A review by jnzllwgr
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

4.0

Checked many boxes about the interwoven, non-hierarchical nature of the world. What mycology has been able to uncover in a very short period of time is astounding. Our dependencies are significant and should not be under-appreciated. Life inevitably requires decay. Decay brings new life. Nutrition and genetic material move underfoot, between mycorrhizal webs and root systems. We are not autonomous. Cognition requires a new, ecocentric definition. As Michael Gira incants on Paradise is Mine, “Is there really a mind?” Our Linneaen system is no longer sufficient to name things. In the future, our architecture will be grown. Could the isolating of a plant in a pot be paramount to solitary confinement? Slime molds and fungi can navigate mazes. Salvation from human industrial devastation may appear in the form of mushrooms. If there are more bacterial and fungal cells within our bodies than cells of our own making — and we depend on those organisms for our well-being — are they really us?