The Presence of the Past

by Sheldrake, Rupert

• ISBN13: 9781594774614
• ISBN10: 1594774617
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-26
• Publisher: Park Street Pr

Summary

Explains how self-organizing systems, from crystals to human societies, share collective memories that influence their form and behavior. In this fully revised and updated edition of THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST, Cambridge biologist Rupert Sheldrake lays out new evidence and research in support of his controversial theory of morphic resonance and explores its far-reaching implications in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, and sociology. His theory proposes that all self-organizing systems, from crystals to human society, inherit a collective memory that influences their form and behavior. This collective memory works through morphic fields, which organize the bodies of plants and animals, coordinate the activities of brains, and underlie conscious mental activity. Sheldrake shows how all human beings draw upon and contribute to a collective human memory and that even our individual recollections depend on morphic resonance rather than physical storage in the brain. He explores the major role that morphic resonance plays not just in animal instincts and cultural inheritance, such as religion and ritual, but also in the larger process of evolution, which Sheldrake shows to be more an interplay of habit and creativity than a mere "survival of the fittest." Offering a replacement for the outdated, mechanistic worldview that has dominated biology since the nineteenth century, Sheldrake's new understanding of life, matter, and mind shows that rather than being ruled by fixed laws, nature is essentially habitual. And because memory is inherent in nature, he explains, in order to survive successfully for generations to come, we will have to give up our old habits of thought and adopt new ones: habits that are better adapted to life in a world living in the presence of the past--as well as the presence of the future.

Author Biography

Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., is a former research fellow of the Royal Society and former director of studies in biochemistry and cell biology at Clare College, Cambridge University. He is the author of more than 80 technical papers and articles appearing in peer-reviewed scientific journals and 10 books, including Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, Morphic Resonance, and The Rebirth of Nature. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 2012 Edition

Acknowledgments

Introduction
The Habits of Nature
The Plan of This Book

1  Eternity and Evolution
Evolution in an Eternal World
Physical Eternity
Evolution
The Evolutionary Universe
Do the Laws of Nature Evolve?
The Growth of Habits

2  Changeless Laws, Permanent Energy
Intuitions of a Timeless Reality
The Pythagoreans
Platonism, Aristotelianism, and the Rise of Western Science
From Nicholas of Cusa to Galileo
Descartes and the Mechanical Philosophy
Atomism and Materialism
The Newtonian Synthesis
The Theory of Relativity
Quantum Theory
Eternal Energy
The Survival of Eternal Laws
Repeatable Experiments

3  From Human Progress to Universal Evolution
Faith in God’s Purposes
Faith in Human Progress
Progressive Evolution
Time for Very Slow Change
The Tree of Life
The Blind Watchmaker
Evolving Organisms

4  The Nature of Physical Forms
The Elusiveness of Form
Philosophies of Form
Platonic Physics and Chemistry
Platonic Biology
Aristotelian Biology
Materialistic Biology
Morphogenesis

5  The Mystery of Morphogenesis
The Unsolved Problem of Morphogenesis
Organisms Are Not Preformed
The Regeneration of Wholeness
The Germ-Plasm
Entelechy
Selfish Genes
Genetic Programs
The Duality of Matter and Information
Why Genes Are Overrated
Chemical Theories of Pattern Formation
Organic Wholes

6  Morphogenetic Fields
Fields of Different Kinds
Morphogenetic Fields
The Nature of Morphogenetic Fields
The Evolution of Morphogenetic Fields
The Hypothesis of Formative Causation
Influence through Space and Time
Morphic Fields
Fields of Information
The Appearance of New Fields

7  Fields, Matter, and Morphic Resonance
Aether, Fields, and Matter
Atoms and Organisms: Fields within Fields
Morphic Fields as Probability Structures
A Provisional Hypothesis
Molecular Morphic Resonance
The Structure and Morphogenesis of Proteins
Experiments on Protein Folding
Morphic Resonance in Crystallization
Crystallization Experiments
Symmetry and Internal Resonance
Self-Resonance
Quantum Physics and Morphic Fields

8  Biological Inheritance
Genes and Fields
Mutations
The “Lamarckian” Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
Epigenetic Inheritance
The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics in Fruit Flies
Dominant and Recessive Morphic Fields
The Morphic Fields of Instinctive Behavior
The Inheritance of Behavioral Fields
Studies with Identical Twins
“Missing Heritability” and the Human Genome Project
Morphic Resonance and Heredity

9  Animal Memory
Morphic Resonance and Memory
Are Memories Stored inside the Brain?
Habituation
Learning
The Transmission of Learning by Morphic Resonance
The Evolution of New Patterns of Behavior

10  Morphic Resonance in Human Learning
The Acquisition of Physical Skills
Morphic Resonance in Language Learning
Experimental Tests with Foreign Languages
A Test with Morse Code
A Possible Test with Hindi Keyboards
New-field Tests
Rising IQ Test Scores

11  Remembering and Forgetting
Behavioral and Mental Fields
Memories and Morphic Resonance
Habituation and Awareness
Recognizing
Recalling
Brains and Memories
The Trace Theory of Memory
Brain Damage and the Loss of Memory
The Electrical Evocation of Memories
Forgetting
Memories of Past Lives

12  Minds and Brains
Materialism versus Dualism
Programs of the Brain
Brains and Extended Minds
Vision
Perceptual Fields
Body Images and Phantom Limbs
Extended Minds and Personal Experience

13  The Morphic Fields of Animal Societies
Animal Societies as Organisms
Societies of Insects
Schools of Fish
Flocks of Birds
Computer Models
The Organization of Animal Societies
Cultural Inheritance

14  The Fields of Human Societies and Cultures
Human Societies as Organisms
Cultural Inheritance
Theories of Social and Cultural Organization
Functionalism and Structuralism
Group Minds
Collective Behavior
The Collective Unconscious
Evolutionary Psychology

15  Myths, Rituals, and the Influence of Tradition
Myths and Origins
Rituals
Initiations
Traditions, Schools, Styles, and Influences
The Fields of Science

16  The Evolution of Life
Evolutionary Faith
The Ambiguity of Darwin
Spontaneous Variation
The Effects of Habit
Natural Selection
The Evolution of Morphic Fields
Extinction and Atavism
Evolutionary Convergences

17  Cosmic Evolution
Science, God, and the Origin of the Universe
The Evolution of the Known Fields of Physics
Mathematical Universes
Is There a Purpose in Evolution?
Formative Causation and the Evolution of Physics
Morphic Resonance between Planets
Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Morphic Fields of Galaxies
Universal Self-Resonance

18  Creativity within a Living World
The Mystery of Creativity
How Evolution Brings Nature Back to Life
Fields, Souls, and Magic
Creative Morphic Fields
Habit and Creativity
The Origin of New Fields
The Primal Field of Nature

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Glossary

Index