some expression of the other. As we have discussed, this expression is not direct, but is mediated by sets of appearances of both in the environment external to them that represent the essence of the one living being to the other.¹It is this environment-mediated internal structure in both flowers and bees that has evolved over time, along with the environment.

Ecosystems contain the ensemble of temporarily living and temporarily non-living matter in constant systemic exchange in all four permutations of those two categories.²This complex of system of exchange can only be sustained if ecosystems as such tend to be actively reproduced by the living beings within them. That is, the collective acts of a species must not only enable the immediate survival of a species they must also systematically contribute to the reproduction of the ecosystem that that species needs. This is a crucial aspect of species survival. Material cycles (oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, for instance) in nature cannot be (more or less) closed unless the genomes of the living beings within the ecosystem collectively contain sufficient need-knowledge of the ecosystem to contribute to its reproduction. However, the system is never exactly closed, given that changes in entropy and time are unidirectional and that both the ecosystem and the species in it are evolving (see below). For the same reason, reproduction of an ecosystem is never exact, but is rather a tendency of the system to maintain certain kinds of flows through it and structures within it.

If particular species contribute to the reproduction of their specific ecosystems and all species together tend to reproduce the global ecosystem,³the hypothesis that species evolve to occupy pre-existing "niches" becomes very questionable. Richard Lewontin has observed that:

"The concept of an empty ecological niche cannot be made concrete. There is a noncountable infinity of ways in which the physical world can be put together to describe an ecological niche, nearly all of which would seem absurd or arbitrary because we have never seen an organism occupying such a niche." ⁴

Rather, the ecological niche should be understood as "a space defined by the activities of the organism itself."⁵Each species systematically contributes to the survival of the ecosystem it needs because that is the very process by which specific species actually evolve and come into being. To put Lewontin's observation in the context of the genetic hypotheses in the present essay, the ecological "niche" and the genome of the species come into existence as part of the same process-that is, they co-evolve.

Even though the reproduction of ecosystems and genomes occurs mutually, no single species contains the genetic-need-knowledge to internally represent the entire ecosystem. Even a species' own ecosystem is incompletely represented internally. The insect that is the crocodile's food is internally represented in the crocodile only via the integration of a limited set of appearances that are normally, but not always, adequate.

A heron scooping up a fish in its beak may not detect the parasite in its prey, or at least not detect it well enough to prevent becoming, on occasion, a prey itself.⁶One central consequence of this partial and incomplete representation is that no single species can by itself reproduce the ecosystem it needs.

The hypothesis of the collective reproduction of the global ecosystem by the species within it is conducive to the idea of evolution through symbiosis. In fact, the entire process of living through incorporation, recognition, and excorporation that results in the reproduction of species and ecosystems can be viewed as a large-scale symbiosis. Global-scale symbiosis is essential to all species, since no species can reproduce the ecosystem it needs.⁷Competition should be seen within that symbiotic context.

Since there are complex disjunctions between the global ecosystem and the species that exist at any time, symbiosis is never perfect and never static. One might view this disjunction as one of the driving forces in evolution.⁸For instance, the fact that parasites residing in prey are insufficiently represented in the internal biology of predators to be detected enables parasites to flourish. The tension between parasite and host also raises

the possibility, in specific instances, of the evolutionary transformation of parasitism into symbiosis. For instance, mitochondria, which are essential to cell metabolism, may have begun as bacteria that invaded larger single-celled organisms long ago.⁹

Appearance, Essence, and Uncertainty

Jean-Paul Sartre, in Being and Nothingness, wrote that the essence of a thing is not hidden in its interior as a secret to be revealed if its outer layers are peeled off. Rather, the essence of something "is the manifest law that presides over the succession of its appearances, it is the principle of the series."¹⁰However, Sartre did not relate how the essence of something is conditioned by the other party to the series of appearances-the living being to whom the thing appears, who has a vantage point and an internal structure of needs. The essence of something that is grasped by another is the principle of a series of appearances that unifies subject and object in a specific, defining relationship. In fact, appearances need not define a single essence, since the manifold appearances of something can potentially be grouped according to many principles. As we have discussed, whether an insect is a mate or a meal depends both on the insect and the (engaged) observer of the insect. For the female black widow spider, its male counterpart is both, in sequence. Moreover, both parties to the appearance are changing-indeed, they are both changed by the process. Finally, the number (and/or duration) of appearances is necessarily finite. As a result of these factors, we may conclude that uncertainty is inherent in relationships within ecosystems, since they depend on the communication of essence through appearances.¹¹This has important implications for our ability to predict the problems that might arise from genetic engineering (see Chapter 5).

Finally, living beings, collectively, do not reproduce the ecosystems they need without fail. Besides the disjunction between the internal structures of living beings and the global and local ecosystems they inhabit, the biogeosphere is subject to forces beyond the control of the living beings in it. Further, the rates of some of the changes that occur in the biogeosphere far exceed the possible rates of adaptation by specific species that might exist at any specific time. Great and/or sudden changes in ecosystems due to large volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts are examples of such natural forces. But despite the enormous and sudden changes in the Earth's environment in the past, life, in its essential characteristics, has persisted not only because survivors could adapt to environmental changes, but also because they could shape the new environment to life's needs. Even volcanic ash soon becomes part of the stuff of life. But that does not ensure the survival of specific species in the face of drastic and rapid environmental change. After all, most species that once existed are now extinct.

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Endnotes

1 The terms "external" and "internal" are defined by the acts of excorporation and incorporation of living beings. Evidently, there are multiple and overlapping layers of internal and external. See discussion in footnote 11 above.

^{2 There are transformations of the living into the living, the living into the non-living, the non-living into the living, and the non-living into the non-living.
^{3 Goldsmith calls the global ecosystem the "ecosphere." Goldsmith 1998, Chapter 19.
^{4 Lewontin 2000, p. 49.
^{5 Lewontin 2000, p. 53.
^{6 For the complex interactions between fish, parasites, and herons, see, for instance, Spalding and Forrester 1991.
^{7 The hypotheses discussed in this paper can be more explicitly linked to the Gaia hypothesis by defining a time-dependent global ecosystem "genome" that corresponds to the reproduction of the evolving ensemble of the living beings on Earth. A historical description of the concepts involved in the Gaia hypothesis can be found at http://www.magna.com.au/~prfbrown/gaia_jim.html. See also Goldsmith 1998, and Capra 1996. A number of scientific papers on the subject of symbiosis and evolution can be found in Margulis and Fester, eds. 1991.
^{8 When responding to objections to his theory, Darwin noted this disjunction: ". . . organic beings . . . are not as perfect as they might have been in relation to their conditions....Nor can organic beings, even if they were at any time perfectly adapted to their conditions of life, have remained so, when their conditions changed, unless they themselves likewise changed . . ." Darwin 1998 edition, pp. 263-264. Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin have noted that, despite Darwin's remarks about "perfection of structure and coadaptation," his view was that adaptation produces living beings that "tend to progress toward perfection." Levins and Lewontin 1985, p. 26-27.
^{9 This thesis was put forward in 1918 by a French biologist Paul Poitier--see Hubbard and Wald 1993, p. 164. This book also provides a discussion of mitochondrial DNA in human beings, pp. 163-167. For a more general discussion see Wesson 1991, pp. 157-167.
^{10 Sartre 1966 edition, pp. 5 and 6.
^{11 These constructs are evidently related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in physics. See Tautz 2000 for discussion of uncertainty in relation to genetics.

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