Why the body of the Gaian planet presupposes a mind

The article describes basic Gaian metabolism, which is frankly incredible, and supposes some intelligent behaviour. Now I beileve that intelligent behavior in inherent in the bacteriosphere, in other words, that Gaia thinks using conjugal bacterial transfers of DNA as our brains use potassium ions between neurons:

"...it is hard to believe that Gaian processes can evolve by chance. The trials would take too long. For example, one trial of the proposed mechanism for regulating the saltiness of seawater would take at least sixty million years. If Gaia didn't luck upon the right system for that problem on the first try, things would quickly become grim.

"Gaia makes much more sense if the stabilizing feedback loops were not blindly discovered, but were already available when the need for them arose. This would mean, for example, that the genes for cyanobacteria, for coral, and for animals with carbonate shells were already available when they were needed. Thus, the processes of oxygen accumulation, desalinization of seawater, and burial of carbon would have begun on this planet without delay. Cosmic ancestry would make comprehensible the existence of Gaian processes prior to the establishment of life on Earth.

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