socialuprooting:

To Understand is to Perceive Patterns

“The bible for this lifeform is Paul Stamet’s Mycelium Running. The book begins with a discussion of what Stamets calls the mycelial archetype. He compares the mushroom mycelium with the overlapping information-sharing systems that comprise the Internet, with the networked neurons in the brain, and with a computer model of dark matter in the universe. All share this densely intertwingled filamental structure. Stamets says, “I believe that the mycelium operates at a level of complexity that exceeds the computational powers of our most advanced supercomputers. I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate.” Stamets has also authored the identification guide, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World.

By adjusting the settings of consciousness with psychedelics, I submit a myceliation of consciousness itself occurs. Coming up on psilocybin mushrooms, when I’m quiet, and paying attention, I see-hear-feel the neuronal network lighting up, and millions of new connections branching out, and they look-sound-feel like filaments, impossibly fine filaments in a wavy glow. And sometimes when consciousness soars outside of what it ordinarily considers itself to be (private ego identity bounded by a skull bowl and embedded in baseline reality/perception settings) it witnesses itself connecting at warp speed to a shared vast sentient datafield.”

- Google and the Myceliation of Consciousness

just saw Paul give a lecture at COSM last weekend. love his ideas. i think he may be onto something. for the next few days i kept thinking about how we look up at the night sky wondering if we will ever make contact with an alien intelligence, and all along that intelligence may be right below our feet.

(via eyestaygold)

archiemcphee:

From the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders come these mysterious patterns on the ocean floor off the southern coast of Japan. Japanese scuba diver and photographer Yoji Ookata, who has spent the last 50 years exploring and documenting his underwater discoveries off the coast of Japan, spotted these beautiful and puzzling patterns in the sand, nearly six feet in diameter and 80 feet below sea level, during a dive near Amami Oshima at the southern tip of the country.

So what happened next? Are these rippling geometric patterns the equivalent of crop circles on the seafloor? Not quite, but the answer is still a good one. Colossal explains:

“He soon returned with colleagues and a television crew from the nature program NHK to document the origins what he dubbed the “mystery circle.”

Using underwater cameras the team discovered the artist is a small puffer fish only a few inches in length that swims tirelessly through the day and night to create these vast organic sculptures using the gesture of a single fin. Through careful observation the team found the circles serve a variety of crucial ecological functions, the most important of which is to attract mates. Apparently the female fish are attracted to the hills and valleys within the sand and traverse them carefully to discover the male fish where the pair eventually lay eggs at the circle’s center, the grooves later acting as a natural buffer to ocean currents that protect the delicate offspring. Scientists also learned that the more ridges contained within the sculpture resulted in a much greater likelihood of the fish pairing. To learn more about the circles check out the full scoop over on Spoon and Tamago, and you can see two high resolution desktop photos courtesy of NHK here.”

Busy little pufferfish boys wooing potential mates by sculpting the sand with their bodies. As far as we’re concerned, that’s pretty awesome!

[via Colossal]

(via coolinmesoftly)