What is an organism? It is an assemblage of living parts that are contiguous and interdependent. This definition includes us. Such organisms may reproduce by fissinoning into existing and new entities that become physically separate or it may simply continue to exist as a single entity. Most of the organisms that we encounter reproduce by creating a new entity that is physically separate but this is not required. Why does a living entity need to create new entities? One can easily imagine a single living entity made of living parts that are created and destroyed as time progresses. This process would renew and rejuvenate the living entity without requiring division into a second entity. As I have discussed before, our bodies are continually being regenerated. Although we eventually die, we only live as long as we do because of this continual regeneration. Genetic defects such as those in the genetic disease progeria inhibit this rejuvenation resulting in rapid aging and tragically shortened lifetimes. With continual and perhaps more effective rejuvenation an entity could live on without dividing and creating a separate organism. The Earth could be such a living but non-dividing organism. How could the Earth reproduce? It would be difficult for the Earth to divide by fission but it certainly can bud off parts of its biosphere, something like a big yeast. We could be the reproductive mechanism of the Earth when we establish a biosphere off the globe.
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