or the last Re:EX, I wrote about immunity and community – exploring the immune system as challenging the conception of the ‘individual’. This line of argument led naturally to the work of Lynn Margulis on the symbiosis as central to all life. Two common examples are chloroplasts ‘in’ plants and mitochondria ‘in’ our cells. This line of argument is well expressed for humans in this paper. (The ‘in’ is the problematic word – rather, there has been convergent evolution between separate lineages, even between separate kingdoms). I argued that we will only start to get beyond the stuckness of knowledge when we succeed in breaking down the concept of individuality (so core to the original enlightenment) and recognize the necessary imbrication of entities and accordingly (I know this is a stretch) disciplines.
Latterly, I’ve been reading about fungi – in what follows I draw largely on Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life: how fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures. As the subtitle indicates, Sheldrake is one of a breed of fungus fanatics (the kingdom seems to breed them). Just as cultures can be split into fungophiles (Russia) and fungophobes (anglo-saxons), so can scientists.
A few points about fungi. The centrality of symbiosis and convergent evolution is most clear in lichens, which are made up of fungal/algal colonies producing a new form: the lichen (cf Brodo’s beautiful book). These are not connections
which emerge painstakingly over millions of years – any random fungus put together with any random alga has a good chance of producing a new ‘species’ of lichen. (See Ways of Enlichenment). So much for the descent of man – the individual as the endpoint of history. When biologists first discovered symbiotic lichens, they immediately went Hegelian – asking which was the master and which the slave in the relationship. Later findings have emphasized that lichens have bacterial colonies which have viruses and their own set of fungi – it is indeed an entangled web. (For an immediate indication of why this matters with respect to knowledge, see Manuel Lima’s animation). A second point is the concept of the ‘extended phenotype’. A core example within the fungal community here is the zombie ant. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, first described by Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859, produces spores which attach to ants (often called zombie ants) in tropical environments. The ant loses its fear of heights and climbs vegetation to a height of 25 centimeters (perfect for the fungus) and then gets stuck to a leaf and dies. The fungus consumes the ant as it grows its flowers into a spike which penetrates the carcass’s skull and then showers spores on ants in the undergrowth below. The question of the extended phenotype is whether the ant can be seen as part of the fungus (it is certainly part of its life cycle).
As I write this, I realize it would become too long-winded for an update if I don’t take some short cuts. A final figure for you and then a conclusion. At
the Center for Unconventional Computing in Bristol, there is talk of using mycelial networks (which allow trees to communicate and share resources in a forest – see The Overstory by Richard Powers) as computers to sense and report on the health of the environment. This for me can be tied into the concept of the ‘internet of things’ – first conceived as an ‘electronic skin’ which would cover the surface of the globe. This gets me wondering what happens when the electronic dermis meets the mycelial subdermis. More seriously, it gets me wondering about the built world as part of our extended phenotype.
Breaking down the barriers between people and their environment, and people and things is for me core to any re-enlightenment project aiming to produce new philosophies and politics.