Mycosophy

Mycosophy is the philosophy that comes from seeing the World through the lens of fungal biology, ecology and evolution, and asking how our understanding of nature, evolution, life on Earth and our place in nature, can be improved through a rebalancing of a previous innate bias that arose from our past ignorance of fungi and their symbiotic modes of existence. Until 10th January 1969, mycology, the biological study of fungi, was considered a niche area of Botany (study of plants) of little relevence or importance to the life sciences as a whole. Although the specialist study of fungi (mycology) had existed for several generations, fungi had in fact been miss-classified during this time as peculiar plants. It turns out that fungi were always far closer to animals, having shared common ancestors with animals when life was confined to the oceans, much more recently than the last common ancestor between fungi and plants. On 10th Januray 1969 a paper was published in the international journal Science that proposed that a third multicellular Eukaryotic Kingdom of life, Fungi, be added to the pre-existing Kingdoms Plantae and Animalia. The paper proposed moving from a 4 Kingdon classification to a 5 Kingdom classification of life on Earth, fitting an additional branch into the evolutionary tree of life that had previously been accepted. The sequence of evolution proposed from the origin of life 3.7 Billion years ago, to present, starts with Kingdom Monera (Bacteria), then Kingdom Potoctista (Protista), followed by the three Eukaryotic multicellular Kingdoms of Fungi, Plants and Animals. More recently, Kingdom Monera has been sub-divided into two bacterial Kingdoms; Kingdom Archybacteria and Kingdom Eubacteria, making the current total of 6 accepted Kingdoms of life. The significance of the belated recognition that we have been living on a planet unaware that fungi are a unique Kingdom of life is that for the most part of history, going back to the ancient Greeks, we were always wrong to have seen the world principly through the lens of Zoology and Botany - as being the only important branches of Biological Science. Re-assessing wrong and limited assumptions, biases and beliefs that have arison from this historical error of under-rating the importance of fungi is therefore a part of mycosophy. Re-writing this wrong has enabled us to appreciate more fully the importance of mycelial symbiotic relations of different kinds as underpinning many of the most important evolutionary transitions during the history of life on this planet. Another aspect of mycosophy is to appreciate the versatile biochemistry of fungi in their prolific production of chemicals, medicines, antibiotics and psychedelics, and the benefits which these have brought humans through the ages, since the dawn of humanity itself. With the knowledge of fungi, their mycelial ecology and evolution, and their great benefits, it is indeed possible to see the World in a new light.

Genes and environment - ecological genetics

Environmental flux permeates tissues and cellular membranes through signal molecule cascades, altering genetic expression and volume of transcription and also influencing post-transcription modification of RNA (ARN) before it is translated into protein sub-units. After protein subunits have been made at ribosomes, further post-translation environmental regulation of the assembly and function of proteins occurs. Such environmental orchestration of genetic expression is termed 'epigenetics' (higher-than genes alone). Environmental signals also tag DNA with chemicals such as methyl and extra phosphate groups, altering its future expression, and cause transposition of genes and transcription promotors from one part of the genome to another, resulting in changed expression of genes in current and, to a lesser extent, future generations. Thereby through the feedback between pre-existing cellular components, molecules and environmental cytoplasmic signals, and information input from ancestral responses to environmental challenge, in the form of the tagging and rearranging of the molecule DNA (ADN), cells, tissues and organisms may have the opportunity to survive changes to their internal and external environments by having the capacity to produce novel proteins (new combinations of pre-existing protein sub-units), that better match the new conditions of 'environmental challange' as proposed by the nobel prise winning geneticist Barbara McClintock. This leads to a reappraisal of the role of genes and DNA from controlling an organism from the nucleus outwards, in a genetically pre-determined and utterly predicatble fashion, to one where genes, DNA and environmental signals can be co-described as a fluid molecular information system that channel protein formation possibilities, which help the cytoplasm of the living cells that make up an organism to stay alive despite environmental change. This reappraisal of the role of genes as in a fluid dynamic genetic-environment continuum has a knock-on effect on the way that we conceptualise the role of environment in evolution because it increases the extent to which the environment is thought to be responsible for the evolutionary changes that have occurred over geological time, in the diversification of species that live on our beautiful planet. This is not counter to the prevailing idea that point and frame-shift mutations take place from the distant cosmic environment via random mutation caused by background radiation (historically the only expanation for changes in the DNA code). Undoubtedly, cosmic radiation is responsible for many (mostly deleterious) random genetic mutations. Indeed, DNA has evolved a wonderful ability to withstand quite a high amount of random mutation events through the way in which several similar triplet codons of nucleic acid translate into the same amino acid, and through genetic redundancy whereby several copies of genes exist in different parts of a genome meaning that if one becomes badly mutated, there may still be existing healthy copies of the gene for the cell to make healthy proteins. However, by maintaining that cosmic and therefore random mutation events are the only driver of evolutionary diversity, the biological sciences may have perhaps missed an opportunity to appreciate a subtle but significant aspect of genetics that may have been working alongside the rate of mutation, iteratively and gradually over eons of evolutionary time (millions of years) regarding a progressive iterative epigenetic channeling of protein re-arrangement, with whatever DNA code that is available in a cell, that may enable a greater survival rate of offspring particularly during periods of environmental change. Such concepts have given rise to the fluid genome. A metaphor for this environmental induction of genetic rearrangement is mirrored in de novo antibody production - the immune responses way to deal with newly encountered pathogens (a kind of change in the environment). The way that the immune system creates antibodies to newly encountered pathogens is very different (primary response) to the way the immune system deals with previously encountered pathogens (secondary response). We think that the primary response works by taking parts of pre-existing genetic sequences, usually protein sub-units, and splicing them together in completely new ways in order to create a 3D protein shape that exactly fits the 3D shape of a newly recognised antigen (on the surface of an invading pathogen). The primary immune response mirrors that of how genomes respond to environmental change, whereas the secondary immune response mirrors the way genomes respond in constant conditions. The primary response genetic process is so complex that it is still barely understood, and it does take time (up to 14 days for a successful new antibody to be produced). It is as if we have understood genetics by first by appreciating the secondary immune response, fit for constant conditions, and only now realise how important the primary response may be with regard to how the genome responds to environmental change. This is especially the case when considering the broader theory of evolution that proponents including Darwin argued was driven by the changes in environmental conditions in which a population of organisms live. Through such a lens, it is possible to re-conceptualise that DNA (ADN) acts as an environmental information conduit; a molecule that informs cells about ancestral responses to internal and external environments that enabled past survival. This environmental information from which cells make proteins when triggered by environmental change, is then epigenetically tagged and passed from parent to offspring enabling the ancestral cell lineage (both from the recent and ancient evolutionary past) to pass environmental information into the current living cytosol;' information that increases the chances of cellular survival given the developmental changes in its surroundings over time. A great book regarding epigenetics is by Claude Kordon; The Language of The Cell published in 1993 by McGraw-Hill, Inc, London, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo and Mexico. Another good read on this topic is by Lynn and Dorion Sagan; Microcosmos - four billion years of microbial evolution, published in 1997 by University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles and London. Of course there is also Alan Rayner's 1997 classic: Degrees of Freedom living in dynamic boundaries, published by Imperial College Press, Singapore, River Edge (NJ - USA) and London, which deals extensively with how the highly adaptive genetic and metabolic systems within fungi, can shed new light on the rest of the Biological sciences, as well as our own species. Alan went on to describe Hyper-epigenetics as applied to the non-linearity in the way in which fungal metabolisms and genes can respond rapidly to environmental change. There is also a 2014 compendium of chapters written by different scientists called Entangled Life - organism and environment in the biological and social sciences (Volume 4 in the series History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences), edited by Gillian Barker, Eric Desjardins and Trevor Pearce, published by Springer.

Insect-fungus ecology talk at INECOL

It was an honour to speak at UNAM faculty of Biological Sciences about the fungal dimension in forest biodiversity and conservation.

Carbon molecules and carbon flux

Organic molecules (found in living systems) connect to form rings through their use of carbon atoms as inter-linkers (each C atom makes 4 bonds). Carbon chains that are 5 carbons long link up to form pentagonal structures whereas carbon chains that are 6 carbons long link up to form hexagonal structures, and since glucose is 6 carbons long, this is very common since glucose is made through photosynthesis and so there is lots of it about. Glucose gets used as a chemical feed into other biochemical metabolic transformations - changing the molecular structure in terms of number of carbons and changing the other functional groups bonded to each carbon; creating alcohols, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, pheromones and hormones. This is where organic chemistry ('organic' meaning 'of life', involving molecules that link carbon, oxygen and hydrogen together) meets biochemistry (the chemistry of biological processes), which adds atoms of elements such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Potassium, Sodium and Chlorine. Since carbon forms the basis of chemical energy exchange for life, when animals either eat plants or eat animals that have previously eaten plants, the carbon stores that were initially made in photosynthesis are passed from one species into the other where, depending on the efficiency of digestion, they become integral to the organic chemistry of the cells in the recipient species. Similarly when plants donate some of their glucose to symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi in the soil, the fungi return the favour by donating minerals and water into the plant roots. Through respiration (releaseing energy contained within glucose) and through death and microbial decomposition, carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere. In pre industrial carbon cycling, the overall flux of carbon between atmosphere and living organisms was in balance meaning that there was a stable amount of carbon contained in the atmosphere for 100's of millions of years, with equal rates of carbon fixing (via plant photosynthesis) and carbon release via respiration. Since industrialisation began with the ever increasing and relentless burning of fossil fuels, a new loop has been added to our planet's carbon cycle, rapidly releasing geological fossil carbon (which had been removed from the atmosphere indefinitely) into the atmosphere. This has led to a rapid increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, causing an increase in greenhouse gasses, trapping more heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet, causing feedback releasing other more potent greenhouse gasses such as methane from melting permafrost. The long eons of stability in carbon flux, during which life on our planet thrived, has been brought to an untimely end, and we now see a carbon cycle that is out of balance, risking eventual extinction of life. However there is a solution to this problem. The easiest way to re-balance the carbon cycle would be to stop the extraction of and burning of fossil fuels and to simultaneously increase the rate of afforestation, thereby increasing the rate by which photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The easiest way to increase the ammount of land to regrow forests would be to reduce the frequency with which we eat livestock and poultry. This is because most of the land used in rearing livestock and poultry is used to grow the food that these animals eat, and if humans fed themselves instead on a more healthy balance of vegetables, fruit, microbes such as fungi, bacteria and algae, as well as reared insects, the land currently used to provide livestock and poultry feed could be returned to forest. The easiest way to stop burning fossil fuels would be to simply substitute them for the already existing but yet to be produced at scale biologically fermented and digested fuels from microbial decomposition of wastes such as bioethanol, biodiesel, biokerosine, biomethane from agricultural waste, food waste, sewerage and cultivated coastal seaweed feedstocks. Every fossil fuel product has a biological substitute which, when produced at scale, could simply be substituted in the global move away from fossil fuel dependence, towards a sustainable civilisation that returns the carbon cycle into balance once more.

Philosophy of nature

Development of the philosophy of environmental conscience. A historical approach to a philosophical argument that would enable our species to relate to nature more profoundly and sustainably than it currently does, would stem from a philosophy of ecology (ecosophy), as part of a philosophy of biology (biosophy), and would have historical roots going back to the ancient Greeks Aristotle, Anaximander, and Heraclitus, but possibly even before this to even more ancient Vedic texts which influenced Hindu and Budhist belief systems. After the enlightenment, we could trace such thinking through St Augustine, Francis of Assisi, David Hume and Immanuel Kant. However, ecosophy might also be strengthened by more recent scientifically influenced and ecologically relevent writings such as those by Peter Kropotkin (mutual aid), Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Popper, Bertrand Russel, Alfred North Whitehead, Rene Thom, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Bauvoir. More recently Joanna Macey (World as Lover, World as Self), Rachel Carson (Silent Spring), Lynn Margulis (Symbiosis and symbiogenesis), Alan Rayner (Natural Inclusion). Natural Inclusion could be described as a philosophy arising from the scientific discoveries of the ecological behaviours of fungal mycelia in relation with other beings (mycosophy). In addition, cosmological philosophies that strengthen relations between nature and our species come from Alexander von Humboldt (and his French biologist friend and companion Aime Bonpland, whose teacher was the French forerunner of Charles Darwin (Natural Selection), none other than Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (role of environment in evolution and also known to be the founder of the notion of Biology as a science). Also, there is the wonderful Carl Sagan (Cosmos) and the physicist Professor Brian Cox (Wonders of Life) whose works on the physics of energy flows through biological and ecological systems have some philosophical implications relevent to this blog's title.

Bio-ethics in the age of extinction

Regarding averting the 6th mass extinction event, which would be the first to be caused by another species, namely us, the work of Edward O. Wilson immediately comes to mind with his recent book entitled Half Earth which was published in 2016. One of the arguments put forward in the book is that if we managed to change our diet by reducing meat intake on a global scale we could potentially liberate enough land from agricultural production for ecosystem restoration to prevent the 6th mass extinction. Another argument put forward in the book is that if everyone put half of whatever land, roof-space, window box, allotment, balcony or garden into use for biodiversity conservation, there would be enough space for wildlife to continue to live alongside our species, in both rural and urban settings. In other words relevant to both sustainable diets and ecosystem services. The philosophical ideas of E.O. Wilson were first put forward in his book Biophilia which argues that all humans have an innate urge to identify with and to ultimately protect nature. He argues that therefore the door (to a sustainable society) is already half open, we only need to fully embrace this at philosophical, political, economic, and at local and international governance levels (e.g. through the education and planning systems). Another ecological philosopher you may be interested in looking up is Alan Rayner, an evolutionary mycological ecologist turned philosopher and (bio)artist. His idea of the philosophy of natural inclusion allows us to re-orientate our identities and relationships around and into symbiosis with nature. He has several books, one called Degrees of Freedom - living in Dynamic Boundaries is published by Imperial College Press. Chapter 8 of this book includes how human society, economically and politically, can learn from mycosophy so that a sustainable society might inevitably emerge. Another book of his is called Nature Scope - which develops Natural Inclusion into a formal body of philosophy and ethics around protecting nature. Another book called The Origins of Life Patterns, published by Springer develops these ideas further. A famous Canadian bio-ethicist is David Suzuki who has written many works including the book Genethics - the ethics of engineering life (relevant to the sustainable diets pathway). A further ethics for nature advocate is Joanna Macey in her many works including her book World As Lover, World as Self, published by Parallax Press, Berkeley, California. Another writer on these themes, particularly ethics regarding biodiversity conservation and agriculture is Vandana Shiva in her many works including the book Staying Alive - women, ecology and development, published by Zed books. There is also Stewart Brand's book Whole Earth Discipline - an eco-pragmatist manifesto, published by Atlantic Press, London. Of course, there is also the wonderful Lynn Margulis with her body of works on the endosymbiont theory, which embraces the symbiotic partnership of species as the main way in which evolution operates. Her works would fit well into thinking about ecosystem services, but could also link to sustainable food production regarding the design of agricultural systems that enhance the co-habitation (symbiosis) of species in benefitial partnerships such as is practiced in Permaculture (the agricultural system that uses ecological design principles to integrate biodiversity and food production). Permaculture uses 3 ethics that feed into its design principles; these being Earth Share, People Care and Fair Share. Lynn Margulis was married briefly to Carl Sagan who wrote the book Cosmos - the story of cosmic evolution, science and civilisation, published by Abacus. In the final chapter, like in the first book I mentioned above by Alan Rayner, he sets out how human society can emerge ethically to embrace a sustainable epoch. Happy reading!