Fungus Theory of Conscious Growth
Mark L. Christensen
Find Art Foundation (2023)
ISBN: 978-1733455510
As a living testament to the boundless wonders of the universe, Mark L. Christensen weaves together the intricate threads of science, creativity, and a lifetime of intellectual exploration, leaving an indelible mark on all who venture into the captivating world he has cultivated.
Welcome to Reader Views, Mark. What is Fungus Theory of Conscious Growth about and what was your inspiration for writing the book?
The book is about finding the evidence to determine the real reasons there is humanity and why it exists in a universe like the one we can see. When I was young and found that we all eventually die, I became fired up by this reality.
In the book, you recall watching fireworks as a child—a moment that seemed to spark something fundamental. How did that experience stay with you and contribute to the development of your theory?
The fireworks showed me that not only do humans eventually die, but the entire Earth will one day die. This realization angered me and that anger took over my brain, turning it into a machine that yarns and filters evidence. I didn’t know this so much back then, I found out later in my 50s that it was at work underneath everyone and everything I experienced and discovered.
Presenting humanity as fungal spores—biological agents of conscious expansion—reframes our place in the evolutionary process. How does this understanding shape your view of human purpose?
I’m presenting a discovery from two main pieces of evidence. One shows that all life originated from an original plant and animal fungus made from bacteria. The second is that since humans evolved last and are the only animals capable of surviving the end of its birth place, Earth, humans are definitely the spore of all life (the fungus) that will one day be left behind to die with the Earth.
The framework you lay out describes a system in which evolution is time-sensitive—either humanity reaches the next stage or doesn’t survive. Where did that concept originate, and what happens if we don’t meet that challenge?
Every sixty seconds a star explodes out in the universe and we happen to be rotating around one. All plants and animals on Earth are already scheduled to burn and mankind has not yet developed the type of technology needed to get off before it gets too hot, and that is if we humans are not taken out by any of six other life-ending possibilities: overheated atmosphere, asteroid or comet impact, mass extinction of any kind, a future pandemic, solar or supernova flare, and plain old self-annihilation. This means the window to develop that technology can end up being very short and the reason we all work a six-day work week after the automation age.
Rather than viewing death, planetary limits, and a hidden origin as shortcomings, the theory treats them as built-in drivers of progress. How do these constraints function within the system?
The evidence shows that the system we have developed in is one of conscious-growth. Taking a good look at the process of conscious-growth shows that it needs these three fundamental limitations to produce, motivate growth, and serve as the evidence of the mechanism itself. The evidence of our enforced involvement in this system can best be seen through the limitation of our growth. If in question, always ask: why this method of growth? And the answer is always maximum conscious growth.
The idea that technology could become a life form marks a significant shift in how we define consciousness. What factors support that view, and how far along might we already be?
My analysis as included in the book shows that human technology that is a growth product alongside conscious-growth. The hard evidence of this idea is the end of carbon-based life on Earth. There is a minimum standard of technological growth that needs to occur in order to ensure our success in surviving that end. I call it Technological Evacuation Standards (TES). This is always the answer to where we are at within the growth of technology; TES is and can always be the gauge as to where we are in technological growth. How far along might we already be is easily answered by determining how capable we are of leaving Earth today and the possibility of post Eternal Self Sufficiency (ESS). No sense in leaving at all if we don’t live long after that. Because it will take the growth of technology to save a human from the end of Earth, that technology is a product as well as its genetic occupant.
What makes slime mold such a compelling example in the theory, especially in terms of intelligence without a brain?
The behavior of single-celled slime mold searching for food sources is urgent with voracity. It shows that each and every cell in slime mold communicates with one another to find it. Every cell in life shows the behavior of the process of learning through memory with no brain, only a memory cell. This behavior is evident in all cells and quite notably in the cells that make up slime mold. These ancient memory cells lead to the evolution of the human brain; as thought the brain is one evolutionary conduit of growth from bacteria to modern humans.
The concept of the Void of Psychosis adds a psychological dimension to the theory. What does it represent, and how does it fit into the structure of conscious evolution?
In a nutshell, VOP is the point when the human brain has grown to the size that it can reflect on itself as a single individual and not a group. This is when, through self-observation, one establishes and realizes that beyond its parents, no true origin can be detected or identified with. This causes a void in one’s established concrete identity. Up to a point the human brain was not large enough to make this calculation or realization. A concrete identity is relied on by establishing absolute elements in one’s world of perceptions and concepts, like hot/cold, gender, gravity, life, death, aging, hunger, reproduction. When the human brain can’t make any concrete establishments of where it came from originally, it causes a psychosis within that human’s identity, a void in the concrete aspects that formulate its identity.
On an individual level, what does conscious growth look like—and how can a single person move toward it?
Ah, well, a human being is conscious-growth all along. Not only does it grow during its life span but from the beginning of its species’ evolutionary beginnings. Each human has its own NEW perspective of the world it is born into superseding those that will soon die, a kind of baton passed from old to new. Technology is the forensic evidence of conscious growth. This new perspective is a better and more efficient one to ensure the success of its species and it doesn’t even know it. Because a single person is conscious-growth, he or she can’t move towards it. In other words, it itself is the growth. Keep in mind that the individual grows alongside all the other individual conscious-growths as a collective-conscious (every human living at the same time) or (a collective consensus of reality at any given point) that is primary growth. The collective-conscious is what your question is subconsciously referring to as something the single person moves towards. The reality we all agree on is what we consider a higher consciousness, but it too is always increasing with every find within in the exploration of each and every single individual’s perspective. Where the collective is in its conscious growth process is gauged by the accumulation of previously established points of reality. My formula for this is Conscious, Awareness, Concern, and Technology. This is actually how consciousness grows, first in the individual and then in that individual’s contribution to the collective.
If humanity succeeds in reaching Maximum Conscious Growth, what would that state involve or reveal?
It is the fungus that will achieve MGC via a human or perhaps a superseding animal. There is not enough information or experience about post-terrestrial existence to make an exact calculation but I can say that there will always be survival stressors and time limits that will enforce the growth of consciousness (the three fundamental limitations) to its maximum that makes perhaps the entire universe a kind of fungus in its process. Post-terrestrial humans or any life would still be under the enforcement of those three fundamental limitations: Hidden True Origin, Inevitable Death, Biospheric Bound. I can only imagine that at the End Of Light Epoch (EOLE), all successful conscious life forms will come together and perhaps there will be a kind of Uni-Galactic Conscious Harvest by its creator (UGCH).
How does emotional expression, creativity, or storytelling function within a system driven by evolutionary urgency?
Easy answer – if it were not for vitality (life or death), true emotional responses couldn’t be expressed. It is the emotional reaction to death of all kinds that enforces the creativity to save more lives in the future and nothing else. Everything is a story when relaying to others, learning, watching, exploring, discovering; we cannot evolve consciously without it, story is the growth. At the end of Earth, when the Tin Can Man leaves in his Tin Can, all that he or she or it will have is the story of all that was on planet Earth, staring back at a large dust and gas cloud that was our home, our solar system. This is how you and I can last forever, in the story we helped make.
Would you describe this book primarily as a working theory, a philosophical framework, or a roadmap for action?
This book offers an analysis of Facts, Evidence, and Historical events that presents a new understanding of psychological evolution with philosophical implications. No action needed, only acknowledgment to the system. One day, when this evidence is permitted throughout humanity, it will encourage harmony and help us achieve the synchronicity we all are looking for. The true action is to start building the Tin Can Man and his Tin Can.
The ideas presented span science, metaphysics, and philosophy. How do you see these disciplines working together in this context?
Easy answer, everything is science and is one science for the growth of a consciousness to its maximum in a cold, dark vacuum. Philosophy itself is a “Phil in the blank” resort for not having enough info about one subject or another. Because Fungus Theory is all facts, evidence, and historical events, it only uses philosophy to back it.
Were there scientific theories, cultural systems, or spiritual ideas that helped influence or challenge your thinking as the book took shape?
I must say that it was James Burke’s Television series Connections in the 70s and 80s that gave my brain the subconscious determination to accidentally stumble on this discovery one day. Chiseling out this work has streamlined a lot of unanswerable questions and has helped the determinism needed to conclude not only my own existence but all existence including the entire universe’s other possibilities of existences. To know for sure that human inspiration is the evidence of a spirit through emotional thought-driven action is the true result has been comforting. Inspiration is not for every human, only the inspired.
Where do you draw the line between speculative theory and real-world observation, especially when building such a complex system?
The line can be drawn between the need to speculate when there is not enough information to make calculations or determinations through observation. But, when there is enough information and evidence, there is no further need for speculation. “Speculative theory” is evidence of the concerned, evident with planning the way for the snap determinations needed to survive the unknown when it may arrive in the future.
What kind of feedback from readers has stood out to you—especially from readers who may not typically explore abstract or theoretical nonfiction?
Some responses have been from “I believe it” to “I don’t believe it.” Some keep coming back to it as their subconscious mind begins to make more sense of it. To understand all the evidence takes years, and that’s true even for myself. Total acceptance as often turned to total resistance, this shows a lack of reviewing all the evidence or the new information changes the reader’s reality too fast. Realists have the ability to put their egos aside to make some sense of the work, but others cannot adjust their more fragile egos so quickly. They need more conscious growth as individuals in their own lives in order to acknowledge the facts and evidence that may change their perspective to the truer reality. Denial is a reality buffer and we all use it to survive unwanted realities as we grow consciously. This in itself has a time rate. I call it Conscious Timing, where one can only become so conscious through realities so fast, and without the collective growing consciously as well. This is where one may become insane, by not catching up with or lagging behind the collective conscious-growth realities.
For a skeptic approaching this work in good faith, where do you suggest they begin?
This may be a book for the speculative, yet the skeptic could change after experiencing just one or two profound realizations, subconsciously enforcing the cascading process of the remaining evidence.
Start with:
The four timeline perspectives of the universe.
The human condition of absolutes
The three fundamental limitations of the universe
Maximum Conscious Growth (MCG)
Everything is understandable in this book if you can make a determination that what it is all about is the product being made, which is Maximum Conscious Growth (MCG). If this determination cannot be fully embodied within the reader, everything will become biased and selective to the reader’s limited level of reality intake. It will not sink in as a whole and their own reality will be tragically overlooked and unenjoyed.
Writing about themes like mortality and planetary urgency can be emotionally heavy. What effect did these ideas have on you personally as you wrote?
Until this work, I lived my life thinking that morals were what everything was about. I grew with anger and frustration watching the moral decline of the majority. The main realization came to me at once with no warning. A stress left my body for good and I told myself, “No, it’s not that simple.” It was not the answer I was looking for all these years. It was a very emotionally secure experience to be able to embody a true answer for my existence, that at least planetary urgency is why I am alive on Earth. The answer to every question was now possible; stress completely left my body when I acknowledged that reality.
After Fungus Theory, I was shocked to realize that morals come second to technology as one day, it will be technology that is the platform that allows for morals to be played out. After all, we do want to take the Bible with us?
The timing of this release overlaps with global shifts in technology, climate, and consciousness. Did world events shape the book’s message or urgency?
No, the globe has and will always be developing its technology at a pace in order to slowly kick the humans off of it through the sun’s temperature timeline. Consciousness itself is a static state, for example, I’m either unconscious or I’ve regained consciousness; after establishing consciousness, I am now conscious-growth.
If a reader finishes your book with just one lasting idea or question, what do you hope it is? Does the government know this?
That is probably the question: does the government know this?
Mysteriously, the original Egyptian Pharaoh/Slave process of motivating manpower is still the state-of-the-art enforcement for the development of technology. This shows that the behavior of that global governing source has been at work from the beginning of civility and is even more so today. The driving force of technological advancement shows that this growth is government-enforced and they must know something about the Human Condition of Absolutes in order to motivate use as such. Fungus Theory may have been discovered a millennium or two ago, just in their own way.
Looking ahead, are you continuing to expand this theory—or turning your focus in a new direction?
Fungus Theory is my true purpose in life. Never have I felt so complete as an inspired human, so I plan on including more details in future books that simplify the concept. While also submitting the theory to science journals. I hope to profess the theory every day in the future.
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