Entangled Life-Merlin Sheldrake

#BookNotes

A book all about fungi and how this largely overlooked branch of life is strange and unique

Key ideas

• Mycellia are a decentralised network that can explore mazes and find the best way through. If one tip finds food then the network rearranges itself. Plants are connected by vast fungi networks, which are living organisms, not just pipes. Some nodes in network are hubs and therefore more important. ( This is an example of how the Network Better Than Linear)
• Fungi can sense light, food, wind, touch. They fire electrical signals like brains so could be used as computers.
• Do we need to expand our definitions of intelligence? Is Everything is Conscious?
• Symbiosis- where does one organism start and another begin?
• Language controls our perception and model of world. Analogies are always limiting.

All life forms are in fact processes not things