The Way of Fungi - A Commentary on Merlin Sheldrake's Book Entangled Life

In his instant classic, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Future , Merlin Sheldrake describes how the mycelial networks of fungi form. The “body” of the fungi is the mycelium, which consists of microscopic threads called hyphae that join and tangle together to create a fibrous web. Mushrooms are the fruit of the fungi used for reproductive purposes. Sheldrake explains that mycelium growth is a process of branching (enzymes released from the hyphal tips of the mycelium digest their surroundings and then absorb the nutrients, extending the mycelium outward) and homing (finding other compatible hyphae to fuse with). In this series of essays called The Way of Fungi , I will promote the advantages of following a fungi lifestyle - hopefully persuading you that the habits of mycelium provide a healthy and productive path for humans to follow. This commentary will fuse with concepts found in Entangled Life , branch them further, and home in on rel...

In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake writes:  The mycelium of many fungi can fuse with other mycelial networks if they are genetically similar enough, even if they aren’t sexually compatible. Fungal self-identity matters, but it is not always a binary world. Self can shade off into otherness gradually. (pp.36-37)  When faced with a forked path, fungal hyphae don’t have to choose one or the other. They can branch and take both routes. (p.45)  One tip becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight - yet all remain connected in one mycelial network. Is this organism singular or plural, I find myself wondering, before I’m forced to admit that it is somehow, improbably, both . (p.45)  Mycelial coordination is difficult to understand because there is no center of control…[It] takes place both everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. (p.50)  Gender identity is currently a hotly debated topic. Many individuals (especially young people) are simply refusing to choose what ...

Quoting Ulf Büntgen, professor of geography at Cambridge University, Merlin Sheldrake writes in Entangled Life :  [Mycology] is an intellectually stimulating field because it’s so interdisciplinary. It is microbiology, physiology, land management, agriculture, forestry, ecology, economy, and climate change. You really have to take a holistic perspective. (p.39)  This statement implies that to follow a fungi lifestyle we must first break the habit of looking at things in isolation and move toward a perspective of relationships. I believe that one of the best ways to do this is to start using terms that encompass multiple distinctions rather than employing labels that dissect the whole into component parts. For instance, it would be better to call ourselves “human” rather than identify as Black, White, or any other racial category. Taking this idea further, it would be better still to call ourselves “living being” rather than identify as either human or animal. Ultimately, it wo...

Noting the importance of chemical cues for fungi, Merlin Sheldrake writes in Entangled Life :  [The] mycelium of truffle fungi, like that of most fungal species, actively senses and responds to its surroundings in unpredictable ways. Their hyphae are chemically irritable, responsive, excitable. It is this ability to interpret the chemical emissions of others that allows fungi to negotiate a series of complex trading relationships with trees; to knead away at stores of nutrients in the soil; to have sex; to hunt; or to fend off attackers. (p.41) .  This quote suggests the importance of situational awareness for a fungi lifestyle, hinting that those of us who want to follow the Way of Fungi should be consistently open and responsive to what’s happening in our environments. Obviously, we already do this to various degrees - how could we survive if not? But it’s easy to become distracted and lose focus on what really matters. In fact, this seems fundamental to our natures - at l...

In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake suggests that a human-centric point of view can be unnecessarily limiting, because as he states:  [S]peaking might not always require a mouth, hearing might now always require ears, and interpreting might not always require a nervous system. (p.42)  This distinction is important because we tend to overlay human concepts onto the non-human world, which stops us from experiencing what it really is. Instead, it becomes what we want it to be. For instance, Sheldrake reminds us that the mycorrhizal network that distributes resources within a forest eco-system is neither capitalist or socialist, even though our minds may naturally turn to these human-centric metaphors to explain and find meaning to what’s happening below the surface. If we are of a capitalistic bent, we will see its attributes everywhere and if we lean more towards socialism, we will see that. But it’s neither. Our metaphors just distort the picture.  Beyond the need to pra...

In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake observes that,  Mycelium is how fungi feed. Some organisms - such as plants that photosynthesize - make their own food. Some organisms - like most animals - find food in the world and put it inside their bodies, where it is digested and absorbed. Fungi have a different strategy. They digest the world where it is and then absorb it into their bodies. Their hyphae are long and branched, and only a single cell thick - between two and twenty micrometers in diameter, more than five times thinner than an average human hair. The more of their surroundings that hyphae can touch, the more they can consume. The difference between animals and fungi is simple: Animals put food into their bodies, whereas fungi put their bodies in the food. (p.51)  This insight shows that mycelium turn the “simple” process of eating on its head, but it does not suggest that those wanting to follow the Way of Fungi must literally crawl inside our food and try to absorb ...

In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake makes the hopeful distinction that,  A mycelial network is a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life-forms are in fact processes not things . The “you” of five years ago was made from different stuff than the “you” of today. Nature is an event that never stops. As William Bateson, who coined the word genetics , observed, “We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing.” When we see an organism, from a fungus to a pine tree, we catch a single moment in its continual development. (p.53)  I call this distinction “hopeful” because many of us look at ourselves as we are today and are not too happy with what we see. We forget that this moment is just a snapshot - a mile marker along the way. We’re a constellation of matter and consciousness that’s taken a long time to gel and that continues to reconfigure and flow toward a distant destina...

In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake explores the mystery of how a fungus coordinates behavior along its mycelial web. He states,  Hyphal tips may be the places where data streams come together to determine the speed and direction of growth, but how do tips in one part of the network “know” what tips are doing in other, more distant parts of the network? (p.60)  He discusses the possibilities of hydraulic pressure and chemical signaling as potential answers but determines they are too slow of processes to explain what is witnessed in mycelium’s behavior. He then settles on the likelihood of electronic flow, explaining:  It has long been known that animals use electrical impulses, or “action potentials” to communicate between different parts of their bodies. Neurons - the long, electrically excitable nerve cells that coordinate animal behavior - have their own field of study: neuroscience. Although electrical signaling is normally thought of as an animal talent, animals ar...

After his discussion in Entangled Life on the integrated nature of mycelium, Merlin Sheldrake continues:  These studies raise a storm of questions. Are network-based life-forms like fungi or slime molds capable of a form of cognition? Can we think of their behavior as intelligent? If other organisms’ intelligence didn’t look like ours, then how might it appear? Would we even notice it? (p.65)  But how we define intelligence and cognition is a question of taste. For many, the brain-centric view is too limited. The idea that a neat line can be drawn that separates nonhumans from humans with “real minds” and “real comprehension” has been curtly dismissed by the philosopher Daniel Dennett as an “archaic myth.” (p.65)  Charles Darwin, writing in 1871, took the pragmatic line. “Intelligence is based on how effective a species becomes at doing the things they need to survive.” (p.66)  Many types of brainless organisms - plants, fungi, and slime molds included - respond to ...

In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake takes time for an in-depth analysis of symbiosis , in particular detailing how the discovery of lichen's compound nature changed our understanding of ecology. Lichen are organisms composed of a fungus (called the mycobiont, which draws up minerals and water) and any number of algae and/or bacteria (called photobionts, which provide sugars and lipids through photosynthesis). Sheldrake states:  In their relationship, both partners were able to make life in places neither could survive alone. (p.72)  Within lichens, branches of the tree of life that had been diverging for hundreds of millions of years were doing something entirely unexpected: converging. (p.72)  [Symbiosis] refers to the full spectrum of interactions between any type of organism, stretching from parasitism at one pole, to mutually beneficial relationships at the other. (p.73)  In the wake of [this discovery], evolution could no longer be thought of solely in terms of...

In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake deepens the concept of symbiosis to include all the microscopic life forms that share bodies with humans and other organisms. His brief history states:  [In the 1950s, biologist Joshua Lederberg] found that bacteria could trade genes with each other. One bacterium could acquire a trait from another bacterium “horizontally.” Characteristics acquired horizontally are those that aren’t inherited “vertically” from one’s parents. One picks them up along the way. (p.77)  In this way, a bacterium can acquire characteristics “ready-made,” speeding up evolution many times over. (p.78)  In 1967, the visionary American biologist Lynn Margulis became a vocal proponent of a controversial theory that gave symbiosis a central role in the evolution of early life. Margulis argued that some of the most significant moments in evolution had resulted from the coming together - and staying together - of different organisms. Eukaryotes [cells or organisms t...