The metaphysical presumption of Merlin Sheldrake

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The metaphysical presumption of Merlin Sheldrake

a philosophical critique of the 2020 book 'Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures'

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

July 14, 2025

Merlin Sheldrake's book "Entangled Life ¹" is full of unsupported metaphysical nods to the all-powerful nature of a strictly utilitarian ² ³ -focused evolution. In the course of just a few pages, the author repeatedly doffs his cap to the unbridled powers of random changes in nature:

"Spores evolved to allow fungi to disperse themselves." (p. 30)

"Truffle fungi have evolved to make animals giddy because their lives depend on it. (p. 30)
"Some species of tropical rainforest orchid have evolved to mimic the smell, shape, and color of mushrooms to attract mushroom-loving flies. (p. 35)

If you say so, Merlin.

Author's follow-up for November 03, 2025

None of these claims comes with an annotation, of course. This is apparently because evolutionary metaphysics is considered non-debatable these days and so no longer in need of any proof. Everything came about for utilitarian ⁴ purposes and there is no meaning or poetry or spirituality in life: case closed.

This is precisely how the metaphysical belief in God used to function in the scientific world: it was a conversation stopper. It was taken as a given that things came about purposefully, through a kind of teleology, and it was considered impious to attempt to dispute that metaphysical assumption. Today, the privileged metaphysics has changed, but it remains as dangerous as ever to question the status quo presumptions.

The proof of the metaphysical nature of Sheldrake's bald-faced assertions about the omnipotence and omnipresence of evolutionary powers can be seen by performing a thought experiment. Merely replace the phrase "had evolved" in the book with the phrase "was created by God" and the reader would be none the wiser. In either case we are told nothing concrete except that the author has a certain metaphysical belief when it comes to the origins of life, one that he believes in so completely that he does not feel the need to defend it. Such hat-doffing to materialist theory is what Michael Behe calls "the pretense of knowledge" in his 2019 book "Darwin Devolves: the new science about DNA that challenges evolution.⁵"

A sibling of mine once challenged me on this, asking me, "Yes, Brian, but how else COULD the world of plant, fungi and animal life have come about except by blind, meaningless evolution?" I did not miss a beat in responding to that challenge as follows: "That is the whole problem, my friend. A metaphysical view is not justified merely because our avowedly nihilistic and atheistic materialists can imagine no alternative theories with which they are comfortable. What we have here is a lack of imagination disguised as 'proof'."

Please note this important but nuanced distinction:

I am not saying that Sheldrake's metaphysics is wrong: merely that it IS metaphysics and it should be treated as such. It should be discussed in detail in a philosophically oriented tome, not mentioned repeatedly without references as an all-purpose and all-powerful explanation for every innovation on the biological front. In this annotation-free name-dropping on behalf of a presumably omnipotent metaphysics, Sheldrake is essentially telling his readers (over and over again, lest they fail to get the message): "Remember, reader: there is only one way to see all this diversity of nature about which I am writing here: namely, as something that could not have been other than it is, as the necessary utilitarian result of a mindless and fundamentally pointless process. In other words, we should ideally cease to marvel at Mother Nature entirely, knowing that it could not have been otherwise."

This might be a hard sell for indigenous people, but then the west has always approached their world with a cynical eye toward exploiting its riches in the name of that ruthless utilitarianism for which evolutionary theory stands.

Of course, suggesting that evolutionary theory is metaphysics is the ultimate sin in science, and well-heeled groups are doing all they can to outlaw that viewpoint and to defame its supporters as troglodytes. Yet no less a philosopher than Thomas Nagel pushed back against this dogmatic bullying of Darwinian critics in 2012 with his tellingly titled book: "Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false." In this gauntlet tossing Swan Song, Nagel reacts as follows to the scientific establishment's trashing of "intelligent design" researchers like Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, and David Berlinski:

"Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair." --Thomas Nagel, from Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false, p. 10 ⁶

This has obvious connections to the subject of drugs, by the way. We have placed mind and mood medicine in the hands of materialist science, a science that embraces passion-scorning behaviorism and sees the individual as a chemically determined widget under the influence of a mindless evolution. It is this world view that has turned me into a patient for life by denying me common-sense godsends that could cheer me up in a trice and instead shunted me off onto dependence-causing medicines whose use is "justified" by reductionist metaphysics, the same reductionist metaphysics embraced by evolution boosters.

This is a very fraught topic, however, philosophically speaking. Whenever I fail to declare my full unqualified faith in evolutionary theory, I seem to be lying in the same bed with my enemies on many other important subjects, as, for instance, Behe's books are championed by the agenda-driven Washington Times, which champions the insurrectionist mindset and the drug-war mentality of substance demonization. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that I am not saying that evolutionary theory does not have potential explanatory power -- merely that our state of ignorance about life is far too profound viz. ultimate causes for us to opine ex cathedra and annotation-free about how life came about, a hubris that Sheldrake evinces on every other page of his otherwise literally down-to earth analysis of the world of mycelium.

When it comes to theories like evolution, I share the view of David Bohm as put forth in his 1980 book "Wholeness and the Implicate Order":

"All theories are insights, which are neither true nor false but, rather, clear in certain domains, and unclear when extended beyond these domains.⁷"

If this makes me a heretic, then persecute at will! Fortunately, I am one of the few philosophers in the world who is in a position wherein he has nothing to lose by being honest.

Author's Follow-up:

November 03, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

I feel on the defensive here as I imagine how quickly the rabid materialist will be to accuse me of things I have never said and of positions that I have never held. But I am no born-again religious fanatic. I merely object to the author's use of glib and unnecessary asides that are clearly used to flaunt a world view that can be plausibly gainsaid. A book about the wonders of nature should be a book about the wonders of nature. Instead, the reader is constantly reminded that, "Oh, and by the way, we know how all this seemingly wonderful stuff came about. Science has answered all the big questions now, thank you very much: but you've still got to admit, the world looks really cool, even though, in reality, we all know that it is just a random if necessary outcome of totally indifferent forces."

Of course, I flatter myself by suggesting that anyone will ever bother themselves with my views on this matter. I have prepared the following retort, however, to answer any supposititious rebukes about dogmatic troglodytism on my part:

The case is not closed (for me, at any rate). Nor am I surrounding myself with modern sources that flatter my own suspicions on these topics. Kantian philosophy raises serious questions about design theory ⁸ ⁹ ¹⁰. It points out, in essence, that human beings have a natural tendency to see "design" in nature given the mental and perceptual equipment and capacities with which they are born. According to this view, we project meaning and design onto nature in the same way that a neurotic projects their own anger and fears onto others. The 'categories of understanding' compel us to do so, willy nilly. And yet this view itself is not above criticism. It is based on the assumption that there is a baseline "sober" consciousness common to all, an idea that seems unlikely given the variability of human biochemistry, the very existence of which reminds us that we are all on drugs all the time. Saints and mystics such as William Blake, Meister Eckhart and Teresa of Avila did not necessarily have the same biochemistry and hence the same perceptual and experiential limitations as the hoi polloi, and we might learn more about the true capabilities of the human mind by studying the extraordinary outliers in these areas rather than basing our analysis on the contemplation of some purportedly representative Everyman.

Kant, the rationalist, however, privileges only one kind of consciousness -- which (unsurprisingly) turns out to be "rational" consciousness. (Had he been an artist, he might have chosen differently.) But William James has since reminded us that there are many types of consciousness.

"One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. " --William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study In Human Nature ¹¹

James went on to urge us to study those other forms of consciousness, warning us that "No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."

Unfortunately, drug prohibition is now forcing us to disregard these other forms of consciousness, and so Kant's views about the limitations of human understanding go unchallenged ¹².

There. I trust that this will settle the hash of any hypothetical naysayer -- meanwhile reminding them that drug prohibition is about so much more than the misuse of psychoactive substances by the white American young people whom we refuse on principle to educate about drugs. Drug prohibition entails nothing less than the censorship of academia, on which count alone it should be scorned and rejected by every freedom-loving citizen and country in the world.

Notes for essay entitled The metaphysical presumption of Merlin Sheldrake: a philosophical critique of the 2020 book 'Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures':

1: “Entangled Life Book Summary by Merlin Sheldrake.” 2020. @_shortform. 2020. https://www.shortform.com/summary/entangled-life-summary-merlin-sheldrake. (up)
2: We have an absolute right to use drugs DWP (up)
3: Why John Stuart Mill is irrelevant to the drug debate DWP (up)
4: Drug Prohibition should be protested on principle, not on utilitarian grounds DWP (up)
5: Darwin Devolves: the new science about DNA that challenges evolution Behe, Michael, Discovery Institute, 2019 (up)
6: Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false Nagel, Thomas, Oxford University press, New York, 2012 (up)
7: Wholeness and the Implicate Order Bohm, David, 1980 (up)
8: The Critique of Pure Reason Kant, Immanuel, Project Gutenberg, 1781 (up)
9: A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Smith, Norman Kemp (up)
10: How the Drug War limits our understanding of Immanuel Kant DWP (up)
11: “The Varieties of Religious Experience : William James : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2021. Internet Archive. 2021. https://archive.org/details/the-varieties-of-religious-experience_202109. (up)
12: What drug use could tell us about the rationalist triumphalism of Immanuel Kant DWP (up)

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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

The so-called opiate crisis is really a drug prohibition crisis.

The "scheduling" system is completely anti-scientific and anti-patient. It tells us we can make a one-size-fits-all decision about psychoactive substances without regard for dosage, context of use, reason for use, etc. That's superstitious tyranny.

I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.

Mariani Wine is the real McCoy, with Bolivian coca leaves (tho' not with cocaine, as Wikipedia says). I'll be writing more about my experience with it soon. I was impressed. It's the same drink "on which" HG Wells and Jules Verne wrote their stories.

In the age of the Drug War, the Hippocratic Oath has become "First, do no good."

There are a potentially vast number of non-addictive drugs that could be used strategically in therapy. They elate and "free the tongue" to help talk therapy really work. Even "addictive" drugs can be used non-addictively, prohibitionist propaganda notwithstanding.

I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.

The UN of today is in an odd position regarding drugs: they want to praise indigenous societies while yet outlawing the drugs that helped create them.

Imagine if we held sports to the same safety standard as drugs. There would be no sports at all. And yet even free climbing is legal. Why? Because with sports, we recognize the benefits and not just the downsides.

The outlawing of opium eventually resulted in an "opioid crisis"? The message is clear: people want self-transcendence. If we don't let them find it safely, they will find it dangerously.

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The metaphysical presumption of Merlin Sheldrake

a philosophical critique of the 2020 book 'Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures'

Author's Follow-up:

November 03, 2025

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

Diary of a Drug Fiend