This is the idea that morphogenetic fields work by imposing a set pattern on random or indeterminate pattern of activity. In layman terms this means that the laws in nature are constantly evolving and were not defined during the inception of the universe.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake believes that if something happens twice a morphic field is formed. and response with this morphic field increases the likelihood that that the event will happen again. As if information is sent to another dimension which interacts with ours to ensure that a pattern is established.
One very conspicuous example would be glycerin crystals. For the first 40 years it was well established that glycerin did not form crystals. Then one day a glycerin crystal was witnessed to be found, a short time later a batch of glycerin crystals was found to crystallise. A "habit" was formed and it is now well established that glycerin will crystallise below 17 degrees celsius. The molecule did not change, it established a pattern, a natural law by itself.
Dr. Sheldrake is a biochemistry professor then decided to focus on the morphic fields established by genes and how natural laws in biology come to play.
"Over the course of fifteen years of research on plant development, I came to the conclusion that for understanding the development of plants, their morphogenesis, genes and gene products are not enough. Morphogenesis also depends on organizing fields. The same arguments apply to the development of animals. Since the 1920s many developmental biologists have proposed that biological organization depends on fields, variously called biological fields, or developmental fields, or positional fields, or morphogenetic fields.
All cells come from other cells, and all cells inherit fields of organization. Genes are part of this organization. They play an essential role. But they do not explain the organization itself. Why not?
Thanks to molecular biology, we know what genes do. They enable organisms to make particular proteins. Other genes are involved in the control of protein synthesis. Identifiable genes are switched on and particular proteins made at the beginning of new developmental processes. Some of these developmental switch genes, like the Hox genes in fruit flies, worms, fish and mammals, are very similar. In evolutionary terms, they are highly conserved. But switching on genes such as these cannot in itself determine form, otherwise fruit flies would not look different from us."
So patterns arise by chance and when a particular pattern is repeated a morphic field is established increasing the likelihood of something occurring again. We can therefore postulate that information is shared through other means that we do not understand in present terms. Be it cross dimensional information transfer or any other bizarre possibility.
Morphic fields are:
1. They are self-organizing wholes.
2. They have both a spatial and a temporal aspect, and organize spatio-temporal patterns of vibratory or rhythmic activity.
3. They attract the systems under their influence towards characteristic forms and patterns of activity, whose coming-into-being they organize and whose integrity they maintain. The ends or goals towards which morphic fields attract the systems under their influence are called attractors. The pathways by which systems usually reach these attractors are called chreodes.
4. They interrelate and co-ordinate the morphic units or holons that lie within them, which in turn are wholes organized by morphic fields. Morphic fields contain other morphic fields within them in a nested hierarchy or holarchy.
5. They are structures of probability, and their organizing activity is probabilistic.
6. They contain a built-in memory given by self-resonance with a morphic unit's own past and by morphic resonance with all previous similar systems. This memory is cumulative. The more often particular patterns of activity are repeated, the more habitual they tend to become.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake believes that if something happens twice a morphic field is formed. and response with this morphic field increases the likelihood that that the event will happen again. As if information is sent to another dimension which interacts with ours to ensure that a pattern is established.
One very conspicuous example would be glycerin crystals. For the first 40 years it was well established that glycerin did not form crystals. Then one day a glycerin crystal was witnessed to be found, a short time later a batch of glycerin crystals was found to crystallise. A "habit" was formed and it is now well established that glycerin will crystallise below 17 degrees celsius. The molecule did not change, it established a pattern, a natural law by itself.
Dr. Sheldrake is a biochemistry professor then decided to focus on the morphic fields established by genes and how natural laws in biology come to play.
"Over the course of fifteen years of research on plant development, I came to the conclusion that for understanding the development of plants, their morphogenesis, genes and gene products are not enough. Morphogenesis also depends on organizing fields. The same arguments apply to the development of animals. Since the 1920s many developmental biologists have proposed that biological organization depends on fields, variously called biological fields, or developmental fields, or positional fields, or morphogenetic fields.
All cells come from other cells, and all cells inherit fields of organization. Genes are part of this organization. They play an essential role. But they do not explain the organization itself. Why not?
Thanks to molecular biology, we know what genes do. They enable organisms to make particular proteins. Other genes are involved in the control of protein synthesis. Identifiable genes are switched on and particular proteins made at the beginning of new developmental processes. Some of these developmental switch genes, like the Hox genes in fruit flies, worms, fish and mammals, are very similar. In evolutionary terms, they are highly conserved. But switching on genes such as these cannot in itself determine form, otherwise fruit flies would not look different from us."
So patterns arise by chance and when a particular pattern is repeated a morphic field is established increasing the likelihood of something occurring again. We can therefore postulate that information is shared through other means that we do not understand in present terms. Be it cross dimensional information transfer or any other bizarre possibility.
Morphic fields are:
1. They are self-organizing wholes.
2. They have both a spatial and a temporal aspect, and organize spatio-temporal patterns of vibratory or rhythmic activity.
3. They attract the systems under their influence towards characteristic forms and patterns of activity, whose coming-into-being they organize and whose integrity they maintain. The ends or goals towards which morphic fields attract the systems under their influence are called attractors. The pathways by which systems usually reach these attractors are called chreodes.
4. They interrelate and co-ordinate the morphic units or holons that lie within them, which in turn are wholes organized by morphic fields. Morphic fields contain other morphic fields within them in a nested hierarchy or holarchy.
5. They are structures of probability, and their organizing activity is probabilistic.
6. They contain a built-in memory given by self-resonance with a morphic unit's own past and by morphic resonance with all previous similar systems. This memory is cumulative. The more often particular patterns of activity are repeated, the more habitual they tend to become.
