Rupert Sheldrake at Alternatives, St James 7/8/08
Rupert Sheldrake’s overview of his Morphic Resonance theory, started with the best summary of the history of western metaphysics I’ve ever heard, focusing on the basic dichotomy of Eternity vs Change (aha, Apollo and Dionysos I thought). It certainly sharpened my understanding. He began with the Greeks who prioritised Eternity over all else, by argueing for an unchanging essence that underpinned and ordered everything. This possibly began with a mystical experience of a timeless realm he argued, but suggested this was a fundamental error which he sought to correct. Firstly Pythagoras had claimed number and mathematics was the basis of Eternity, the fundamental root of all being, existing in an ideal realm outside Space-Time. This was expanded on by Plato, who stated that everything had an eternal, perfect archetype, or blueprint, that existed in the same abstract, ideal realm as mathematics, giving it its form (thus there was one ideal horse-form, for example, which shaped all imperfect, real horses). A very conservative form of idealism, which emphasised the ‘normal’ and ‘perfect’, and created hierarchies of ‘natural perfection’. He then pointed to the Greek opposition to this stance, typified by Heraclitus, which said the only thing eternal was Change itself, as everything was in flux and diversity the norm. But observed that even Heraclitus had argued that there was a stability to reality, ordered by the Logos, in that everything moved in eternal cycles, repeating themselves over and over in a constant pattern, like the seasons (the classical Pagan or Dionysian view?). Thus even here the ideal of Eternity was still paramount, and maintained by the Logos, the eternal Word, or Law of Nature. Plato argued the Logos was guided by the archetypal Forms, which were all aspects of one Absolute Form, the Good (the ‘solar’ centre of the cycles you could say), and that Change, or ‘chaos’ as he saw it, was a mere drift away from perfection and order, and so an ‘evil’ to be opposed. Heraclitus thought the opposite but was marginalised in Greek thought. He only briefly mentioned Aristotle, the other great Greek idealist, who differed from Plato only in the more liberal view that the ideal Forms were somehow within Nature not outside of it, and that Change was a fine tuning towards gradual perfection, but still maintained the hierarchy of perfection and the faith in the ideal. An important minority view was that of the Atomists, typified by Democritus, who argued that only Matter was eternal, and consisted of particles or atoms, which randomly combined, uncombined and recombined according to geometrical rules, and that Change was merely this random ordering.
Sheldrake then contrasted this with the Jewish ideal of Progress, the idea that there was not some preordained perfection but rather a perfection was something in the future that we move towards, and that Change was the norm that made this possible. This was realised by the wandering nature of legendary Jewish history and search for the promised land. He prefered this but pointed out that then as now, the ‘promised land’ was full of Palestinians, and so preconcieved ideas or goals rarely worked. He then explained how Christianity emerged as a fusion of the Greek and Jewish ideals under the late Romans. Here the Logos and the Absolute Form became aspects of the Mind of the Jewish God. Progress arrived as God’s plan, but Eternity still ruled. The ideas of Plato and Aristotle were thus Christianised. However with the collapse of Imperial Rome superstitioned reigned (Note: The Father, Son and Holy Ghost of superstition could be regarded as Jehovah, Absolute Form, and the Logos of earlier philosophy, but Sheldrake didn’t state this).
The most important factor was the return to centre stage of Plato, Aristotle in the Rennaissance, as well as the new popularity of Democritus and his Atomism, which was linked to the concept of Individualism and social organisation. But it was not until the Reformation that the Jewish concept of Progress was really absorbed he suggested, and with it came the idea of Evolution. Then experimental Scientific Philosophy began and these three ideas became merged in various combinations. Francis Bacon took this idea up and essentially began the Enlightenment and Modern Science, but he and his later followers, Newton and Wren, were all Pythagoreans or Platonists at heart. These positions were based on habits of thought however not reason Sheldrake argued. Bacon’s greatest practical innovation however was said to be the systematisation of experimentation. Bacon also argued for a process of Social Evolution, believing that Change was the rule in the Human social order, as was demonstrated by History, but that Nature was eternal and fixed. It was goverened by the Laws of Nature, which as a lawyer, Bacon described legalistically. Sheldrake regarded this as anthropomorphic, qouting C S Lewis who said ‘this makes a falling stone a man, and even a citizen’.
This was followed by a history of the triumph of the Evolutionary paradigm in Science. At first simply seen as a social phenomena, Darwin expanded it into Biology and lifeform development, drawing on Social Theory, but maintained that Nature itself was fixed. Then Einstein demonstrated the Universe was expanding, but added a ‘fudge’ called the Cosmological Constant to maintain an eternal stability. This has shown to be false he claimed, and has been replaced by the idea that the Universe itself is evolving like an organism. Once thought to be running down into heat death, it was now seen as expanding constantly and evolving. Darwinian concepts are being deployed to explain this. However Matter was seen as eternal for a long time, as were ‘constants’ like Position, but Quantum Mechanics demonstrated this was not fixed either and was all a state of flux. But still Eternity was retained in the basic Laws of Nature. Sheldrake suggested that, given the trend this would go as well, and the Laws of Nature would be seen as mere habits, as Eternity was a myth.
This was where Morphic Resonance fitted in, as the mechanism of all evolution, from the Laws of Nature, to Lifeforms, to Mind and Memory. The general idea being that everything was linked into one big field on all levels, Nomological, Material, Cosmical, Biological, Social, Mental and Psychological. All ordered forms in this field were just habituated patterns, or impressions in it, based on nodes of force resonating with each other. It was these habits that had not only created the illusion of Eternity, but the illusion itself had become a habituated thought pattern, like all thoughts and ideologies.
His argument for Cosmological Morphic Resonance was to ask scientists if the Laws of Nature existed before the Big Bang and the formation of the Cosmos, if they say yes then they are Platonists, who believe in unprovable or unfalsifiable, non-scientific elements, and if they say no, they either believe all the Laws of Nature miraculously came into existance at the Big Bang (including Laws effecting things not then existant), or that they evolved with the Cosmos. He likewise tackled Quantum Physics by suggesting the Multiverse contravened Ockham’s Razor, and that its supporters such as Lord Rees, the head of the Royal Society agreed, but had said it did away with God and the supernatural. In contrast he proposed a Resonant Quantum Mechanics (perhaps like Decoherence Theory?). He then outlined how Morphic Resonance made Genetics redundant, or at least as nothing more than a protein factory for producing the building blocks that Morphic Resonance organised. Evidence for this was the insuffient genetic difference between species, given the complexity and diversity of life. Furthermore he argued the brain functioned by connecting resonant ideas, and particularly that memory was a resonance between past and present mental states (and possibly even future states). Even our personal identity was a resonance between our current awareness and past memories. ESP was a resonance with others according to how well the subjects were atuned or alike. Group psychology and herd formation was another kind of socio-cultural resonance. But most controversially he suggested the mind was extended outside the body as part of a universal field of which we were all part, drawing parallels with Jung’s Collective Unconscious. Even suggesting that personal memories were stored here and not in the brain, which was just a tuning device. His evidence for his memory theory drew on Pribram’s holistic mind theory and research that showed an octopuses memory was everywhere in its brain, but nowhere in particular, and how bits of the human brain could be removed without memory loss. His extended mind theory draws on his ESP experiments.
Other anecdotes he put forward were that if Morphic Resonance were true, things learnt by other minds would spread, the much contested hundreth monkey effect. But gave evidence for this in the form of the mystery of the increasing ease of IQ tests. He even argued exams could be easier by answering the questions in reverse order, so the earlier answers tackled last will already have been answered by many others. He even suggested testing this in an experiment with head of exam board.
When asked if he had a metaphysical philosophy that explained how all this worked he said no, but suggested that the philosophy of Kashmir Shivaism was interesting (curiously as this is also an influence on Neo-Dionysian thought).
I was very impressed by his presentation though noted he underplayed his experiments that haven’t had good results and was sceptical of his claim that Morphic Resonance was behind every ordered phenomena at every level! A good idea become obsessive or the greatest discovery of all time? Either way I think he’s closer than most others to science of the future.
There's never as much drunken yobbishness happening on the streets as when it's Schützenfest. These people must assume that everybody in this place enjoys it the way they are doing it, as loud as they are doing it and with all the limitations for traffic. In a few minutes the first parade will start which is gonna go on for several hours. I hope I don't lose my mind.
