- Author / Mei Lin.Sedrick
- Translator / Zhou Peiyu
The knowledge of studying relationships can be confusing and almost always ambiguous. Did the leaf-cutting ants domesticate the fungus they depend on, or did the fungus domesticate the leaf-cutting ants? Did the plant cultivate the mycorrhizal fungus living together, or did the mycorrhizal fungus cultivate the plant? Which side does the arrow point to? This uncertainty is actually quite reasonable.
I have a professor named Oliver. Oliver Rackham is an ecologist and historian who studies how ecosystems have been shaped by human culture for thousands of years. He took us to the nearby forest to interpret the twists and cracks of the branches of the old oak trees, observe where the nettles are particularly dense, pay attention to what plants are in the hedges, and what plants are not, and thus tell us the history of these places and the human inhabitants. Under the influence of Rackham, the clear boundary between “nature” and “culture” in my imagination began to blur.
Later, when doing fieldwork in Panama, I saw the complex relationship between many field biologists and their research subjects. I joked with bat scholars that they were waking up all night and sleeping during the day, learning the habits of bats. They asked me how the fungus imprinted itself on me. I still don’t know. But I am still wondering how often we rely on fungi (fungi are our regenerators, recyclers, linkers, and piece the world together), and how often we are manipulated by fungi beyond our imagination.
Even if there is, it is easy to forget. I often think of soil as an abstract place, a fuzzy field of schematic interaction. My colleagues and I would say something like this: “So-and-so reports that between one dry season and the next wet season, soil carbon has increased by about 25%.” Is this also forgivable? We cannot experience the wilderness in the soil and the countless living creatures in it.
I tried it with the only tool. Thousands of my samples were stirred, irradiated, and bombarded with expensive equipment, turning the contents of the test tube into a string of numbers. I spent several months staring at a microscope, immersed in the root scene full of winding hyphae; these hyphae were frozen in their ambiguous behavior of communicating with plant cells. But the fungus I can see is still lifeless and has been treated with preservatives and stained with unreal colors. I feel like a clumsy detective. While I was squatting for a few weeks and scraping mud into the small test tube, toucans croaked, howler monkeys roared, vines entangled, anteaters licked and licked. Microorganisms (especially those buried in the soil) are not as accessible as the lively and fascinating large-scale world on the surface. To make my discoveries come alive, and to make these discoveries strengthen and contribute to the overall understanding, it actually requires imagination. There is no other way.
In the scientific world, imagination is often called speculation, which is dubious; when published, health warnings are usually imposed. One of the main points of the detailed record research is to completely remove unrestrained imagination, cutscene, and thousands of failed attempts that have led to a tiny bit of discovery. Not everyone who reads a research report wants to work hard to finish the content of these big questions. Besides, the scientist must appear reliable. Going backstage, you may find that everyone is not so decent. Even in the background, when I shared the deepest night of contemplation with my colleagues, I rarely talked deeply about how we imagined (accidentally or deliberately) the organisms we study, whether it is fish, bromeliads, vines, fungi or bacteria. It is a bit embarrassing to admit that our mess of imagination, metaphors, and unfounded assumptions may have helped shape our research. Nevertheless, imagination is still part of daily inquiry. Science is not a ruthless and rational activity. Science is (and has always been) emotional, creative, and intuitive. It concerns all mankind, and it asks questions about a world that has never existed to catalog and systematize people. Every time I ask what these fungi are doing, and designing research to try to understand the behavior of fungi, I inevitably have to imagine fungi.
LSD，Forcing me to look deeper into the scientific imagination
An experiment forced me to look deeper into the scientific imagination. I signed up for a clinical study to investigate the impact of LSD on the problem-solving ability of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. The potential of psychedelics has not yet been exploited, and interest in science and medicine in these potentials is broadly resurrected, and this research is one of them. Researchers want to know whether LSD can allow scientists to enter the professional unconsciousness and help them deal with familiar problems from a different perspective. Our imagination is usually ignored, but it should be the protagonist on the stage, a phenomenon to be observed, and it may even need to be measured. Posters from science departments across the country recruited a group of inclusive young researchers (“Do you have a meaningful problem to solve?”). This is a very bold study. Creative breakthroughs are difficult to achieve no matter where, let alone the clinical drug experimentation department of a hospital.
Researchers conducting experiments hung psychedelic paintings on the walls and set up a sound system to play music, so that the room was lit up with “moonlight” light. They tried to remove the clinic characteristics of the scene, but made it appear more artificial-acknowledging the influence they (scientists) might have on their subject content. This arrangement highlights the reasonable insecurity that many researchers have to face every day. If all the subjects of biological experiments can get suitable situational light and relaxing music, their behavior will be much different.
The nurse made sure that I drink LSD on time at nine o’clock in the morning. They watched me carefully until I swallowed all the liquid; the liquid was poured into a small glass of water. I was lying on the bed in the hospital room and the nurse took a blood sample from the indwelling needle in my forearm. Three hours later, when I reached “cruising altitude”, my laboratory assistant gently encouraged me to start thinking about “work-related issues.” Before we start, there are a series of psychometric tests and personality assessments, which require us to describe our problem in as much detail as possible-the knotty problem that we may have worked so hard to disassemble in the process of exploration. Dipping those knots in the LSD may loosen the knots. All my research questions are related to fungi. I feel relieved to think that LSD was originally extracted from fungi in food crops; that is a fungal answer to my fungus question. What will happen?
-This article is excerpted from “The Fungus Microcosm: Seeing How the Ecological Alchemist Drives the World, Promotes Life, and Connects Everything on Earth”, August 2021, Guoli Culture.
