17 ms·

The role of fungi in earth's ecology is endlessly fascinating. In addition to laying the groundwork for complex life, there's evidence they helped in the emerg

by erikig 7y ago

The role of fungi in earth's ecology is endlessly fascinating. In addition to laying the groundwork for complex life, there's evidence they helped in the emergence of intelligence and consciousness[1] as well as helping save honeybees[2] [1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsif.2014.0873 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsif.2014... (pdf link) [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/09/446928755/could-a-mushroom-save-the-honeybee https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/09/446928755/co...

sakopov 7y ago
It is indeed. I'd also recommend giving this podcast [1] with Paul Stamets a listen. He's a fairly well-known mycologist who has some very interesting things to say on the topic. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ
- RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
  Stamets is an interesting guy who should never be considered an authority on anything other than the psychedelic experience. He's fun to listen to, but he's a total crank when it comes to actual reproducible science.
  - kovek 7y ago
    I wish people downvoting this comment would contribute to the discussion. Why not contribute?
    - robotbikes 7y ago
      I think in general Paul Stamets is not a scientist per se in the form of writing papers and doing academic research but it is hard to deny his influence as a popularizer of mycology. He also writes about the study and growing of mushrooms and these include the edible not just the psychoactive kind. I know he has done some bioremediation demonstrations but perhaps according to the poster these weren't performed with enough scientific rigor. Not everyone who studies and shares information about something does so from the confines of the traditional academic background and not everyone needs a PhD to be an expert about something so perhaps that is why some people are down voting.
      - erikpukinskis 7y ago
        Sounds like he’s an influencer.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    He is certainly an authority on mycology. He has found numerous species, identified mushrooms with antiviral activity for the DoD, created a mushroom-based bee-pest treatment, biological system for killing termites without poison, etc.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    Interesting. I've recently gotten in to Paul Stamets and he certainly seems to be involved in a lot of research. He's also literally written the book (multiples, really) on mushroom cultivation. He started his career legally studying psychedelics through a DEA license at his university, but has since contributed to quite a bit of original research according to his own claims. He has said for example that he (in part or in whole, I can't recall) developed the method the DEA still uses for positively identifying psilocybin. It doesn't seem accurate to call him a crank. Indeed when I heard him discuss the "stoned ape theory" he said it makes sense to him, but that it is not provable in his opinion. Doesn't sound like a crank to me.
L_226 7y ago
I acknowledge that this comment is probably low quality, but if you have ever taken magic mushrooms you realise that fungi are definitely linked to the emergence of consciousness.
- andbberger 7y ago
  totally. just the other day when I was tripping balls, I was thinking "Man are these fungi great chemists"
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - deleted 7y ago
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- nomel 7y ago
  This is like claiming that dripping drops of water on a circuit board, and observing that the electronics misbehave, somehow links it to the emergence of circuit design.
  - vokep 7y ago
    Yes. If you are a circuit board, getting some water on yourself would be one way to (potentially destructively) learn about what your design actually is. Or fault injection or fuzzing, same idea. By making errors happen, you find out about possible errors that even can happen, and that tells you something about the overall design. Maybe the design cannot be fully determined this way, but a portion can be learned, maybe a portion unreachable by any other means (MRI, neural probes, etc) so research into the mind and consciousness by use of psychedelics does make sense.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    It surely is in some ways. But in other ways, it sure seems like they have some sort of a special "relationship" (for utter lack of a better term) with consciousness. Out of curiosity, have you tried them before?
mistermann 7y ago
See also Terence Mckenna's stoned ape theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#%22Stoned_ape%22_theory_of_human_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#%22Stoned_ape%... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnEKoFrx1rI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnEKoFrx1rI Yes it's "a little" out there, but I think it's actually quite plausible.
- ColanR 7y ago
  Saw that recently...it's cool, but there's no actual evidence that psilocybin has any of the positive evolutionary effects that Mckenna hypothesizes.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    Sourcing evidence from prehistoric times is notoriously difficult. What we do know (or think we know, to be more accurate) is often pieced together from archeological finds and correlations of semi-related "facts" from various scientific fields, forming a theoretical model of "how things used to be". We do not know how accurate our models are (each person has their own).
    - ColanR 7y ago
      > low doses of psilocybin improve visual acuity, particularly edge detection, meaning that the presence of psilocybin in the diet of early pack hunting primates caused the individuals who were consuming psilocybin mushrooms to be better hunters than those who were not, resulting in an increased food supply and in turn a higher rate of reproductive success. > Then at slightly higher doses, he contended, the mushroom acts to sexually arouse, leading to a higher level of attention, more energy in the organism, and potential erection in the males, rendering it even more evolutionarily beneficial, as it would result in more offspring. > At even higher doses, McKenna proposed that the mushroom would have acted to "dissolve boundaries," promoting community bonding and group sexual activities. > At these higher doses, McKenna also argued that psilocybin would be triggering activity in the "language-forming region of the brain", manifesting as music and visions, thus catalyzing the emergence of language in early hominids by expanding "their arboreally evolved repertoire of troop signals." I'm not saying we don't have evidence for what happened in prehistoric times. As you said, that's hard. But the above is the outline of Mckenna's theory, taken from wikipedia. My point, is that he makes a number of claims as to the effects of psilocybin - see above - and none of those claims of what the drug can do are backed up by evidence. I assume that Mckenna may have been speaking from personal experience, that the drug improves visual acuity and can sexually arouse, but there's no evidence for it.
empath75 7y ago
Plenty of people manage to be conscious without taking mushrooms.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  The idea is, culture teaches those people how to be conscious, and mushrooms bootstrapped the culture. Not saying it’s correct, but that’s the hypothesis.
  - ajuc 7y ago
    That's bullshit, people (and other animals) are conscious even without culture.
    - lm28469 7y ago
      People without culture? I don't think that's a thing. I also think comparing human level of consciousness to animal level of consciousness is a hard position to defend. Anyway I guess you're missing the original point. What it theorizes is that some mushroom compounds might have had effect on our ancestors brains and helped them develop to what we are now, over long periods of time. A bit like agriculture or writing had a huge impact on our societies, but it's not a on/off switch, it's a very long gradual process. I don't know if there is a lot of evidence supporting it, but it's not news that some drugs can temporarily or permanently reshape parts of our brains.
      - philwelch 7y ago
        > People without culture? I don't think that's a thing. It happens sometimes—feral children who are neglected or abandoned in various ways.
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      No culture would mean: no language, no domiciles, no songs, no clothing. I’m not sure if that person would be more conscious than a dolphin, or a bear.
benbreen 7y ago
Can you explain more how your first link relates to the emergence of consciousness? I skimmed the linked paper and it didn't seem to be drawing any links with human history or evolution. I find both psychedelic drugs and the "hard problem" of consciousness to be deeply interesting, but I've never been persuaded by the Terence McKenna-type arguments that try to connect the two.
- erikig 7y ago
  As I understand it, the research aims to show how the network effects of neurons compares between subjects that consumed a placebo vs those that consumed psilocybin from psychedelic fungi.

by erikig 7y ago

sakopov 7y ago

It is indeed. I'd also recommend giving this podcast [1] with Paul Stamets a listen. He's a fairly well-known mycologist who has some very interesting things to say on the topic. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ

RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
Stamets is an interesting guy who should never be considered an authority on anything other than the psychedelic experience. He's fun to listen to, but he's a total crank when it comes to actual reproducible science.
- kovek 7y ago
  I wish people downvoting this comment would contribute to the discussion. Why not contribute?
  - robotbikes 7y ago
    I think in general Paul Stamets is not a scientist per se in the form of writing papers and doing academic research but it is hard to deny his influence as a popularizer of mycology. He also writes about the study and growing of mushrooms and these include the edible not just the psychoactive kind. I know he has done some bioremediation demonstrations but perhaps according to the poster these weren't performed with enough scientific rigor. Not everyone who studies and shares information about something does so from the confines of the traditional academic background and not everyone needs a PhD to be an expert about something so perhaps that is why some people are down voting.
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      Sounds like he’s an influencer.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  He is certainly an authority on mycology. He has found numerous species, identified mushrooms with antiviral activity for the DoD, created a mushroom-based bee-pest treatment, biological system for killing termites without poison, etc.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Interesting. I've recently gotten in to Paul Stamets and he certainly seems to be involved in a lot of research. He's also literally written the book (multiples, really) on mushroom cultivation. He started his career legally studying psychedelics through a DEA license at his university, but has since contributed to quite a bit of original research according to his own claims. He has said for example that he (in part or in whole, I can't recall) developed the method the DEA still uses for positively identifying psilocybin. It doesn't seem accurate to call him a crank. Indeed when I heard him discuss the "stoned ape theory" he said it makes sense to him, but that it is not provable in his opinion. Doesn't sound like a crank to me.

L_226 7y ago

I acknowledge that this comment is probably low quality, but if you have ever taken magic mushrooms you realise that fungi are definitely linked to the emergence of consciousness.

andbberger 7y ago
totally. just the other day when I was tripping balls, I was thinking "Man are these fungi great chemists"
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
nomel 7y ago
This is like claiming that dripping drops of water on a circuit board, and observing that the electronics misbehave, somehow links it to the emergence of circuit design.
- vokep 7y ago
  Yes. If you are a circuit board, getting some water on yourself would be one way to (potentially destructively) learn about what your design actually is. Or fault injection or fuzzing, same idea. By making errors happen, you find out about possible errors that even can happen, and that tells you something about the overall design. Maybe the design cannot be fully determined this way, but a portion can be learned, maybe a portion unreachable by any other means (MRI, neural probes, etc) so research into the mind and consciousness by use of psychedelics does make sense.
- mistermann 7y ago
  It surely is in some ways. But in other ways, it sure seems like they have some sort of a special "relationship" (for utter lack of a better term) with consciousness. Out of curiosity, have you tried them before?

mistermann 7y ago

See also Terence Mckenna's stoned ape theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#%22Stoned_ape%22_theory_of_human_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#%22Stoned_ape%... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnEKoFrx1rI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnEKoFrx1rI Yes it's "a little" out there, but I think it's actually quite plausible.

ColanR 7y ago
Saw that recently...it's cool, but there's no actual evidence that psilocybin has any of the positive evolutionary effects that Mckenna hypothesizes.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Sourcing evidence from prehistoric times is notoriously difficult. What we do know (or think we know, to be more accurate) is often pieced together from archeological finds and correlations of semi-related "facts" from various scientific fields, forming a theoretical model of "how things used to be". We do not know how accurate our models are (each person has their own).
  - ColanR 7y ago
    > low doses of psilocybin improve visual acuity, particularly edge detection, meaning that the presence of psilocybin in the diet of early pack hunting primates caused the individuals who were consuming psilocybin mushrooms to be better hunters than those who were not, resulting in an increased food supply and in turn a higher rate of reproductive success. > Then at slightly higher doses, he contended, the mushroom acts to sexually arouse, leading to a higher level of attention, more energy in the organism, and potential erection in the males, rendering it even more evolutionarily beneficial, as it would result in more offspring. > At even higher doses, McKenna proposed that the mushroom would have acted to "dissolve boundaries," promoting community bonding and group sexual activities. > At these higher doses, McKenna also argued that psilocybin would be triggering activity in the "language-forming region of the brain", manifesting as music and visions, thus catalyzing the emergence of language in early hominids by expanding "their arboreally evolved repertoire of troop signals." I'm not saying we don't have evidence for what happened in prehistoric times. As you said, that's hard. But the above is the outline of Mckenna's theory, taken from wikipedia. My point, is that he makes a number of claims as to the effects of psilocybin - see above - and none of those claims of what the drug can do are backed up by evidence. I assume that Mckenna may have been speaking from personal experience, that the drug improves visual acuity and can sexually arouse, but there's no evidence for it.

empath75 7y ago

Plenty of people manage to be conscious without taking mushrooms.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
The idea is, culture teaches those people how to be conscious, and mushrooms bootstrapped the culture. Not saying it’s correct, but that’s the hypothesis.
- ajuc 7y ago
  That's bullshit, people (and other animals) are conscious even without culture.
  - lm28469 7y ago
    People without culture? I don't think that's a thing. I also think comparing human level of consciousness to animal level of consciousness is a hard position to defend. Anyway I guess you're missing the original point. What it theorizes is that some mushroom compounds might have had effect on our ancestors brains and helped them develop to what we are now, over long periods of time. A bit like agriculture or writing had a huge impact on our societies, but it's not a on/off switch, it's a very long gradual process. I don't know if there is a lot of evidence supporting it, but it's not news that some drugs can temporarily or permanently reshape parts of our brains.
    - philwelch 7y ago
      > People without culture? I don't think that's a thing. It happens sometimes—feral children who are neglected or abandoned in various ways.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    No culture would mean: no language, no domiciles, no songs, no clothing. I’m not sure if that person would be more conscious than a dolphin, or a bear.

benbreen 7y ago

Can you explain more how your first link relates to the emergence of consciousness? I skimmed the linked paper and it didn't seem to be drawing any links with human history or evolution. I find both psychedelic drugs and the "hard problem" of consciousness to be deeply interesting, but I've never been persuaded by the Terence McKenna-type arguments that try to connect the two.

erikig 7y ago
As I understand it, the research aims to show how the network effects of neurons compares between subjects that consumed a placebo vs those that consumed psilocybin from psychedelic fungi.