16 ms·

The fungal mind: on the evidence for mushroom intelligence

196 points by pps 5y ago

after_care 5y ago
There’s almost definitely a lot of unexplored science in fungus that would have massive benefits for us. They are responsible for so much direct benefit, from beer to penicillin. They are a very critical part of our ecosystem. I am a vegan, and have probably thought more about human interaction with other earth species than the average techie. While there is memory and stimulus-response there’s simply nothing we’ve found in nature that implies as much intelligence as a central nervous system. Fungus seems to occupy an interesting niche where they can travel spores to various organisms that they can form fantastic symbiotic relationships with. It’s fascinating, but I’m not convinced it’s near mammal level intelligence.
- oxymoran 5y ago
  Intelligent enough that a vegan should probably feel bad about eating it though. You are cutting off the sexual organ of a somewhat intelligent living thing and that probably causes pain or at least distress signals. Same for plants though. Let’s all just starve to death.
  - i_haz_rabies 5y ago
    Good take. Vegans are so silly. So hilarious and worthy of criticism when people take the time to consider the ethical ramifications of their actions and move their moral bar without descending into absurd reductionism. /s It's so weird how uptight some people get at the concept of... not eating meat.
    - t-3 5y ago
      I think it's something like "if your ethics != my ethics, I must preemptively discredit and attack you to prevent you from criticizing me". A very natural xenophobic reaction when you look at it like that.
      - cheese_goddess 5y ago
        "Meat is murder".
    - _nub3 5y ago
      Not eating meat is a simple decision. But feeling morally superior to those eating meat is a problem. Especially when the meatless lifestyle is defended by saying to save other creatures' life, yet the same lifestyle is heavily supported by products which were grown in large monocultures, destroying the natural habitat of countless critters in an otherwise rich flora and fauna all over the globe.
      - i_haz_rabies 5y ago
        Both lifestyles require monocultures. One more than the other actually, and that same one also requires more water and land, and creates more pollution. I'm not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I think it's objectively true that those diets are morally superior even with animal rights aside.
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    I guess you also mock meat eaters by saying let's all eat humans too? Or do you only waste your great talent at hyperbole on vegans?
    - CameronNemo 5y ago
      I would never eat a human. Too worried about prion diseases. I feed humans to my dogs. /sarcasm
- throwanem 5y ago
  I wonder if "mammal-level intelligence" isn't a bugaboo. Crows are smarter than some humans I've known.
  - desmosxxx 5y ago
    no they're really not
    - phaemon 5y ago
      Well...
    - DabbyDabberson 5y ago
      you didn't grow up in one of the 'fly over' states did you
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I wonder if they can detect a joke, because you clearly can't therefore, smarter than you if they can.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        What joke would that be?
    - bittercynic 5y ago
      Might be more accurate to come at it from the other side: Humans are capable of higher levels of stupidity than cows.
      - LegitShady 5y ago
        maybe you just need to get to know cows better
      - 6510 5y ago
        This seems a good approach. We should examine the fungi for stupidity. If it doesn't have that I think it is safe to say it's smarter than we are.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  Fungi are really interesting, though at least in terms of eating them many folks in the US are strangely reluctant. But this article does seem to be at pains to tease apart 'intelligence' from 'consciousness' - so I think it's not unreasonable for them to claim fungi can be intelligent without being very similar to us (in the same way we could say that of an ant colony, for example).
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    I am not sure "strangely" is a good adjective for the reluctance. Many people do not like the taste of various mushrooms. Additionally, for collecting in the wild, there's a lot of These Will Kill You. Meanwhile, a carrot is easy to identify and tasty.
    - phaemon 5y ago
      Carrots were naturally white. They were bred to be orange for reasons you can Google.
      - at_a_remove 5y ago
        Still easy to identify and safe to nibble on, like strawberries.
      - rgacote 5y ago
        And wild carrots (Queen Anne's lace) look remarkably like poison-hemlock. Some people also have a dermal reaction to wild carrot as well.
    - filoeleven 5y ago
      This is not quite a misconception, but there’s some nuance that’s worth writing about. A lot of plants will harm or kill you if you eat them too. The difference is that plants are less ephemeral, so we see more of them more often, and some of the more dangerous ones (e.g. poison ivy) are introduced to most people pretty early. There’s very little education about fungi at all, unless it’s self-directed, so the knowledge on how to ID safe species is just not as present in US culture. I have read (no links, sorry) that the deadly ratio of wild plants is higher than that of wild mushrooms. Most plants like most mushrooms are considered to be “inedible,” meaning they won’t kill you but you won’t want to try and eat them either (flavor, texture). We don’t go around trying to eat maple leaves or grass because they don’t taste good and we just learned early to not try to eat them. This knowledge about mushrooms is lacking. A carrot is easy to identify because it’s generally found on a store shelf, or was grown from a labeled seed packet. Try to find them in the wild, and you’re met with the deadliest common plant in the USA, Water Hemlock. There are a number of safe mushroom species with good ID characteristics and no dangerous lookalikes, and a good number of them are considered to be choice edibles. If you can ID a particular pre-determined leafy green in the wild (which might be harder than you think) then you can do the same for a particular pre-determined mushroom species.
- ElijahLynn 5y ago
  I'm a techie vegan too, and think about the fungi kingdom too, especially after watching Fantastic Fungi and some other personal experiences! I'd like to video chat with you about this if you are ever up for it (and any others as well). If so, please send me an email at elijah@elijahlynn.net with a subject of "Video chat...". Cheers
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I'm not a vegan, but I think about fungusamongus all the time. I'm not a vegan, and I make concious decisions about my meals too. Why are we adding vegan like it's 'special' in this case?
    - carvin 5y ago
      OP never claimed to be special but simply above average, which I think is fair since most vegans transitioned to that stage by starting to think much more about what they consume than they ever did before.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Your question reminded me of this meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1031973-urinal-etiquette https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1031973-urinal-etiquette
      - dylan604 5y ago
        I've seen that with "I do crossfit"
        samstave 5y ago
        The creepiest thing I had ever seen was one time going to the restroom in the Mall in Seattle and there were two guys at the urinals masturbating to eachother. I had to nope the F out of that place real fast.
      - after_care 5y ago
- ladyattis 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't think the term intelligence helps define the novel behavior of fungus in this article. The better way to describe their behavior is adaptive. Fungus adapt in a way that's more like a resilient network than as a conscious being or organism. And that's really something we ought to focus on especially when it comes to engineering them for better use cases. I've seen one case of fungus being used for making insulation bricks for houses (non-load bearing) and it looks quite impressive considering it's cheaper and biodegradable.
  - gerbilly 5y ago
    > I don't think the term intelligence helps define the novel behavior of fungus in this article. Maybe you are right, but I think humans are blind to any behavior that happens at a frequency either too low or too high. If an organism responds too far out of our frequency band (on the order of hundreds of milliseconds), especially on the extreme low end, we seem unable to consider it 'intelligent' or even purposeful. We barely even notice it and if any behaviour that unfolds over days seasons or even years. It also doesn't help fungi that mycelial networks are almost all underground where they are literally invisible to us.
    - mathewsanders 5y ago
      Reminds me of this sentence in this post about ‘Elvish technology’ https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/elvish/ https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/elvish/ > The Elves do not imitate nature, they let nature do its magic and try to help it as best as they can. Allowing nature to solve a problem is extremely effective and efficient. The only downside is that it usually takes a lot of time - precisely the thing that the immortals have plenty of.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If I think about the qualities I want in insulation, it’s not clear to me that “biodegradable” is highly prized. I’ve got some wood in my garage structure that has biodegraded (aka “rotted”) and it’s now a project I need to deal with.
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  > I am a vegan, and have probably thought more about human interaction with other earth species than the average techie. Sorry but adopting a provably unhealthy diet plan doesn't prove that at all. Have a nice day!
technothrasher 5y ago
This article seems to be conflating sentience with consciousness. Much of that complex interaction with the external world they describe can still be achieved by humans while asleep, yet we all accept that while asleep we are not conscious. So there's more to consciousness than what they are describing in fungi.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  Do fungi dream of decaying biomatter?
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  http://www.byronevents.net/nisargadatta/that2.htm http://www.byronevents.net/nisargadatta/that2.htm
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  Confusingly, "conscious" is also used as a synonym for "sentient"
buu700 5y ago
It's a shame that they missed the opportunity to coin the phrase "mycoid intelligence". dang, can we edit the title? (Just kidding about editing the title, of course.)
- convolutionart 5y ago
  What?
  - buu700 5y ago
    "Mycoid intelligence" would be a fancier way of phrasing "mushroom intelligence" in the title, and also feels a little more natural to me given that "mushroom" isn't typically used as an adjective.
hinkley 5y ago
This feels a bit like part of a pendulum swing from Human Exceptionalism to recognizing how far back eukaryotes developed certain traits. I suspect it’s closer to the truth to say that fungi exhibit instincts of a sophistication that we usually expect from the insect and animal kingdom, and less so from plants and fungi. The botulism bacteria is capable of voting, but I hope we don’t try to cheapen that discovery and others by calling it a hive mind to sell ads.
- avaldes 5y ago
  > The botulism bacteria is capable of voting, I tried my best Google Fu and couldn't find any references to this. Do you have any? Sounds fascinating.
  - AllegedAlec 5y ago
    Quorum sensing
  - hinkley 5y ago
    They produce a chemical signal in the blood and when it reaches a threshold they all start producing toxin at once, before they can be identified by the immune system as a pathogen. It’s why the bacteria is so deadly. By the time you’re fully symptomatic it’s often too late for IV antibiotics to kill them in time. They’re studying whether they can trick the bacteria to switch on sooner or block the receptors to keep them from quorum sensing.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Agreed. I think it is part of a growing tend to anthropomorphize everything. Water flowing down hill shows remarkable problem solving skills in determining paths to lower elevation. Rivers could probably outperform most college graduates in calculating the optimal path in a head to head challenge. Iterative floods communicate information across hundreds or thousands of years between events, ect.
  - dopidopHN 5y ago
pps 5y ago
Another interesting article (interview) on this topic: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/mushroom-expert-merlin-sheldrake-fungi-can-teach-us-a-new-way-of-looking-at-the-world-a-a3dd9530-dc15-4aa9-bb03-b23e1adc7e2f https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/mushroom-expe...
throwaway47292 5y ago
i have grown to dislike the vegan debate so arrogant of us, to look at something and judge it conscious or not. the reality is, for me to live, something has to die. be it fungi, plant, or animal, i just try not to waste, and treat it with respect (subjective). i think only Lithoredo abatanica [https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2019.0434 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2019...] can live without eating living things, but its still unclear how exactly it gets energy
- sebow 5y ago
  Everything that's alive should be cherished. And in the (innevitable) case of consumption of living things,it should be appreciated and never looked upon with disregard.Interestingly all the major cultures (i know) ended up doing this, and only in recent modern times we began to stop appreciating the life we consume due to the corrosion on traditions & cultures. Veganism/other forms of prohibition of consumption is not the answer to the challenges we face about this topic.As humanity scales , we should (and are responsible) to nurture and scale all life around us.In other words it's not about us or them, but both, together.
crazydoggers 5y ago
I think where people get caught up is that there’s a lot of confusion on definitions (partly since consciousness is almost certainly a spectrum). But a lot of people confuse human sapience with a requirement of consciousness which is not really the case. When looked at in that light, conscious fungus makes a lot more intuitive sense. My favorite description of the difference was from the cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett. He gave the example of a dog sitting in the sun. When we see our dog sitting in the sunshine looking content, it is almost certainly enjoying the warmth, and we are probably correct in assuming the dog is feeling content in a way that we can relate to. The difference with a human, is that we can reflect on that state; we can contemplate the experience itself (sapience) rather than just sensing it (sentience). So complex mycelial networks probably allow some level of sentience (experience states of sense, awareness of the environment), but we shouldn’t think of it as something that is contemplating it’s existence on a higher level. Would we define that as consciousness? Perhaps the difficulty of that assessment is just in applying a single word to represent reality.
- mathewsanders 5y ago
  Dennett was also influenced by the (controversial) theory from Julian Jaynes that consciousness is possibly something that emerged in humans much more recently in human history. I’ve had a copy of the book on my shelf unread for a couple of years so I probably won’t speak to it accurately, but I find it a fascinating idea. Main idea is that human brain has two halves, abs consciousness arrived from auditory hallucinations formed in one half of the brain, and acted on by the other half. I think one of the arguments here is how humans centuries ago heard voices of gods/angels etc. He argues that this was the bicameral mind in action. I think he has another linguistic analysis that argues that human consciousness emerged around the time the Iliad was composed. If anyone is interested, this afterword where he covers some criticisms of his ideas is a good entry point: https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/JaynesOriginsConsciousnessBreakdownBicameralMindPSPPEdit1976.pdf https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/JaynesOriginsConsciousne...
  - crazydoggers 5y ago
    I’ve almost read the Julian Jaynes book a couple times. Richard Dawkins once said something along the lines of its either complete genius or complete rubbish. I think that’s always a good type of book to read. :) And thanks for the link!
Aisen8010 5y ago
There's a very good documentary about the theme: "Fantastic Fungi". It exposes a theory that the trees can "talk" with it other through the the Fungi network.
- filoeleven 5y ago
  It’s more than theory, it’s backed by solid evidence. Suzanne Simard has shown not just communication but resource sharing, preferential treatment for family members, inter species cooperation. I don’t recall if she was in that documentary or not. She discovered this starting in 1995, which means there’s a lot left to learn about the implications. https://mothertreeproject.org/about-mother-trees-in-the-forest/ https://mothertreeproject.org/about-mother-trees-in-the-fore... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Simard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Simard
pvaldes 5y ago
The logical result of an entire generation that interacted with Biology mainly through Pokemons. Animals can show some degree of intelligence because they have brains feeded by biological sensors. Brains are made of nerve cells. Fungi, plants or rocks don't have nerve cells, never had nerve cells and never will have nerve cells, so they can not have a brain. Not. They don't have it. I don't care about if bulbasaur is half plant and your favorite. This things are not real... Now fill the gaps: A creature without a nervous system can't have ... Pseudoscientific attention grabbers are becoming a plague
- omegalulw 5y ago
  > The logical result of an entire generation that interacted by Biology mainly through Pokemons. This seems like a stretch. As a kid, I liked Pokemons because they were Pokemons, not because of some weird associations with biology.
- sa1 5y ago
  Tardigrades don't have muscles either. Yet they can walk.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    The presence of three types of muscles in Tardigrades is well documented since the year 1840.
    - sa1 5y ago
      You’re right. Bad example.
- rodrigosetti 5y ago
  You don't need a nervous system for information processing
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    Toasters can process information, but nobody would say that they are intelligent.
colechristensen 5y ago
This leans far too heavily on the word “intelligence” to describe the behavior of fungus. Yes indeed almost every organism reacts to the world around it, a good word for that is “alive”. Intelligence requires a lot more than simple stimulus response and internal changeable state, much less consciousness or sentience. Calling mushrooms intelligent appeals to a certain sort of person and publishing articles like this are just taking advantage of those people for their attention. The behavior of fungi is interesting without having to project intelligence on to it.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  What is intelligence?
  - edem 5y ago
    What is love?
    - ceod 5y ago
      What is is?
      - edem 5y ago
        What.
- exo-pla-net 5y ago
  The article is written by a professor of biology, a scientist. Per the article, a fungus can somehow remember where it previously found food. That degree of spatial awareness/memory is surprising. Thus, in the way that biologists use the word "intelligence", fungi are intelligent. They'd be pretty dumb on any intelligence scale, but they have intelligence. Yeah, hippies get a little too excited about the mind of the fungus or whatever when they hear the word "intelligence" applied to fungi. Who cares.
  - 5y ago
foxhop 5y ago
Permaculture designed systems sequester high carbon wood chips naturally via Fungi Mycelium networks which break down tree lignin over 5-15 years & mix with native soils to produce a perfect Food Forest Growing medium. Forest grow on top of dead trees, after all! Video related, happy labor day! https://youtu.be/9QMXmupBYpY https://youtu.be/9QMXmupBYpY
sebringj 5y ago
They were able to move here and there quite quickly, adjusted trajectory in the most efficient way possible. They commonly gather together in large groups. They are...dried up leaves blowing in the wind. Now if you think dried up leaves are smart, wait till you hear about mushrooms...
ajmurmann 5y ago
Lots of comments here about Fantastic Fungi. If you enjoy that I also recommend The Creeping Garden which is about slime molds which have a lot going for them that makes them closer to animals than mold or plants or even fungi. Fascinating and well done.
leptoniscool 5y ago
Intelligence is an emergent property. And neurons or mushrooms can support it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
joshuamcginnis 5y ago
I'm an indie researcher developing a diy-friendly approach to genetic engineering of mushrooms [1][2][3]. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to provide a piece of the same slime mold species (Physarum polycephalum[4]) referenced in the article and used to study fungi memory and intelligence. It's pretty easy to grow and the only food it needs is oats. The best way to send me your request is probably to send me a DM on Instagram or to email me (josh@everymanbio.com). Depending on how many requests there are, it may take me some time to get it to you - but I will. A few $ donation for shipping would be helpful, but not required. [1] http://everymanbio.com/ http://everymanbio.com/ [2] https://www.instagram.com/everymanbio/ https://www.instagram.com/everymanbio/ [3] https://youtube.com/everymanbio https://youtube.com/everymanbio [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum
marmot777 5y ago
For well a very well articulated argument for fungal intelligence, look up Paul Stamets, the mycologist on YouTube and elsewhere. He's a serious scientist but he shows up in popular culture, too. For example, Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets, a astromycologist serving on the USS Discover, was named after the real Paul Stamets.
- remexre 5y ago
  There's a Hannibal character with the same surname too! https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/Eldon_Stammets https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/Eldon_Stammets
- pvarangot 5y ago
  For a less articulated argument Terence McKenna also speculated that psilocybin is some kind of intelligent substance that came to earth via meteors and consciously played a role in humanity's self awareness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#Psilocybin_panspermia_speculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#Psilocybin_pan...
  - 6510 5y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljy3TH1T0jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljy3TH1T0jk
morpheos137 5y ago
The 2020s seems to be the era of disingenuous exaggeration.
Borrible 5y ago
I digress,Physarum polycephalum aren't fungi, but since they are already mentioned on this thread. Strange how threads tend to grow wild. I always wanted to experiment with Physarum polycephalum in my garden, since I saw a documentary about them about 25-30 years ago. But alas, I have a watch, they have the time. So I guess I talk to them and their brethren six feet under somewhere in my future. As a primer: Advances in Physarum Machines, Adamatzky, Andrew (Ed.) https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319266619 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319266619 Physarum polycephalum is quite bright for a mold. Speaking of mold, there is a growing body of artists working with it. https://www.seunghwan-oh.com/ https://www.seunghwan-oh.com/ https://discardstudies.com/2012/01/02/the-art-of-mould/ https://discardstudies.com/2012/01/02/the-art-of-mould/
DonHopkins 5y ago
Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't: The Ethnomycology of Ugly Landscaping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRgY8fZNv4&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRgY8fZNv4&ab_channel=Crime...

196 points by pps 5y ago

There’s almost definitely a lot of unexplored science in fungus that would have massive benefits for us. They are responsible for so much direct benefit, from beer to penicillin. They are a very critical part of our ecosystem. I am a vegan, and have probably thought more about human interaction with other earth species than the average techie. While there is memory and stimulus-response there’s simply nothing we’ve found in nature that implies as much intelligence as a central nervous system. Fungus seems to occupy an interesting niche where they can travel spores to various organisms that they can form fantastic symbiotic relationships with. It’s fascinating, but I’m not convinced it’s near mammal level intelligence.

oxymoran 5y ago
Intelligent enough that a vegan should probably feel bad about eating it though. You are cutting off the sexual organ of a somewhat intelligent living thing and that probably causes pain or at least distress signals. Same for plants though. Let’s all just starve to death.
- i_haz_rabies 5y ago
  Good take. Vegans are so silly. So hilarious and worthy of criticism when people take the time to consider the ethical ramifications of their actions and move their moral bar without descending into absurd reductionism. /s It's so weird how uptight some people get at the concept of... not eating meat.
  - t-3 5y ago
    I think it's something like "if your ethics != my ethics, I must preemptively discredit and attack you to prevent you from criticizing me". A very natural xenophobic reaction when you look at it like that.
    - cheese_goddess 5y ago
      "Meat is murder".
  - _nub3 5y ago
    Not eating meat is a simple decision. But feeling morally superior to those eating meat is a problem. Especially when the meatless lifestyle is defended by saying to save other creatures' life, yet the same lifestyle is heavily supported by products which were grown in large monocultures, destroying the natural habitat of countless critters in an otherwise rich flora and fauna all over the globe.
    - i_haz_rabies 5y ago
      Both lifestyles require monocultures. One more than the other actually, and that same one also requires more water and land, and creates more pollution. I'm not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I think it's objectively true that those diets are morally superior even with animal rights aside.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  I guess you also mock meat eaters by saying let's all eat humans too? Or do you only waste your great talent at hyperbole on vegans?
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    I would never eat a human. Too worried about prion diseases. I feed humans to my dogs. /sarcasm
throwanem 5y ago
I wonder if "mammal-level intelligence" isn't a bugaboo. Crows are smarter than some humans I've known.
- desmosxxx 5y ago
  no they're really not
  - phaemon 5y ago
    Well...
  - DabbyDabberson 5y ago
    you didn't grow up in one of the 'fly over' states did you
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I wonder if they can detect a joke, because you clearly can't therefore, smarter than you if they can.
    - throwanem 5y ago
      What joke would that be?
  - bittercynic 5y ago
    Might be more accurate to come at it from the other side: Humans are capable of higher levels of stupidity than cows.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      maybe you just need to get to know cows better
    - 6510 5y ago
      This seems a good approach. We should examine the fungi for stupidity. If it doesn't have that I think it is safe to say it's smarter than we are.
blacksmith_tb 5y ago
Fungi are really interesting, though at least in terms of eating them many folks in the US are strangely reluctant. But this article does seem to be at pains to tease apart 'intelligence' from 'consciousness' - so I think it's not unreasonable for them to claim fungi can be intelligent without being very similar to us (in the same way we could say that of an ant colony, for example).
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  I am not sure "strangely" is a good adjective for the reluctance. Many people do not like the taste of various mushrooms. Additionally, for collecting in the wild, there's a lot of These Will Kill You. Meanwhile, a carrot is easy to identify and tasty.
  - phaemon 5y ago
    Carrots were naturally white. They were bred to be orange for reasons you can Google.
    - at_a_remove 5y ago
      Still easy to identify and safe to nibble on, like strawberries.
    - rgacote 5y ago
      And wild carrots (Queen Anne's lace) look remarkably like poison-hemlock. Some people also have a dermal reaction to wild carrot as well.
  - filoeleven 5y ago
    This is not quite a misconception, but there’s some nuance that’s worth writing about. A lot of plants will harm or kill you if you eat them too. The difference is that plants are less ephemeral, so we see more of them more often, and some of the more dangerous ones (e.g. poison ivy) are introduced to most people pretty early. There’s very little education about fungi at all, unless it’s self-directed, so the knowledge on how to ID safe species is just not as present in US culture. I have read (no links, sorry) that the deadly ratio of wild plants is higher than that of wild mushrooms. Most plants like most mushrooms are considered to be “inedible,” meaning they won’t kill you but you won’t want to try and eat them either (flavor, texture). We don’t go around trying to eat maple leaves or grass because they don’t taste good and we just learned early to not try to eat them. This knowledge about mushrooms is lacking. A carrot is easy to identify because it’s generally found on a store shelf, or was grown from a labeled seed packet. Try to find them in the wild, and you’re met with the deadliest common plant in the USA, Water Hemlock. There are a number of safe mushroom species with good ID characteristics and no dangerous lookalikes, and a good number of them are considered to be choice edibles. If you can ID a particular pre-determined leafy green in the wild (which might be harder than you think) then you can do the same for a particular pre-determined mushroom species.
ElijahLynn 5y ago
I'm a techie vegan too, and think about the fungi kingdom too, especially after watching Fantastic Fungi and some other personal experiences! I'd like to video chat with you about this if you are ever up for it (and any others as well). If so, please send me an email at elijah@elijahlynn.net with a subject of "Video chat...". Cheers
- dylan604 5y ago
  I'm not a vegan, but I think about fungusamongus all the time. I'm not a vegan, and I make concious decisions about my meals too. Why are we adding vegan like it's 'special' in this case?
  - carvin 5y ago
    OP never claimed to be special but simply above average, which I think is fair since most vegans transitioned to that stage by starting to think much more about what they consume than they ever did before.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Your question reminded me of this meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1031973-urinal-etiquette https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1031973-urinal-etiquette
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I've seen that with "I do crossfit"
      - samstave 5y ago
        The creepiest thing I had ever seen was one time going to the restroom in the Mall in Seattle and there were two guys at the urinals masturbating to eachother. I had to nope the F out of that place real fast.
    - after_care 5y ago
ladyattis 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think the term intelligence helps define the novel behavior of fungus in this article. The better way to describe their behavior is adaptive. Fungus adapt in a way that's more like a resilient network than as a conscious being or organism. And that's really something we ought to focus on especially when it comes to engineering them for better use cases. I've seen one case of fungus being used for making insulation bricks for houses (non-load bearing) and it looks quite impressive considering it's cheaper and biodegradable.
- gerbilly 5y ago
  > I don't think the term intelligence helps define the novel behavior of fungus in this article. Maybe you are right, but I think humans are blind to any behavior that happens at a frequency either too low or too high. If an organism responds too far out of our frequency band (on the order of hundreds of milliseconds), especially on the extreme low end, we seem unable to consider it 'intelligent' or even purposeful. We barely even notice it and if any behaviour that unfolds over days seasons or even years. It also doesn't help fungi that mycelial networks are almost all underground where they are literally invisible to us.
  - mathewsanders 5y ago
    Reminds me of this sentence in this post about ‘Elvish technology’ https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/elvish/ https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/elvish/ > The Elves do not imitate nature, they let nature do its magic and try to help it as best as they can. Allowing nature to solve a problem is extremely effective and efficient. The only downside is that it usually takes a lot of time - precisely the thing that the immortals have plenty of.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  If I think about the qualities I want in insulation, it’s not clear to me that “biodegradable” is highly prized. I’ve got some wood in my garage structure that has biodegraded (aka “rotted”) and it’s now a project I need to deal with.
fidesomnes 5y ago
> I am a vegan, and have probably thought more about human interaction with other earth species than the average techie. Sorry but adopting a provably unhealthy diet plan doesn't prove that at all. Have a nice day!

technothrasher 5y ago

This article seems to be conflating sentience with consciousness. Much of that complex interaction with the external world they describe can still be achieved by humans while asleep, yet we all accept that while asleep we are not conscious. So there's more to consciousness than what they are describing in fungi.

hammyhavoc 5y ago
Do fungi dream of decaying biomatter?
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
http://www.byronevents.net/nisargadatta/that2.htm http://www.byronevents.net/nisargadatta/that2.htm
EamonnMR 5y ago
Confusingly, "conscious" is also used as a synonym for "sentient"

buu700 5y ago

It's a shame that they missed the opportunity to coin the phrase "mycoid intelligence". dang, can we edit the title? (Just kidding about editing the title, of course.)

convolutionart 5y ago
What?
- buu700 5y ago
  "Mycoid intelligence" would be a fancier way of phrasing "mushroom intelligence" in the title, and also feels a little more natural to me given that "mushroom" isn't typically used as an adjective.

hinkley 5y ago

This feels a bit like part of a pendulum swing from Human Exceptionalism to recognizing how far back eukaryotes developed certain traits. I suspect it’s closer to the truth to say that fungi exhibit instincts of a sophistication that we usually expect from the insect and animal kingdom, and less so from plants and fungi. The botulism bacteria is capable of voting, but I hope we don’t try to cheapen that discovery and others by calling it a hive mind to sell ads.

avaldes 5y ago
> The botulism bacteria is capable of voting, I tried my best Google Fu and couldn't find any references to this. Do you have any? Sounds fascinating.
- AllegedAlec 5y ago
  Quorum sensing
- hinkley 5y ago
  They produce a chemical signal in the blood and when it reaches a threshold they all start producing toxin at once, before they can be identified by the immune system as a pathogen. It’s why the bacteria is so deadly. By the time you’re fully symptomatic it’s often too late for IV antibiotics to kill them in time. They’re studying whether they can trick the bacteria to switch on sooner or block the receptors to keep them from quorum sensing.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
Agreed. I think it is part of a growing tend to anthropomorphize everything. Water flowing down hill shows remarkable problem solving skills in determining paths to lower elevation. Rivers could probably outperform most college graduates in calculating the optimal path in a head to head challenge. Iterative floods communicate information across hundreds or thousands of years between events, ect.
- dopidopHN 5y ago

pps 5y ago

Another interesting article (interview) on this topic: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/mushroom-expert-merlin-sheldrake-fungi-can-teach-us-a-new-way-of-looking-at-the-world-a-a3dd9530-dc15-4aa9-bb03-b23e1adc7e2f https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/mushroom-expe...

throwaway47292 5y ago

i have grown to dislike the vegan debate so arrogant of us, to look at something and judge it conscious or not. the reality is, for me to live, something has to die. be it fungi, plant, or animal, i just try not to waste, and treat it with respect (subjective). i think only Lithoredo abatanica [https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2019.0434 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2019...] can live without eating living things, but its still unclear how exactly it gets energy

sebow 5y ago
Everything that's alive should be cherished. And in the (innevitable) case of consumption of living things,it should be appreciated and never looked upon with disregard.Interestingly all the major cultures (i know) ended up doing this, and only in recent modern times we began to stop appreciating the life we consume due to the corrosion on traditions & cultures. Veganism/other forms of prohibition of consumption is not the answer to the challenges we face about this topic.As humanity scales , we should (and are responsible) to nurture and scale all life around us.In other words it's not about us or them, but both, together.

crazydoggers 5y ago

I think where people get caught up is that there’s a lot of confusion on definitions (partly since consciousness is almost certainly a spectrum). But a lot of people confuse human sapience with a requirement of consciousness which is not really the case. When looked at in that light, conscious fungus makes a lot more intuitive sense. My favorite description of the difference was from the cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett. He gave the example of a dog sitting in the sun. When we see our dog sitting in the sunshine looking content, it is almost certainly enjoying the warmth, and we are probably correct in assuming the dog is feeling content in a way that we can relate to. The difference with a human, is that we can reflect on that state; we can contemplate the experience itself (sapience) rather than just sensing it (sentience). So complex mycelial networks probably allow some level of sentience (experience states of sense, awareness of the environment), but we shouldn’t think of it as something that is contemplating it’s existence on a higher level. Would we define that as consciousness? Perhaps the difficulty of that assessment is just in applying a single word to represent reality.

mathewsanders 5y ago
Dennett was also influenced by the (controversial) theory from Julian Jaynes that consciousness is possibly something that emerged in humans much more recently in human history. I’ve had a copy of the book on my shelf unread for a couple of years so I probably won’t speak to it accurately, but I find it a fascinating idea. Main idea is that human brain has two halves, abs consciousness arrived from auditory hallucinations formed in one half of the brain, and acted on by the other half. I think one of the arguments here is how humans centuries ago heard voices of gods/angels etc. He argues that this was the bicameral mind in action. I think he has another linguistic analysis that argues that human consciousness emerged around the time the Iliad was composed. If anyone is interested, this afterword where he covers some criticisms of his ideas is a good entry point: https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/JaynesOriginsConsciousnessBreakdownBicameralMindPSPPEdit1976.pdf https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/JaynesOriginsConsciousne...
- crazydoggers 5y ago
  I’ve almost read the Julian Jaynes book a couple times. Richard Dawkins once said something along the lines of its either complete genius or complete rubbish. I think that’s always a good type of book to read. :) And thanks for the link!

Aisen8010 5y ago

There's a very good documentary about the theme: "Fantastic Fungi". It exposes a theory that the trees can "talk" with it other through the the Fungi network.

filoeleven 5y ago
It’s more than theory, it’s backed by solid evidence. Suzanne Simard has shown not just communication but resource sharing, preferential treatment for family members, inter species cooperation. I don’t recall if she was in that documentary or not. She discovered this starting in 1995, which means there’s a lot left to learn about the implications. https://mothertreeproject.org/about-mother-trees-in-the-forest/ https://mothertreeproject.org/about-mother-trees-in-the-fore... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Simard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Simard

pvaldes 5y ago

The logical result of an entire generation that interacted with Biology mainly through Pokemons. Animals can show some degree of intelligence because they have brains feeded by biological sensors. Brains are made of nerve cells. Fungi, plants or rocks don't have nerve cells, never had nerve cells and never will have nerve cells, so they can not have a brain. Not. They don't have it. I don't care about if bulbasaur is half plant and your favorite. This things are not real... Now fill the gaps: A creature without a nervous system can't have ... Pseudoscientific attention grabbers are becoming a plague

omegalulw 5y ago
> The logical result of an entire generation that interacted by Biology mainly through Pokemons. This seems like a stretch. As a kid, I liked Pokemons because they were Pokemons, not because of some weird associations with biology.
sa1 5y ago
Tardigrades don't have muscles either. Yet they can walk.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  The presence of three types of muscles in Tardigrades is well documented since the year 1840.
  - sa1 5y ago
    You’re right. Bad example.
rodrigosetti 5y ago
You don't need a nervous system for information processing
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Toasters can process information, but nobody would say that they are intelligent.

colechristensen 5y ago

This leans far too heavily on the word “intelligence” to describe the behavior of fungus. Yes indeed almost every organism reacts to the world around it, a good word for that is “alive”. Intelligence requires a lot more than simple stimulus response and internal changeable state, much less consciousness or sentience. Calling mushrooms intelligent appeals to a certain sort of person and publishing articles like this are just taking advantage of those people for their attention. The behavior of fungi is interesting without having to project intelligence on to it.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
What is intelligence?
- edem 5y ago
  What is love?
  - ceod 5y ago
    What is is?
    - edem 5y ago
      What.
exo-pla-net 5y ago
The article is written by a professor of biology, a scientist. Per the article, a fungus can somehow remember where it previously found food. That degree of spatial awareness/memory is surprising. Thus, in the way that biologists use the word "intelligence", fungi are intelligent. They'd be pretty dumb on any intelligence scale, but they have intelligence. Yeah, hippies get a little too excited about the mind of the fungus or whatever when they hear the word "intelligence" applied to fungi. Who cares.
- 5y ago

foxhop 5y ago

Permaculture designed systems sequester high carbon wood chips naturally via Fungi Mycelium networks which break down tree lignin over 5-15 years & mix with native soils to produce a perfect Food Forest Growing medium. Forest grow on top of dead trees, after all! Video related, happy labor day! https://youtu.be/9QMXmupBYpY https://youtu.be/9QMXmupBYpY

sebringj 5y ago

They were able to move here and there quite quickly, adjusted trajectory in the most efficient way possible. They commonly gather together in large groups. They are...dried up leaves blowing in the wind. Now if you think dried up leaves are smart, wait till you hear about mushrooms...

ajmurmann 5y ago

Lots of comments here about Fantastic Fungi. If you enjoy that I also recommend The Creeping Garden which is about slime molds which have a lot going for them that makes them closer to animals than mold or plants or even fungi. Fascinating and well done.

leptoniscool 5y ago

Intelligence is an emergent property. And neurons or mushrooms can support it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

joshuamcginnis 5y ago

I'm an indie researcher developing a diy-friendly approach to genetic engineering of mushrooms [1][2][3]. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to provide a piece of the same slime mold species (Physarum polycephalum[4]) referenced in the article and used to study fungi memory and intelligence. It's pretty easy to grow and the only food it needs is oats. The best way to send me your request is probably to send me a DM on Instagram or to email me (josh@everymanbio.com). Depending on how many requests there are, it may take me some time to get it to you - but I will. A few $ donation for shipping would be helpful, but not required. [1] http://everymanbio.com/ http://everymanbio.com/ [2] https://www.instagram.com/everymanbio/ https://www.instagram.com/everymanbio/ [3] https://youtube.com/everymanbio https://youtube.com/everymanbio [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum

marmot777 5y ago

For well a very well articulated argument for fungal intelligence, look up Paul Stamets, the mycologist on YouTube and elsewhere. He's a serious scientist but he shows up in popular culture, too. For example, Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets, a astromycologist serving on the USS Discover, was named after the real Paul Stamets.

remexre 5y ago
There's a Hannibal character with the same surname too! https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/Eldon_Stammets https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/Eldon_Stammets
pvarangot 5y ago
For a less articulated argument Terence McKenna also speculated that psilocybin is some kind of intelligent substance that came to earth via meteors and consciously played a role in humanity's self awareness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#Psilocybin_panspermia_speculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#Psilocybin_pan...
- 6510 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljy3TH1T0jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljy3TH1T0jk

morpheos137 5y ago

The 2020s seems to be the era of disingenuous exaggeration.

Borrible 5y ago

I digress,Physarum polycephalum aren't fungi, but since they are already mentioned on this thread. Strange how threads tend to grow wild. I always wanted to experiment with Physarum polycephalum in my garden, since I saw a documentary about them about 25-30 years ago. But alas, I have a watch, they have the time. So I guess I talk to them and their brethren six feet under somewhere in my future. As a primer: Advances in Physarum Machines, Adamatzky, Andrew (Ed.) https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319266619 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319266619 Physarum polycephalum is quite bright for a mold. Speaking of mold, there is a growing body of artists working with it. https://www.seunghwan-oh.com/ https://www.seunghwan-oh.com/ https://discardstudies.com/2012/01/02/the-art-of-mould/ https://discardstudies.com/2012/01/02/the-art-of-mould/

DonHopkins 5y ago

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't: The Ethnomycology of Ugly Landscaping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRgY8fZNv4&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRgY8fZNv4&ab_channel=Crime...