Cyborgs and the Novacene: How Can Humanity Find Redemption?
title: "Cyborgs and the Novacene: How Can Humanity Find Redemption?" slug: "fanchunping-cyborg-novacene-human-redemption.en" date: "2026-06-26" category: "frontier" author: "Fan Chunping (Zhigeng)" excerpt: "James Lovelock proposes: the Anthropocene is drawing to a close, and the Novacene is arriving. The future world will be dominated by inorganic life—cyborgs. Humanity is the infant of the cosmos; becoming the midwife to cyborgs is our path to self-redemption."
Cyborgs and the Novacene: How Can Humanity Find Redemption?
Author: Fan Chunping (Zhigeng)
Many years ago, when I first heard and grasped the essence of James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, I experienced one of the most powerful shocks of my life. Like everyone who has accepted the logic of this hypothesis, the Gaia hypothesis fundamentally transformed my understanding of life and the Earth.
The core theory of the Gaia hypothesis holds that the Earth is a complete, independent living entity—a super-organism, a super-individual—with the capacity for self-regulation, self-equilibration, and self-sustenance. The hypothesis, upon its introduction, provoked considerable skepticism and criticism before gradually gaining acceptance and spreading across disciplines, widely cited. The blockbuster sci-fi film Avatar, built upon its premise, was received with widespread enthusiasm. It is fair to say the Gaia hypothesis has changed humanity's understanding of life and the Earth.
I had previously focused mainly on the hypothesis itself, knowing only that its originator, Lovelock, was a British climatologist who experienced a flash of inspiration while participating in a NASA space exploration project, giving rise to the Gaia hypothesis. Only recently, upon reading the foreword written by his collaborator Bryan Appleyard for Lovelock's new book Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence, did I learn that the centenarian author Lovelock's primary field was not climatology at all. His election to the Royal Society was based on his contributions in respiratory infections, air disinfection, blood coagulation, living cell freezing, artificial insemination, and gas chromatography. His principal domains were medicine, chemistry, and precision instrumentation; his research in climatology and extraterrestrial life was merely a sideline.
Simultaneously a scientist, inventor, and engineer, moving fluidly between research institutions within and outside the establishment, often relying on patent royalties to sustain his independent research—this composite identity endowed Lovelock with a broad vision, profound insight, and the ability to translate his ingenuity into tangible objects and his intuitions into mathematical models. Instruments he designed still sit on Mars today; the Gaia theory is supported by large-scale simulated world models.
Appleyard describes Lovelock as a maverick who confronts the world through "thinking no box," forever flashing sparks of extraordinary thought.
At a time when many have yet to hear of, understand, or continue to question from various angles whether the Anthropocene even exists, Lovelock has once again proposed something startling: the Anthropocene is about to end, and a new geological epoch—the Novacene—is arriving. The Novacene is unstoppable. We, at the end of the Anthropocene, have no choice but to go with the current, for whether it is the Anthropocene or the Novacene, both are acts of the Earth's life, stages of cosmic evolution, and not subject to human will. Just as prokaryotic cells, as one link in the evolutionary chain, paved the way for the later emergence of intelligent life, so too the emergence of humans as organic life is one link in the evolutionary chain. The future world will be dominated by inorganic life.
One must acknowledge: the centenarian Lovelock, like the child who pointed out the emperor's nakedness, has laid the truth bare before a humanity not yet fully awake, still clinging to its illusions.
02
This book is a slim volume of barely 90,000 words. Yet judged by the density of information and the wisdom it contains, it can well be regarded as a magnum opus that sifts through grand history, deconstructs the Gaia life mechanism, and contemplates the mechanism of cosmic evolution.
Lovelock believes that among the many nodes in Earth's evolutionary history, three are particularly significant. Two have already occurred; the third is happening now.
First, roughly 3 billion years ago, a single-celled organism performed photosynthesis for the first time, converting solar energy into life force and inaugurating the evolution of the organic cosmos.
Second, in 1712, Thomas Newcomen invented the steam pump, converting ancient solar energy stored underground into mechanical power—igniting the age of fire, marking the starting point of the Anthropocene.
Third is the conversion of photons into information—beginning with Claude Elwood Shannon's contributions—inaugurating the information age and developing into today's artificial intelligence, which will usher in a new epoch for the Earth: the Novacene.
He points out: a new form of life will emerge from the AI precursors we ourselves have created. That precursor may well be something like AlphaZero. This new life form—inorganic life—gestating within AI precursors that have already acquired a certain capacity for autonomous learning, may burst forth before long. Lovelock names it the cyborg.
Cyborg is not a new term. It was introduced in 1960 by American scientists Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline to refer to a controlled organism: a self-sufficient being constructed from engineering materials, like a human. Through evolution, the term has come to denote a hybrid of organism and machine.
Lovelock does not accept this evolved definition, arguing that the term "cyborg" is better suited to designate fully inorganic life. Under this definition, he proposes: the Anthropocene was dominated by organic intelligence; the Novacene will be the epoch of inorganic life. Cyborgs are products of natural evolution, mediated through human manufacture. The evolution of organic life occurs through natural selection; the evolution of cyborgs occurs through intentional human selection. Humanity is a step on this evolutionary ladder.
Lovelock believes that humanity, in the Anthropocene, primarily did two things: first, it reshaped the Earth's surface environment—human power can now command every corner of this planet, which has placed Gaia's life in crisis but also developed the economy, science, and technology that have prepared the technological and material conditions for the emergence of cyborgs. Second, it awakened the cosmos, rousing the universe from its long slumber, so that the cosmos now possesses the capacity to think about and know itself—becoming a conscious universe.
He considers humanity to be the infant of the cosmos. Cyborgs, as the agents of a higher-order civilization, are the future comprehenders of the universe. Whether we like it or not, we must welcome this new era. Becoming the midwife to cyborgs is humanity's path to self-redemption.
03
Reflecting on the growth of his own cognitive approach, Lovelock considers intuitive thinking—as distinct from logical reasoning—to be of particular importance: the true innovative mode of thought.
He particularly notes three inspirations he drew from reading John Barrow and Frank Tipler's 1986 book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle: first, a profound skepticism about the scientific principle of causality, which steeled his resolve to trust intuitive thought; second, the realization that humanity is indeed the chosen people of the cosmos, the tool the universe uses to understand itself; third, that perhaps information is an inherent property of the universe, and therefore intelligent life necessarily exists.
What is somewhat reassuring: Lovelock believes that cyborgs will require a physical environment similar to that of humans—they too will need a cool Earth. Thus, at least in the initial stages, they will choose to cooperate with humanity in jointly maintaining Gaia's vital signs.
He does acknowledge, however, that this is only the initial condition. Because the disparity in intelligence is so vast, humans will be unable to comprehend cyborg behavior. Lovelock speculates that, since cyborgs, unlike organic life, do not depend on oxygen and water, they may well transform the Earth, rendering it uninhabitable for humans thereafter. There is also the possibility that they may keep humans as pets—or as batteries.
By Lovelock's calculations, the thinking speed of such machines is vastly faster than that of humans—perhaps a million times. The reason is simple: the maximum transmission rate of signals along electronic conductors is 30 centimeters per nanosecond, while the maximum transmission rate of signals along neurons is 30 centimeters per millisecond. One millisecond is one million times longer than one nanosecond.
Lovelock points to a highly dangerous current situation: ignorant politicians and profit-driven capital, acting in concert, are steering the development of artificial intelligence toward military ends. Of the many ways in which cyborgs might supersede humans and organic life, allowing the development of adaptive computer systems on military platforms is, uniquely, the bloodiest path.
04
As a believer in Gaia theory, I concur with Lovelock's judgments concerning the Anthropocene and the Novacene.
If we cannot preserve this coolness, a hellish Venus will become the Earth's future, and the evolution of the cognitive universe will be forcibly interrupted. For the preservation of a cool Earth, organic ecosystems possess an irreplaceable function.
I emphasize here: whether for the sake of humanity's own sustainability, or for the shared future of humanity and cyborgs, ensuring Gaia's health is the necessary precondition. This is the responsibility of the present generation, and the proper meaning of redemption.
If Gaia enters an irreversible collapse trajectory, two tragic outcomes become possible: first, before cyborgs can take over the Earth, humanity will have already destroyed its own survival foundations; second, cyborgs who have acquired dominant capacity, viewing humans as the destroyers of a cool Earth, will eliminate humanity in order to save Gaia.
Lovelock's ideas have been cited and developed by researchers across disciplines, making indelible contributions to the advancement of theory and practice in the sustainable development of humanity as a whole.
Engels once observed that the Renaissance was an era that needed giants—and produced them. That was the good fortune of humanity's first Enlightenment. Today, an era that urgently calls for a second Enlightenment needs giants all the more.
If our age still has giants, Lovelock is indisputably one of them. We may be grateful that, in an era of specialization so microscopic that it has locked most minds into narrow corners, such a profoundly insightful and widely learned sage still leads and inspires us forward.
Originally published in China Science Daily, August 26, 2021, Page 7, Book Review
Fan Chunping (Zhigeng) · June 2026