*offers ginger snaps and a fresh hot latte to dip them in.....forgot what posting for? mmmmmmm.....gingersnappies and latte...mmmmmm*
Seriously, sorta, have you read up on the old Gaia Theory? I think that is a fun type of semi-spirituality kind of thingy to contemplate. Although the following is not very accurately taken from the theory, imagine that the earth is like a rock covered in a thin film of interdependent living things that seem to communicate in the effective but mindless way that cells in the body coordinate and cooperate via chemical messenger hormones and such.
In the case of the earth, current studies are tracing life-specific sulphur isotopes cycling from sea to land then back again...via means and manners which cannot explain it away as a weather phenomenon!
Now, since the body is certainly something much greater than the sum of its parts, extrapolate this analogy to the earth. Is it possible that the earth itself is like a living, "multicellular" organism> A Planetism (as it's called in the theory)?
Many critics say no, because the "earth cannot reproduce". Well, maybe not sexual reproduction...but what about sporing? Could humans be the "neurons" of a developing planetism's higher nervous system? Is space exploration planetism Earth's first foray into adolescent angst?