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from the I-was-chatting-with-my-mushrooms-yesterday dept.
The fungal mind: on the evidence for mushroom intelligence:
Mushrooms and other kinds of fungi are often associated with witchcraft and are the subjects of longstanding superstitions. Witches dance inside fairy rings of mushrooms according to German folklore, while a French fable warns that anyone foolish enough to step inside these 'sorcerer's rings' will be cursed by enormous toads with bulging eyes. These impressions come from the poisonous and psychoactive peculiarities of some species, as well as the overnight appearance of toadstool ring-formations.
Given the magical reputation of the fungi, claiming that they might be conscious is dangerous territory for a credentialled scientist. But in recent years, a body of remarkable experiments have shown that fungi operate as individuals, engage in decision-making, are capable of learning, and possess short-term memory. These findings highlight the spectacular sensitivity of such 'simple' organisms, and situate the human version of the mind within a spectrum of consciousness that might well span the entire natural world.
Before we explore the evidence for fungal intelligence, we need to consider the slippery vocabulary of cognitive science. Consciousness implies awareness, evidence of which might be expressed in an organism's responsiveness or sensitivity to its surroundings. There is an implicit hierarchy here, with consciousness present in a smaller subset of species, while sensitivity applies to every living thing. Until recently, most philosophers and scientists awarded consciousness to big-brained animals and excluded other forms of life from this honour. The problem with this favouritism, as the cognitive psychologist Arthur Reber has pointed out, is that it's impossible to identify a threshold level of awareness or responsiveness that separates conscious animals from the unconscious. We can escape this dilemma, however, once we allow ourselves to identify different versions of consciousness across a continuum of species, from apes to amoebas. That's not to imply that all organisms possess rich emotional lives and are capable of thinking, although fungi do appear to express the biological rudiments of these faculties.
Just what are mushrooms? It turns out that this question doesn't have a simple answer. Mushrooms are the reproductive organs produced by fungi that spend most of their lives below ground in the form of microscopic filaments called hyphae. These hyphae, in turn, branch to form colonies called mycelia. Mycelia spread out in three dimensions within soil and leaf litter, absorbing water and feeding on roots, wood, and the bodies of dead insects and other animals. Each of the hyphae in a mycelium is a tube filled with pressurised fluid, and extends at its tip. The materials that power this elongation are conveyed in little packages called vesicles, whose motion is guided along an interior system of rails by proteins that operate as motors. The speed and direction of hyphal extension, as well as the positions of branch formation, are determined by patterns of vesicle delivery. This growth mechanism responds, second by second, to changes in temperature, water availability, and other opportunities and hardships imposed by the surrounding environment.
[...] Fungal expressions of consciousness are certainly very simple. But they do align with an emerging consensus that, while the human mind might be particular in its refinements, it's typical in its cellular mechanisms. Experiments on fungal consciousness are exciting for mycologists because they've made space for the study of behaviour within the broader field of research on the biology of fungi. Those who study animal behaviour do so without reference to the molecular interactions of their muscles; likewise, mycologists can learn a great deal about fungi simply by paying closer attention to what they do. As crucial players in the ecology of the planet, these fascinating organisms deserve our full attention as genuine partners in sustaining a functional biosphere.
Journal Reference:
František Baluška, Arthur Reber. Sentience and Consciousness in Single Cells: How the First Minds Emerged in Unicellular Species, BioEssays (DOI: 10.1002/bies.201800229)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday September 04 2021, @09:54AM (2 children)
Toadstools? In Rings? Around a tree trunk, or stump, or what? Witch's Butter would be a better choice. If you do not know what a Fairy Ring is, and why it forms, best to not report on fungi. Just saying.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Sunday September 05 2021, @03:51PM
Nicholas P. Money (the article's author) is a highly respected mycologist, co-author of the latest reference book* on mycology. While most toadstools are associated with ectomycorrhizae (and trees), the latest estimate is that 95-98 percent of all plants are associated with fungi, one way or another.
*The Fungi, Third Edition, Sarah C Watkinson, Lynne Boddy, Nicholas P Money. 2016. (Not something for the layman to read.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @04:28AM
Oh good grief. It's called folklore. It's interesting.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @11:37AM (9 children)
Huffy vegan: "You can't eat those mushrooms, I read they're as smart as cows".
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @11:39AM
Intelligent omnivore: "Waiter, bring me a nice steak with mushroom sauce".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @03:47PM (2 children)
Devin Nunes Cow is smarter.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @04:36PM
That is a sad chronic Twidiot who is not even as smart as the fungus growing on a cow pile.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday September 05 2021, @04:31PM
But, the 'shrooms are still smarter than David Nunes.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:56PM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @10:28AM
We only eat the fruit of mushrooms, the actual living organism is the subterranean mycelium network
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @10:26AM (1 child)
There is no problem. The actual conscious organism is the mycelium. The part we typically eat is just the fruit. It's the same as taking an apple from a tree. Yes the tree is conscious but it is not harmed by taking the fruit, in fact its reproductive strategy depends on it. Fungal mycelium can live thousands of years and single organisms can span kilometres. They really do not mind if we eat their fruit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @06:33PM
Eating fruit is the equivalent of giving a tree a blowjob. Think about it.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 06 2021, @04:49PM
That's okay, I don't eat the fungus among us.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 04 2021, @01:09PM (8 children)
I've been considering the idea that plants also have a form of intelligence. Really, it sounds as if the mere ability to sense and respond to stimuli is now being bruited about as intelligence. It brings us back to square one, so to speak. Which is, what is intelligence? Maybe, an ability to calculate, to guess at consequences and be correct more often than mere random guesses would be, as is required to be any good at chess?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday September 04 2021, @01:44PM (1 child)
Much of the reason people have trouble with the idea of plants being conscious is a fuzzy definition. If you have a precise and functional definition, you can check. If your definition is based on feelings, without an objective definition of them, then you can't.
Another part of the problem is the time scale of the interaction. Plants generally react a lot more slowly than animals.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @04:41PM
>> If you have a precise and functional definition, you can check. If your definition is based on feelings, without an objective definition of them, then you can't.
Why did you bring millennial gender politics into the discussion?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday September 04 2021, @02:36PM
Maybe it's not something that some life "magically" acquired, but instead exists as a continuous spectrum, and trying to box it as a special property limited to an exclusive club that we're a member of was never anything other than our own hubris.
Heck, there's even speculation that consciousness itself, rather than being a purely emergent property of the right structures of inert matter, may actually be a fundamental property of everything in the universe. Not that electrons think, or are self aware, but just that in at least some vague sense there is an experience of being an electron, and more sophisticated consciousnesses like our own emerge in something perhaps more akin to how a crowd of individuals can turn into a mob, which seems to act with a collective consciousness distinct from any individual members. The brain gives it structure, intelligence to work with, and may even be necessary to pull a crowd of individuals into a cohesive mob, but the consciousness was already there to begin with.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 04 2021, @05:24PM (3 children)
If the mushrooms are conscious, can we negotiate with them to establish a new carboniferous period, at least until we sequester the excess CO2? We might offer them alternate food sources and protected habitat in exchange for them laying off the wood for a while.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @11:46PM
Aleuria aurantia for President 2024.
(Score: 1) by HammeredGlass on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:39AM
How about some more psychedelic varieties while you're powwowing with them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:14PM
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday September 04 2021, @10:36PM
Blindsight [rifters.com] pokes at this topic, and is a pretty interesting read as well. Mushrooms also have mycellium, and if someone could retrovirus neurons and synapses into them, bam! You've got a terrifying fictional premise for the evolution of fungi developing brain-like structures.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Farmer Tim on Saturday September 04 2021, @06:27PM (1 child)
Years of watching the internet polarise into whiny snowflakes and reactionary assholes has convinced me that sensitivity or irritability impede consciousness.
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday September 04 2021, @10:37PM
They're conscious, all right. Question is what those stimuli of sensitivity and irritability are evolving humans into, or away from.