The Multitude of Things That Fungi Can Teach Us

Mariano Torras Complexity, Environment/Sustainability, General, Science Leave a Comment

April 19, 2021

Merlin Sheldrake’s recent book, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, is astonishing – truly one of a kind. The author is an exceedingly rare case of a scientific specialist with a superb gift for writing. In this gem of a book the reader encounters the multitude of things that fungi can teach us about the world and about ourselves. There is much here that is awe-inspiring to contemplate.

Who could ever imagine that a book about fungi could be a page turner? This one most certainly is. Though I tend to be a fast reader, I read Sheldrake’s book deliberately. I did so in order that I could savor every one of its mere 225 pages. The experience nevertheless leaves you thinking you’d read 600. It could be the scrupulousness of his scholarship: Between the notes and bibliography we almost have another 100 pages.

You are probably wondering what any of this has to do with economics. Sure, if you’ve been following my blog, you understand that economics crosses over into many other disciplines. Still, the fungus kingdom seems a bit of a stretch. For me, Sheldrake’s genius is in evoking the impressive versatility and generalizability of the book’s main themes. Such themes are relevant to, among other subjects, economics. 

How, for example, do fungi “make our worlds?” Mostly through collaboration with other life forms – most notably, though not exclusively, plants. Nobody ever associates brains and fungi. Yet research has shown that there are a remarkable number of things about their environment of which fungi are, somehow, “aware.” Ecosystems the world over are consequently undergirded by a collaborative exchange between fungi and plants of carbon for nutrients. Collaboration also supports economies at multiple levels.

We also learn about how tremendously efficient (i.e., economical) fungi are in their search for food. While their mycelium (think little fingers) branch out in multiple directions initially, they end up reinforcing the links to food that they find and cut away the less fruitful links. They are also adept at homing in on the most carbon-rich plant roots, and at duping some insect species into doing their bidding. Fungi indeed have many talents.

Interconnectedness, which undoubtedly also characterizes economic systems, is another recurrent theme in Sheldrake’s book. Fungi are, for instance, expert at forming collaborative mycorrhizal networks with plants. But they also interact with algae, which are not members of the plant kingdom.

It was only through forming relationships with fungi, for example, that algae were able to make it to land millions of years ago. Many species would eventually evolve into plants. And did you ever wonder about lichen – the colorful, dry, and flakey stuff sometimes found on rocks or trees? They are neither fungi nor algae, but rather a unique inter-kingdom hybrid of the two.

Mystery (economists prefer the term “uncertainty”) also suffuses the book, reminding the reader of the need for greater humility. The book will not only convince you that there is much we do not know. It also persuades us that much about the fungal kingdom we probably cannot know. How, for example, do psilocybin mushrooms cause us to hallucinate and have “out-of-body” experiences? Despite decades of study we are still trying to figure it out.

Another well-known writer, Michael Pollan, recently wrote a book on this subject – to which Sheldrake, in contrast, devoted a mere chapter. But what a chapter! I reread it a few times to make sure that nowhere is Sheldrake advocating their use. Yet one cannot help coming away with a hopeful, if not favorable, impression just based on the science. I say “hopeful” because it is being touted as a miracle cure for some forms of mental illness and depression.

How do fungi shape our futures? In a chapter titled “Radical Mycology,” Sheldrake provides a number of examples in which fungi are taught to “consume” almost anything. Fungi are well-known decomposers, but did you know that some species are even capable of “eating” plastics or used cigarette butts? Apparently, according to the author, some scientists are hopeful that in the fungus kingdom might be the solution to many of our environmental problems.

Perhaps because of this, it is the one chapter in the book that gave me pause. Such radical “solutions” merely prolong the myth that humans are capable of sustainably dominating nature. It is such thinking that has gotten us into the myriad environmental problems we presently face. It is one thing for fungi to decompose matter as a natural behavior. But they are not meant to clean up our garbage and waste.

The fungal kingdom is indeed the foundation of most ecosystems. Yet as Sheldrake makes clear, there is so little that we know about it; and it seems likely, because of the mysterious – not to say magical – way in which it operates, that there are limits to what we can learn. It is as if we sought to peer into the fourth or fifth dimensions of space.

The most important analogy to economics is this: Our social fabric is the foundation of our economies. It is easy to forget, in a world in which “economics” conjures any number of tangible quantities and measurements. But without the intangible and delicate connections between people, groups, and crucial institutions such as trust and reciprocity, economies would not even exist.

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