Live data from Hacker News

Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

theconversation.com

21–30 of 92 posts

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the simplest explanation is the classic nature vs. nurture, paired with selective breeding. If you are raised by hippie shroom eating chimp parents, you'll probably be attracted to a different sort of mate than if you are raised in a warrior clan. This sort of taming can happen within 3-4 generations and have permanent effects. Dmitry Belyayev was able to produce a tame variety of the red fox within 4 generation…

He was also able to anti-tame them quite quickly as well.

I have a feeling an alien human researcher would say the same about us if they had witnessed a Walmart on a black Friday.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's certainly interesting, but what is the explanation for how consuming Psilocybe mushrooms could have effects across generations ? Is it that an organism having had that experience might have altered behavior leading to advantages in natural/sexual selection? Or that psilocybin literally alters something physiological or [epi]genetic? Basically how could psilocybin cause a permanent (since it has persisted long af…

I would argue (and I think TM would agree) that the effects on the evolution of human society would be many times more important than any biological changes in individuals.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the simplest explanation is the classic nature vs. nurture, paired with selective breeding. If you are raised by hippie shroom eating chimp parents, you'll probably be attracted to a different sort of mate than if you are raised in a warrior clan. This sort of taming can happen within 3-4 generations and have permanent effects. Dmitry Belyayev was able to produce a tame variety of the red fox within 4 generation…

He was also able to anti-tame them quite quickly as well.

Demonstrating how we can "play god", to some degree, in some circumstances. Kinda makes you wonder if humans might be capable of more than the current state of affairs on this planet.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly interesting, but what is the explanation for how consuming Psilocybe mushrooms could have effects across generations ? Is it that an organism having had that experience might have altered behavior leading to advantages in natural/sexual selection? Or that psilocybin literally alters something physiological or [epi]genetic? Basically how could psilocybin cause a permanent (since it has persisted long af…

Well the simplest explanation is the classic nature vs. nurture, paired with selective breeding. If you are raised by hippie shroom eating chimp parents, you'll probably be attracted to a different sort of mate than if you are raised in a warrior clan. This sort of taming can happen within 3-4 generations and have permanent effects. Dmitry Belyayev was able to produce a tame variety of the red fox within 4 generation…

It's not at all clear to me that humans, ancient or modern, are tamer than other great apes. Chimps in particular are notoriously violent (have you ever seen that picture of a shaved ape? That thing could tear you to shreds!), however other great apes are significantly more pleasant. Also modern humans have an incredible capacity for violence, and there is a lot of archeological evidence to suggest that ancient humans did as well.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#25

Sci-fi plot: Fungi are actually alien artificial life. They were designed as a huge family of microorganisms designed to recreate an alien biosphere. However, when they landed on earth, they encountered something which changed these plans.

That's not entirely far from the Fringe-ier parts of Star Trek: Discovery's plot.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#26
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw that recently...it's cool, but there's no actual evidence that psilocybin has any of the positive evolutionary effects that Mckenna hypothesizes.

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).

> 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.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#27

Sci-fi plot: Fungi are actually alien artificial life. They were designed as a huge family of microorganisms designed to recreate an alien biosphere. However, when they landed on earth, they encountered something which changed these plans.

Without giving away too many spoilers, you might enjoy "The Expanse" books/series

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#28
post #6
post #2

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... (pdf link) [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/09/446928755/co...

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.

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.

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#29

Sci-fi plot: Fungi are actually alien artificial life. They were designed as a huge family of microorganisms designed to recreate an alien biosphere. However, when they landed on earth, they encountered something which changed these plans.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Against_the_Chtorr specifically the ontology described during a "pink storm" in A Day for Damnation. A fungal-like substance (the pink fuzz, which looks suspiciously like cottonwood storms south of Seattle) is the catalyst for the rest of the ecology.

I LOVED those books in high school! After rereading them a year or so ago, they are pretty indebted to Heinlein and Starship Troopers, but still entertaining. He also goes into preachy libertarian sometimes. This was the guy who wrote the "Trouble with Tribbles" Star Trek episode, which explored some of the same ideas.

Also, be prepared that the series was never completed (IIRC he had a son with autism that took time away from writing).

Re: Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by fungi

#30
I'm willing to buy into this concept, but the phrasing is way off.

The words "may only exist because" is ridiculously presumptive and egocentric, as if to connote that there's some sort of defeat or induced and undeserved subordination to the idea. Like, "oh, how disappointing that mushrroms and yeast get to take all the credit" even though we've known all along that plants and animals weren't the originators of life, according to the heterotroph hypothesis.

So, it's more like: "Fungi may have been the spring board to complex life AS WE KNOW IT."

It's not some sad revelation. If anything, it's just one more fact in the cryptic mystery of an already strange origin story.

Post reply on HN