Morphogenetic Fields - not only form, but spirit too?

Hi ATS,

I came across the theory of morphogenetic fields a long time ago, by reading an excellent book by Rupert Sheldrake, member of the British Royal Society, establishment chap, with a twist of rebellion & a twinkle in his eye. A mischievous Grandfather figure, you could say. Read his book here: Rupert Sheldrake, A New Science of Life

Going into the theory in depth would take quite a while, so I'll post a brief summary: Until recently, the mainstream research looking into the patterns of lifeform in terms of body shape, function of different organs, etc, has all been based around the genes. The genes were held to have all information necessary to pattern the form of the organism, and to denote its functionality too. More recently, we have started to see more research into epigenetics, the changes that can occur in terms of the genome & the organism's habits & appearance, ability to pass on information to the next generation, & so on. However, way back in the eighties, Sheldrake & a few others were looking into the idea that there existed a different type of patterning information, some way that information was transferred, imprinted onto the physical medium of the material universe, as if the form was held in a nebulous database in the ether somewhere, and this information was projected, utilising the tools of the genome, to imprint the form of a gestating organism into physical reality. To my mind, this theory (when you get into it it's fascinating) holds a lot of water, and gels more appropriately with what we've learned about the organisation of information in the quantum realm, the physics of high strangeness which implies connections less tangible than nuts 'n bolts mechanistic biological action. The theory is complex, but worthwhile to investigate. It gives me a sense of optimism, in conjunction with what I've learned from other fields concerning the ways in which our universe, and Life, functions. The field is everything, the form is secondary.

What if this theory was also to bear relevance to the spiritual mechanics of our lives too? Is there an 'Origin Field' which is the original impressum of our unique, living soul? Are we made one way, only to veer this way & that, through different incarnations, through different forms, yet all bearing at least a shade of resemblance to our original form & nature? This makes sense to me on a personal basis due to much in the way ofdream work which has unfolded throughout my childhood & adult life. I once saw the image of my 'original form' on the doorway of a church, carved in stone, as though it was the original state of nature, to which I am irrevocably drawn again & again, only taken off the course of destiny - the works we are born to fulfil, by a sort of lapsing into a dream state in our living days, a forgetfulness which detracts from our calling, a daze which causes us to see through a glass darkly, with only snippets of clarion insight, when 'someone' communicates the nature of our highest self, regarding the deepest purpose of our nature, to which we are supposed to pay heed, so we can catch the signs in our lives, the meaningful coincidences, the synchronicity, the voice of God.

I suggest that we all have an original form, and we all are asleep to some degree or another, concerning our ability to match our current incarnation to that original pattern & purpose, like a tracing of the image laid over it again, here details married, others drifted aside. Let us walk the straight path, turning aside neither to the left or the right, the narrow path which keeps us synchronised with what we are born to be. There's more I could say, and I may do so in the thread, but I would appreciate your thoughts.

Best wishes, FITO.

Energetic resonance is not an ‘all or none’ process: a system resonates in response to a range of frequencies which are more or less close to its natural frequency, although the maximum response occurs only when the frequency coincides with its own. Analogously, morphic resonance may be more or less finely ‘tuned’, occurring with greatest specificity when the forms of past and present systems are most closely similar. When a morphogenetic germ comes into morphic reso- nance with the forms of countless previous higher-level sys- tems, these forms do not coincide exactly but give rise to a probability structure. As the first stages of morphogenesis take place, structures are actualized at particular places within the regions given by the probability structure.

Source from the OP.

Given enough time, these sorts of theories will take over Darwinian evolution. Material reductionism, meaning the belief that all phenomenon can be explained by materialism, is slowly dying out.

Morphogenic fields is one of the closest I have seen to a fully comprehensive theory on the development of biological organisms. Developmental biology, embryology, and so on, cannot be explained by material-based theories. There is a guiding principal that is beyond material biological enzymes, co-factors, and so on.

Robert Becker, one of my favorite medical writers, discussed in detail in his book 'Body Electric' about the electromagnetic principals that perpetuate the form (morphogenesis) of an organism. For example, researchers found a direct current intrinsic to the nervous system of vertebrates... When an organism gets injured this electric field is reversed at the location of injury, which causes the assimilation of healing factors to come and fix the disturbed morphogenic field. For example, a migraine is associated with a reversal of polarity in the cerebral cortex (known as "cortical spreading depolarization")

Another example is embryological neurogenesis (organization of brain cells in an embryo). They literally crawl across set scaffolding and organize into specific functional layers that allow a seamless stream of consciousness throughout the organism's life. This is how all 100 billion neurons organize in a human brain. It is mind-boggling, and beyond any material explanation. Instead, it makes much more sense that there is an overarching guiding faculty that sorts material cells into the correct place.

The best literal explanation of this force would be electromagnetism and its associated properties. I call this force God, because it contains an undeniable Intelligence beyond our current comprehension.. This is the Apex Creator whose Laws create and perpetuate the biological world.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

You might find this talk interesting:



I think our consciousness rises from an electromagnetic field created by the brain. I think these field energies are inter-dimensional traveling both forward (psychic) and backward in time (memory). These consciousnesses energies are participating in rogue waves of the deepest fabrics of reality.

You might find this talk interesting:

originally posted by: cooperton
The best literal explanation of this force would be electromagnetism and its associated properties. I call this force God, because it contains an undeniable Intelligence beyond our current comprehension.. This is the Apex Creator whose Laws create and perpetuate the biological world.

I agree with everything in your post. There definitely seems to be some strangely spiritual element to how reality gets realized in the moment:

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

I'm currently reading Sheldrake's book "Science Delusion". This banned Ted talk is based on the material:



Rupert is a fascinating intellectual. I just love the way he thinks outside the box of traditional thinking. Beside the banned Ted talk, here is another one of my favorite Sheldrake videos. He's completely change my way of thinking about God:



Not the stuff about his book. But some of his answers to the people's questions at the end.

Really high quality replies, thanks. Plenty for me to get my teeth into, which is the way I like things. I'll add more later on, again, thank you for your detailed & well-explained responses to the OP.

originally posted by: cooperton
Given enough time, these sorts of theories will take over Darwinian evolution. Material reductionism, meaning the belief that all phenomenon can be explained by materialism, is slowly dying out.

I doubt it. It's like quantum mechanics and relativity did not "take over" from Newtonian Mechanics, but complemented and expanded upon it. Certainly the issues are more complex than can be explained solely by Darwin, but if you seriously think it will be nullified, you're living a pipe dream.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: cooperton
Given enough time, these sorts of theories will take over Darwinian evolution. Material reductionism, meaning the belief that all phenomenon can be explained by materialism, is slowly dying out.

I doubt it. It's like quantum mechanics and relativity did not "take over" from Newtonian Mechanics, but complemented and expanded upon it. Certainly the issues are more complex than can be explained solely by Darwin, but if you seriously think it will be nullified, you're living a pipe dream.

This is the classic response from a philosophical materialist. Dogma is like a skunks smell. A skunk can't smell his own stink. The problem with the philosophical materialists is they think intuitively we live in a clockwork Universe with hard determinism. The problem is the scientific evidence coming from experiments in quantum mechanics clearly show we do NOT live in clockwork Universe. The philosophical materialist simply will NOT accept this result. It goes against their most strongest intuitions which is just a belief system and dogma.

For a philosophical materialist, it is the greatest blasphemy to suggest there is anything real with regards to spirituality or vitalism. There is even a sect of the philosophical materialist's religion that denies the existence of consciousness. They argue consciousness is purely a delusion and we don't really experience reality. What we experience is our senses. What we experience is abstraction of reality. However, as with all dogmas, there is no scientific evidence to support these base assumptions.

This is what makes Rupert Sheldrake so great. He identifies these base assumptions, turns then into hypotheses, and then shows how absurd they are or are not supported by the scientific evidence we are discovering. Philosophical materialists are little like the people who would not accept the Earth was round hundreds of years ago. A hundreds of year from now people will see Rupert Sheldrake's Morphogenetic fields like the way people accept the Earth is round today. There has to be more explanation to cover the evidence. Ignoring evidence you don't like is very dogmatic thinking.

originally posted by: schuyler

I doubt it. It's like quantum mechanics and relativity did not "take over" from Newtonian Mechanics, but complemented and expanded upon it. Certainly the issues are more complex than can be explained solely by Darwin, but if you seriously think it will be nullified, you're living a pipe dream.

All apparent evidence for Darwinian evolution stems from the vast adaptibility of organisms and populations, but we have never actually seen any organism change into another kind of organism, despite millions of generations trying to do so with fruit flies, mice, etc...

Adaptation is certainly real, but we should not mistake a shadow as the reason for the light.

I look at these adaptability mechanisms in the opposite way as Darwinists. They believe it created life, but I think instead we have adapted to a deviant state of consciousness on a mass scale and have forfeited the original human archetype. We have become subjugated to materialism, rather than being masters of it.

Our spirits or souls could be eternal, possibly coming back into a different body of a new born child or maybe even jumping in with a person on occasion. But I doubt if this would result in memories being carried, those memories would die with the individual because they are hardwired into the brain. The soul or spirit could be inherently good or evil or any combination between. It could be compassionate to all life and not just humans. What the newborn allows to be learned could be influenced by the soul or spirit, so the original entity could define how the person comes out unless the parents alter the consciousness of the child by stimulating beliefs and pushing knowledge of socially acceptable and allowable parameters.

Some kids might not have an old soul, they could just be new blank souls that need to be trained. Remember, there are more people now than before, maybe we build new souls too on this ball floating in space. Even the universe might be part of something bigger, something alive, we are such a small dinky part of the universe, we could be life at a molecular level of something astounding that we may never know actually exists.

Just some thoughts for people to contemplate. We cannot possibly see the big picture from where we are, we only see what we can see and what people think exists. I am not bound to shut up and accept what consensus of the time says is real, I am a free spirit that can think on his own and invent what I want to invent in theory.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Our spirits or souls could be eternal, possibly coming back into a different body of a new born child or maybe even jumping in with a person on occasion. But I doubt if this would result in memories being carried, those memories would die with the individual because they are hardwired into the brain.

Why do people assume this is the case? In a 100 years of research nobody has ever shown where in the brain memories are stored. How memory works is almost as great a mystery as to how consciousness rises out of dead material.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Dogma is like a skunks smell. A skunk can't smell his own stink.

How do you know?

In a 100 years of research nobody has ever shown where in the brain memories are stored.

Are you sure about that?

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: rickymouse
Our spirits or souls could be eternal, possibly coming back into a different body of a new born child or maybe even jumping in with a person on occasion. But I doubt if this would result in memories being carried, those memories would die with the individual because they are hardwired into the brain.

Why do people assume this is the case? In a 100 years of research nobody has ever shown where in the brain memories are stored. How memory works is almost as great a mystery as to how consciousness rises out of dead material.

Actually there are prion type folded proteins that form on neurons that form memories. They are related to antigens and are assembled by glutamates/glutamine derivitives. Too much glutamates can mess things up though. They have learned this in the last ten years, evidently you have not been keeping up with newly evolving science.

Here is an article about possible memory formation utilizing magnetite. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

The good thing about Sheldrake is that he is an excellent polemicist against the ever-increasing senility of philosophical materialism. He understands the science versus religion versus philosophy debate very well (better than most defenders of scientism). However,......

He makes himself unnecessarily a target for his critics by continuing to promote his morphogenetic field theory. Modelled on the quantum field theories of theotical physics in order to make it look scientific, his ad hoc theorizing is pseudoscientific and can easily be pulled apart by any theoretical physicist. He would give himself greater credibility as a critic of physicalism, scientism and materialism if he did not promote his own wacky theory so much. He criticizes physicalism, yet continues to treat consciousness and Spirit as though they were just subtle aspects of material things and processes that science has yet to understand. In other words, there is STILL no category difference between Matter and Spirit, for at heart Sheldrake is a materialist monist. He believes in one matter, one field - the ubiquitous morphogenetic field. Once upon a time, the aether explained everything. Sheldrake has merely given it a new name and added a pinch of quantum nonlocality into the indigestible mix so that no one can accuse him of being a hypocrite because he advocates the same old classical materialism. But it is still materialism, albeit in a more sophisticated disguise.

originally posted by: rickymouse

Actually there are prion type folded proteins that form on neurons that form memories. They are related to antigens and are assembled by glutamates/glutamine derivitives. Too much glutamates can mess things up though. They have learned this in the last ten years, evidently you have not been keeping up with newly evolving science.

The prions are acting on behalf of consciousness... not the other way around. Material reductionism has survived for so long because the material world is so intimately linked to the mental/spiritual/ethereal world, and it seamlessly correlates to these mental activities so much so that many believe it is the matter itself that is generating the consciousness. But instead, matter is seamlessly reacting to the conscious state.

It's like a controller is to a video game player.

a reply to: cooperton

Materialism is practically finished yeah...

iai.tv...

Imagine if someday, in a time far away, that we discover a class of materials, arranged in some natural way and with certain environmental conditions... that can record, like a layered hologram, the surface impact of all sub-atomic particles that strike it over time.

Then we discover how to read that layered "data" off sequentially in an attempt to play back important parts of our history.
Wild conjecture, but what a fantastic thing that would be. For one thing, it would be the end of lies, as we know them.

a reply to: Phage
Eh, is he wrong?

There is no absolute proof in either of those things, and I know that without looking.