The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature
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About this ebook
Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance challenges the fundamental assumptions of modern science. A world-famous biologist, Sheldrake proposes that all self-organizing systems, from crystals to human societies, inherit a collective memory that influences their form and behaviour. Rather than being ruled by fixed laws, nature is essentially habitual. All human beings draw upon a collective human memory, and in turn contribute to it. Even individual memory depends on morphic resonance rather than on physical memory traces stored within the brain. Morphic resonance works through morphic fields, which organize the bodies of plants and animals, coordinate the activities of brains, and underlie mental activity. Minds are extended beyond brains both in space and time. This fully-revised and updated edition of The Presence of the Past summarizes the evidence for Dr Sheldrake's controversial theory, reviews new research, and explores its implications for biology, chemistry, physics, psychology and sociology. In place of the mechanistic worldview that has dominated biology since the nineteenth century, this book offers a revolutionary alternative, and opens up a new understanding of life, minds and evolution.
Rupert Sheldrake
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist, a former research fellow of the Royal Society at Cambridge, a current fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences near San Francisco, and an academic director and visiting professor at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge University and was a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, where he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells. He is the author of more than eighty scientific papers and ten books, including Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home; Morphic Resonance; The Presence of the Past; Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness; The Rebirth of Nature; and Seven Experiences That Could Change the World. In 2019, Rupert Sheldrake was cited as one of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in the World" according to Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine.
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Reviews for The Presence of the Past
27 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That past, present and future somehow co-exist it's an understanding I felt as true almost a year ago, so I agree with the hypothesis presented in this book, however, the author keeps repeating the same concept for 486 pages... it's really not necessary, also considering his logic passages are not necessarily that logic...and it's not that with this book he really proves anything from a rational-scientific point of view.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In seeking to explain how the practice of pecking the tops off milk bottles spread across the world (almost magically) and other similar evidence of 'learning' across vast space, Sheldrake proposes that memory is inherent in nature; that nature has a 'morphic field' which guides and shapes growth in both the plant world and the animal world; and that this inherent memory depends on 'morphic resonance', a process which involves action at a distance in both space and time. He claims that our own memories result from our tuning in to ourselves in the past.This is a rather brief summary of a challenging theory. Since science progresses in the tiniest leaps at the margin, and senior academics are not known to be willing to research something so far from their comfort zones, one needs to suspend what one 'knows' and consider unprovable matters to be receptive to Sheldrake's attempted explanation. But do we not accept the unconscious (how does one prove scientifically its existence?) or Dawkins' memes, 'punctuated equilibrium' in evolution theory, etc. etc? Worth reading, were one to have an open mind. Yet, not convincing.