The patterns that fungi like mushrooms use to communicate are said to be "strikingly similar" to those of human speech. But how?:
Fungi send electrical signals to one another through hyphae — long, filamentous tendrils that the organisms use to grow and explore. The Guardian reports that previous research shows that the number of electrical impulses traveling through hyphae, sometimes likened to neurons, increases when fungi encounter new sources of food, and that this suggests it's possible that fungi use this "language" to let each other know about new food sources or injury.That would make fungi, one of the kingdoms of life, similar to plants in that they can send chemical messages.
NATALIA MESA, "CAN MUSHROOMS "TALK" TO EACH OTHER?" AT THE SCIENTIST (APRIL 6, 2022) THE PAPER IS OPEN ACCESS.
Complex Messages
When researchers studied that, they discovered that the messages were somewhat complex:
"A fungal word length averaged over four species [...] is 5.97 which is of the same range as an average word length in some human languages, e.g. 4.8 in English and 6 in Russian," Adamatsky writes in the paper.But what are fungi talking about?:
NATALIA MESA, "CAN MUSHROOMS "TALK" TO EACH OTHER?" AT THE SCIENTIST (APRIL 6, 2022) THE PAPER IS OPEN ACCESS.
Like howling wolves, the fungi could be signaling their presence to one another, Adamatzky tells Hannah Osborne for Newsweek. They could also be saying nothing, but the spiking events are not random, Adamastzky added.Wait. Wolves are not an appropriate comparison . Wolves have emotions — as humans understand the concept — much as dogs do:
ELIZABETH GAMILLO, "MUSHROOMS MAY COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER USING ELECTRICAL IMPULSES" AT SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE(APRIL 12, 2022)
Nature Is Full of Intelligence
We can be fairly sure that our salad mushrooms are not experiencing any such emotions. Fungi turn out — like most life forms — to have complex signalling systems:
While researchers can agree that the patterns are not random, more study is needed before making mushroomese an official language.If we assume that nature is full of intelligence, smart systems for active nutrient foraging is roughly what we might expect of mushrooms and other fungi.
"Though interesting, the interpretation as language seems somewhat overenthusiastic, and would require far more research and testing of critical hypotheses before we see 'Fungus' on Google Translate," said University of Exeter mycologist Dan Bebber, a co-author on previous studies on the phenomenon, who suggested the electrical impulses could be indicative of active nutrient foraging.
BEN COST, "MUSHROOMS CAN TALK TO — AND PROTECT — EACH OTHER WITH 'UP TO 50 WORDS'" AT NEW YORK POST (APRIL 7, 2022)
Reader Comments
Their not social but cohabit and for this reason they probably send out signals via their roots to each other.
The vast networks of fungal mycelium are as complex as neural networks and encompass the planet.
They were perhaps the first true multi-cellular organisms, they were first organisms to colonise the land from the sea, created the conditions of nutrient interchange that allow plants to colonise the land and have complex symbiotic relationships with whole biomes such as forests. The also can control animals to an astonishing range of complex — and for the animal often suicidal — behaviours.
Perhaps they regard this as their planet and engineered humans solely to create plastics, chemical pollution and Nuclear radiation simply to progress to the next fungal stage. Perhaps the nuclear mushroom cloud is more symbolic than we know.
I refer you, for a serious read, to "The Entangled Life" by Merlin Sheldrake, an excellent book.
How did Wolves in British Colombia teach each other, during the Salmon run, not to eat the guts or die of bacterial infection? [Link]
They eat the fish-heads and leave the rest for the Grizzlies and other Peoples that have systems that'll handle fish guts.
Every species is a People in many worldviews; Indigenous world views and others...
We're not special.
Well...
We're very good at selfishness and arrogance. Collectively.
Language keeps us from our Collective SelfAwareness. It is a disease, passed on from one generation to the next, instilled already in us if the Linguists are to be believed, and I've seen their proofs - s'weird, but our subject-verb-object orders, diversified at birth, solidify to whichever 'order' we are born into at about 6 months of age... Almost like a shackle built into the DNA. "Sucked Into A Bagel..."
Well met - thank you.