Fantastic Fungi

Fantastic Fungi (2019) insists that mushrooms are intelligent — ​​and they certainly are, compared to the quote-unquote experts featured in this pseudocumentary. Then again, the narration, from the point of view of a mushroom (or all of them, unless this particular one is using the royal “we”), doesn’t make them seem like the sharpest knife in the kitchen: “You can’t see us, but we bloom around you. Everywhere, in everything and even within you, whether you believe in us or not.” Huh? Who doesn’t “believe” in mushrooms? Is there such a thing as “fungus denial”? According to Fantastic Fungi, not only are fungi intelligent and capable of communication, but they are also at least partially responsible for human intelligence and language — or at least this is what the “Stoned Ape Hypothesis” proposes. This theory, which has all the scientific basis of Jack and the Beanstalk, argues that Homo evolved from Erectus to Sapiens by virtue of eating psychedelic mushrooms found in cow dung. The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that someone was definitely on drugs when they made this stuff up. Back to the supposed fungal communication, the film posits that “Trees communicate using the mycelium as pathways … we are finding in our research that plants can recognize their own relatives. So these mother trees recognize their relatives through their mycorrhizal networks.” Isn’t it pretty to think so? However, plants are living beings with cellulose cell walls, which lack nervous or sensory organs. Animals do not have cellulose cell walls, but they do have nerve or sensory organs. Animals are sentient; plants are not. Animals can experience pain, pleasure, and various emotions. Plants cannot. A brain and a nervous system are necessary for sentience; even if fungi are more animal than plant, but like plants, they have no brain or nervous system. Plants react to physical and chemical stimuli, but there is no justification for claiming that plants are aware of these reactions, that they are self-conscious or conscious beings. Plants have DNA and have evolved by natural and artificial selection. Some plant adaptations may seem “intelligent,” but to call plants intelligent, or to claim that there is a “plant neurobiology,” is to speak metaphorically and it’s little more than a gimmick intended to draw attention and perhaps get a grant. I don’t understand why mushroomheads can’t just admit that they like getting high, and stop making smug excuses to justify their habit. Eating mushrooms doesn’t make them low-lives, but it doesn’t mean they’re morally or intellectually superior to the rest of recreational users.