What do you think it would be like for different kingdoms to evolve into intelligent creatures. For instance, I've wondered if a mushroom could develop the fungus equivalent of a brain. Imagine if it could communicate telepathically to humans. It would probably continue to feed from decomposition in order to remain in the classification of fungus. Maybe it would become something more. Maybe we could eat it, but would that be wrong?

A mushroom is a sexual organ so no I don't think anything like it would evolve to become anything like a brain, its way to temporary. Fungi can create enourmess mycelial networks but as far as them being what I consider intelligent, I would say no. By intelligent I mean self aware etc. Many animals are capable of this however and I am sure other forms of life could evolve higher levels of intelligence as well. Just because mushrooms contain compounds that happen to get us really high doesn't have to mean that they make those compounds for us or to communicate with us.

All the organisms are as a matter of fact intelligent; and I cannot think of an organism that lacks intelligence. This however puts forward the question of how one defines intelligence.

For me, intelligence (at the level of an organism) is the ability to percieve internal and external cues, computete them and react accordingly to ensure the organism's survival and well-being. As such therefore, all organisms capable of surviving have intelligence.

Maybe you think of intelligence as the development of consciousness or one's ability to realise its own existence (as we humans certainly do and have limited evidence that other animals also do to some extend)?

From Wikipedia:


I'd have a hard time classifying a shrub or a tree as intelligent, unless you define intelligence as "the ability to grow". Many organisms perform complex actions, but often these are the result of hardwired reactions to stimuli (like bacteria) rather than a problem-solving application of abstract thought.


As far as what intelligence would be like in other kingdoms, I have no idea. An intelligent plant would be so far removed from the ones we know that it might preclude it from that kingdom all together. I know there are plants that can react to touch, but that's about it.

I found a random site talking about what an intelligent plant might be like had they become the dominant form of life on Earth. You'll have to download the .PDF to read it, but there are several sites out there discussing the idea.
http://hissa.nist.gov/~black/Papers/lifUniEvery.html

From Wikipedia:


Well, I do not seem how Wikipedia's definition is different from mine's. Wikipedia just gives an anthropocentric definition of intelligence.

So to speak,



Or as I said, "...intelligence (at the level of an organism) is the ability to percieve internal and external cues, computete them and react accordingly to ensure the organism's survival..."

as well as:



Or as I said, "...and well-being.."

A plant's intelligence is therefore its ability to percieve changes in weather, temperature, humidity, soil composition, sunlight and direction of it, daylength, presence of pathogens, presence of allies etc etc. in order to ensure its survival and thriving.

Humans ability to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn (collectively, the "intelligence" ) are simply the humans' tools for survival and therefore not much different from a plant's intelligence in their very core definition!

Well nothing of human intelligence will evolve on this planet while we or other large mammals are here because it would get killed off before it even got started, but who knows somewhere else maybe.

Have a hard time seeing a mushroom flying a space ship though

Intelligence is just a tool. We can use this tool to understand and realise our integration in a super ordinate system. Everything and every living being are integrated in this system. Intelligence doesn’t mean to dominate the other parts of the system. Dominating the other parts isn’t intelligent; it’s stupid and brings some sort of misbalance in the entire system.

Other live forms have other advantages and qualities.

Honeybees for example….you may say, that one bee behaves stupid. The whole super organism, the bee colony, behaves… somehow intelligent:
This organism “knows” what to do… for the sake of the super ordinate system for sure.
Do we?
We could even postulate, if we look at this creatures in a more poetic way then science use to do, that the bees are the ones, which carry in and concentrate the love of the universe, which is represented and send to earth by the sun and collected and transformed into nectar by the plants, in their honeycombs, so the bee hive is fulfilled with the love of the universe.
This is what honeybees do. This is their work.

And mushrooms…their mycelium weighs somethimes hundred tons with billiards of connections under the ground. Can we know what sort of information is exchanged in this network?
Ok. A mushroom will not fly in a space shuttle for sure. Perhaps the shroom cultivated some sort of “contentedness and modesty” long before humans cultivated “intelligence” and decided to creep in the ground, doing his special part in the performance without developing chitin legs and coat like insects done.
Last but not least there may be very wise creatures, which live in some sort of immaterial state, only materialising small aspects or parts of themselves in our material world. In what form might they loom large?

So, I think its time to stop thinking of our self as that species, which can understand and rule everything with our “intelligence”. It’s arrogant and ignorant, imho. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to discredit “science”, but if science isn’t inspired by “heart and imagination”, it gets could and dies and loses the ability to help us through our day.

This song(text) fits to my post.
Enjoy it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbPIOwxCIg4

You probably would baulk at the idea of eatting you cusin, Dailbirthawn. But that is exacltly what you do every time you eat a fungus or a potatoe or a rasher of bacon. If you follow your lineage back through your ancestors far enough you will find your great, times by a few millions, grand mother also was the mother of toadstools.

Fungi could gain sentience, but not with humanity around. All animals from bugs to worms to people are decentants of a sea anemone looking critter that sat around in shallow murky water 600 million years ago. Anemones are kinda reminiscient of mushrooms.

Say a mushroom somewhere links its primitive light sensetivity to a automatic behavior, like quickly retracting if a shadow falls over it. BAM! The race is on. A major mass extinction then comes along and frees up some niches. These are going to be gimpy little creature with an extremely siplme nervous systems at first. Over tens of millions of years these critters will expand and diversify. Over the following hundreds of millions they'll refine their shapes and talents leading to complex behavior and ultimately to self-awareness.

interesting thing to contemplate.

The game Alpha Centauri culminates with the player joining with a fungus in order to gain transcendence.

Stephen King's novel, Dreamcatcher, has an awesome alien in the form of a fungus, that assimilates whatever species it can in order to propagate itself. Pity such a great concept is ruined by King's poor writing, Duddits, and a typically silly ending.

That's interesting, Morphane, that game. It's quite like the symbiosis (if you believe McKenna, anyway) of psilocybin mushrooms with the human species.