The following remarks by V.I. Vernadsky are taken from his November 1936 letter to B.L. Lichkov.
“I’m introducing a new understanding of the ‘noosphere,’ a term which was proposed by LeRoi in 1929 and which brings in the historic process of humanity as an extension of the biogeochemical history of living matter. There has been established a sharp and impenetrable material-energetic difference between living matter (respectively, the totality of living organisms) and inert natural bodies (respectively, the inert matter of the biosphere). This is not vitalism since no life-force, or specific form of energy, or entelechy has been introduced here. But at the same time … between living natural beings, living organisms, and inert natural bodies (such as minerals, rocks, etc.,) there is an insurmountable divide. I believe that the synthesis of organisms from chemical isotopic compounds (different from inert bodies) is impossible, even if we are able to create chemical elements of that atomic weight.
