Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 92 posts

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

#41

Post by 013a »

This is tangentially related:

I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that life to create oil but set the stage for actual intelligent life. Without lots of oil, we wouldn't have hit the industrial age, we couldn't manufacture renewable energy sources, we couldn't make plastic, we couldn't make rocket fuel, electricity wouldn't be as widespread, basically everything would be different.

If oil were substantially less common, its feasible that we'd still live in a 1800s-esque society with some form of civilization development, but would be have radio? Certainly not space travel.

Point being: M-class planets might be pretty common in the universe, maybe cellular and even multicellular life is less common, maybe intelligent/sentient live is even less common, maybe civilization is even less common. And we've only really "existed" for a few tens of thousand years in the grand scheme of billions of years, those years littered with possible extinction-like events both man-made and natural. Combine all of those probabilities together, with the reality that we may have just "missed" another species on the timeline of the universe, and it seems more likely than not that we're alone in this galaxy.

Which is actually pretty awesome if you think about it. The whole playground is our's; let's go take it.

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

#42

Post by [deleted] »

andbberger wrote: post #12
L_226 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

totally. just the other day when I was tripping balls, I was thinking "Man are these fungi great chemists"

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by thaumasiotes »

013a wrote: post #41

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that…

> If oil were substantially less common, its feasible that we'd still live in a 1800s-esque society with some form of civilization development, but would we have radio? Certainly not space travel.

We don't have space travel now...

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

#44

Post by Hendrikto »

013a wrote: post #41

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that…

> the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that life to create oil

Most fossil fuels come from plankton and algae sediments deposited over millions of years, not from one big meteor impact.

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

#45

Post by vkou »

ColanR wrote: post #26
mistermann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> 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.

So, what you're saying is that it's state-of-the-art work in the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology.

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

#46

Post by Jedd »

013a wrote: post #41

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that…

There is another well known corollary -- if we consume the bulk of fossil fuels this time around, it's unlikely that recovery after a major civilisation collapse would be possible.

Naturally the kind of leadership that declines to consider what will happen over the next 20-30 years is even less likely to be concerned about the subsequent 200-300.

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

#47

Post by modzu »

013a wrote: post #41

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that…

havent u heard of steampunk? ;)

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

#48

Post by ColanR »

vkou wrote: post #45
ColanR wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> 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. So, what you're saying is that it's state-of-the-art work in the burgeonin…

No. I'm saying that the effects of psilocybin claimed by Mckenna, and which are required for his theory, do not exist. Specifically, for example, psilocybin actually reduces vision, rather than improving it [1] : which invalidates Mckennas first quoted point above.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01965761

This isn't a question of "evolutionary psychology", but of neuroscience.

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

#49

Post by mistermann »

ColanR wrote: post #26
mistermann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I always thought he was putting way more emphasis on the "visual acuity" part than it deserved, maybe he was grasping for something from the material science world to be able to include.

> that the drug improves visual acuity and can sexually arouse, but there's no evidence for it.

If you're referring to formal, peer reviewed studies, of course not. But the sexual arousal and community bonding aspects I'd say there's plenty of anecdotal information consistent with the possibility. This of course in no way proves that his theory has any validity to it on a historic basis, but it at least doesn't rule it out as being impossible.

The whole theory is best taken with a healthy quantity of salt (and it's best to listen to audio of it), but it is a really interesting theory/prediction. One's opinion of the plausibility is likely proportional to their experience with psychedelics, those with a lack of experience would likely have some difficulty with the "how" part.

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

#50

Post by elliotec »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #43
013a wrote: post #41

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that…

> If oil were substantially less common, its feasible that we'd still live in a 1800s-esque society with some form of civilization development, but would we have radio? Certainly not space travel. We don't have space travel now...

We... most certainly DO have space travel now.
Post reply on HN