Arboreal Consciousness: A Philosophical and Biological Inquiry into Trees, Mycelium, and the Future of Intelligence

This paper proposes that trees and mycelial networks represent an alternative model of advanced life and intelligence. Unlike mobile, animal-based intelligence—evolved primarily to solve problems of movement—arboreal intelligence privileges longevity, integration, and inner experiential states. By comparing arboreal systems with artificial intelligence, Buddhist and indigenous philosophies (carefully noted as diverse), psychedelic phenomenology, and astrobiological questions such as the Fermi Paradox, we suggest that trees and fungi may exemplify a form of “advanced consciousness” that transcends common anthropocentric categories of cognition and progress. While attributing subjective experience to non-neural organisms remains speculative, we frame this as a disciplined hypothesis grounded in established plant signalling and network ecology, and situated within live philosophical debates (panpsychism, integrated information, extended/enactive mind). This perspective highlights limits in orthodox models of intelligence and opens testable directions for empirical and conceptual work. Even if the consciousness hypothesis ultimately proves false, the information-processing capacities and network integration of forests remain significant objects of study in their own right.