The fungal mind: on the evidence for mushroom intelligence

I'd guess it's more a sign of a cautious allowance that it might not actually be happening.

Such behaviour can only indicate fungi-kind consciousness ~ every living organism must make decisions, else they're just inert lumps of nothing.

Cognitive behavior, such as learning, decision-making, problem-solving, and anticipation in organisms without a brain or central nervous system is garnering increasing attention (Lyon et al., 2021; Reid, 2023). The development of this research field has the potential to enhance our understanding of the various essential scientific topics, such as biotic ecosystem functions and the evolution of cognitive systems across organisms, as well as inspire new ideas for bio-based computing systems (Solé et al., 2019). However, previous studies have predominantly focused on plants (Plantae Trewavas, 2015) and slime molds (Animalia Dussutour et al., 2010), with fewer investigations into fungi (Fungalia), which is the third and least explored kingdom of eukaryotes (Aleklett and Boddy 2021).

Typical of how far Materialism and Darwinism have set back such scientific research...

Consciousness, awareness, cognitive behaviour, etc, in non-animal beings has been known outside of Materialist science for a long time now. The stranglehold just needs to be let go of sooner rather than later. Because there was never a single bit of scientific evidence that these capabilities were ever the sole domain of beings with brains or central nervous systems, only ideological Materialist presumptions.

[Laird]

Hey, I see similarly as you when it comes to the ubiquity of intelligence and consciousness in biological life. It seems though that even relatively sympathetic science journalists feel the need to use cautious language given the dominant materialism.

Hey, I see similarly as you when it comes to the ubiquity of intelligence and consciousness in biological life. It seems though that even relatively sympathetic science journalists feel the need to use cautious language given the dominant materialism.

I agree ~ though it annoys me that scientists doing science have to bow down to an unscientific ideology that has been strangling actual progress.

There is an excellent book by Merlin Sheldrake (a son of Rupert Sheldrake) that covers everything in that link, but in greater depth and with more examples:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Entangled-Life-...B07WJ84V9B

I am not a biologist, and I found it contained just the right amount of technical details.

David

In his book, Merlin Sheldrake describes a fungus that infects a particular species of ant. The fungus takes over the creature and forces it to behave in an unnatural way. The infected ant climbs up a tall grass stalk, and then its jaws clamp shut, and it dies. The fungus then sprouts from the corpse spreading spores to infect further ants.....

I find this particularly interesting because it is extraordinary that the fungus has acquired enough knowledge about the ant to pull off this feat. As Merlin points out, this far exceeds what an evil neuroscientist (my analogy) could achieve.

David