The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature

This book is one of the two most influential books I've ever ever read. (My other favourite - just like Sheldrake, is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions which I read nearly 45 years ago.) Sheldrake writes to be understood. He is so clear throughout and that is becuase he is a master of his subject. This book reminds me of Sapiens in the penetrating insights and use of plain English - but in my view is better and certainly much more significant. Sheldrake is often dismissed - usually be people who have not read him or won't or daren't question their own ideas. His theory, focusses on habits in nature (rather than laws) and the way they can be transmitted. (Morphic Resonance) . The implications are absolutely shattering of the conventional determinist/ reductionist/materialist world view. However, you must be prepare to suspend engrained prejudice and be prepared to think outside conventional scientific orthodoxy. Sheldrake - understands "science" and unlike many of his critics, is prepared to entertain the idea that he may be wrong and that scientific knowledge is always provisional. But my hunch is that he is on to something really big. His theories, elaborated in this book, are of course testable and falsifiable. Over the years Sheldrake has continued to engage in proper scienctific research with thousands of experiments (many double blind) in an attempt to see if the ideas have mileage. They do. This book is very highly recommend to anyone who does not need the rigid security blanket of "The Science" and is prepared to retrace the journey and ideas of a genuine first class Cambridge scientist thoroughly emersed in the scientific method.

In his book Morphic Resonance (or, as it was originally called, A New Science of Life), biologist Rupert Sheldrake explained his bold theory of formative causation- the idea that all structures from molecules to cells, from organs to complex organisms, were organised by something called morphogenetic fields. Morphic resonance from past fields resulted in repeated events and changes becoming more and more likely to occur. For instance, crystals formed in a lab somewhere will be progressively easier to form in labs all over the world the more often they are formed. Behaviour learned by one individual or group of animals somewhere will be easier to learn by other members of the same species in the future. And so on and so forth.In this follow up book, The Presence of the Past, Sheldrake presents numerous phenomena and experiments supporting his ideas.As he did in his previous book, he explains how genes are overrated and proposes morphogenetic fields as a possible solution to the question of what lies behind the different forms of different organisms. He also talks a bit about experimental evidence for the Lamarckian idea of acquired characteristics and explains how morphogenetic fields can help explain how said characteristics are passed down.The different phenomena and experiments presented as evidence for morphic resonance are quite varied. As well as ones shown in the Morphic Resonance book, like crystal formation, milk bottle opening blue tits and human performances in IQ tests, there are also a number of others as well, such as the nest building behaviour of Paralastor wasps and experiments involving people using things like Russian typewriters and Morse code.One particularly interesting aspect of Sheldrake's ideas is how they can be used to explain memory. The standard explanation is that there are specific parts of the brain storing memory, yet no such specific parts have been found. Sheldrake's explanation is that our brains act as receivers using morphic resonance to tune into ourselves in the past. Forgetting occurs when appropriate morphic fields are not established.Morphic fields also explain how things like termite colonies and fish shoals manage to act almost like a single unit. Morphic fields link different members of a group, allowing them to perceive what their fellows perceive. This would also provide an explanation for the "paranormal" phenomena of telepathy.In the context of evolutionary biology, morphogenetic fields explain how such things as atavism (when ancestral traits appear in an organism) and convergent evolution (when unrelated organisms bear noticeable similarities in their basic form), as a result of morphic resonance causing the morphic fields of an organism to tune into the morphic fields of other organisms from the past or present and reproducing aspects of those other organisms' forms.Sheldrake shows how morphogenetic fields can be tested using various experiments. He also offers possible explanations for cases where morphic resonance is not detected, such as the possibility that morphic resonance on Earth could be swamped by the morphic resonance of other worlds in our universe (and perhaps even in other universes as well) where things that have occurred here already occurred long ago, and also the idea that maybe morphic resonance reacts with things from the future as well as (or even instead of) things from the past.Overall, The Presence of the Past was at least as interesting, if not more so than Morphic Resonance. The arguments are persuasive and are presented in a clear and concise manner. And best of all, the ideas are testable. Hopefully Rupert Sheldrake's work will one day be recognised as a truly paradigm shifting chapter in the history of modern science.

Du pur Sheldrake : c'est à dire un exposé clair et enthousiasmant de questions pourtant complexes.Un génie de la pensée innovante et d'une écriture structurée ET séduisante : un mélange suffisamment rare pour le savourer !

The book presents a new way to look at some old phenomena. If we look at our immediate action, we will find that it involves many of our past situations, training, and environments. The author discarded some of the physics theories; it seems that the author is not an expert or does not have a vast understanding of the topics. He is well capable of conveying his discoveries and ways of looking at things differently.

Sheldrake's opus shakes the axioms of causality underlying experimental science. Not many books have done that. Not many books can address metaphysical topics, suggest alternatives to the standard Aristotelian underpinnings of science or "naturalism," and do so plausibly without recourse to superstition.Sheldrake, a biologist, examines the many anomalous phenomena that seem to cut against some very basic beliefs about "how things work." The book integrates observations from many different fields of endeavor from physics to biology to psychology. The scope of this work as as wide as it is deep.If you have ever read Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions," this book will resonate along the same lines for you. Well worth your time and money.