The proceedings of the conference “The Physical Economy of the noösphere: Reviving the Heritage of Vladimir Vernadsky”, organized by the International Schiller Institute in honor of the 160th anniversary of Vladimir Vernadsky’s birth on 12 November, 2022, are presented. The participants stressed the great importance of Vernadsky’s doctrine in the development of modern civilization, from the standpoints of both strengthening international cooperation and the growth of productive forces. Some of the speakers noted the greater value of the anti-malthusian approach for humanity as compared to the construction of limits to growth.

The paper provides a brief analysis of the process of continuous self-organization (evolution) of living matter in the flow of Primary energy. Particular attention is paid to humans (Homo sapiens), who have taken possession of special methods of energy generation, not characteristic of any other species, namely, the transformation of the continuous flow of Primary energy. Energy generation and “scientific thought” have allowed humanity to become, according to V.I. Vernadsky, a “geological force”, to involve significant resources of the planet in the process of its own continuous self-organization and socialization of individuals. The scientific formalization of the processes used to generate energy significantly has accelerated the development of society and has actually become a prerequisite for the scientific and technological revolution. It is shown that they were Russian and, to a greater extent, Soviet scientists who have made a decisive contribution to the fundamental scientific foundations of energy generation, which determines the modern process of self-organization of mankind and people socialization. Reducing the overall efficiency of energy resources below a certain threshold is a dangerous and intractable challenge for the industrial world economies and civilization as a whole, causing conflict situations. An alternative to the apocalyptic scenario of human development, the concept of distributed energy generation based on self-regulation of energy consumption by a single individual is considered. Distributed energy generation, according to the authors, could determine novel socialization phenomena and initiate, according to V.I. Vernadsky’s teaching, the transition of the biosphere into the noösphere.