Presence of the Past

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View books by Rupert Sheldrake.

OK, but not as good as his other books - Rated
I am sympathetic to Sheldrake's startling if somewhat vague theory of morphic fields. However, if (like me) you have read other books of his such as the one that started it all off, A New Science of Life, you might find this one a bit familiar, repetitive and maybe dull.

It doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of new material here. Rather, each section follows a rather predictable pattern: Sheldrake describes some scientific phenomenon that is currently not well understood, such as how memories are stored in the brain or how flocks of birds are so well co-ordinated. He then gives the rather vague standard scientific explanation and points out its weaknesses, e.g. that there is little evidence to support it (though also usually little to rule it out either).

Then a sentence appears such as 'However, according to the hypothesis of formative causation...' followed by Sheldrake's routine explanation of the phenomenon in terms of morphic fields. This explanation is so vague - not much more than saying there are 'morphic fields' from other similar organisms in the past guiding the phenomenon so that it all works as described - as to be no more satisfactory than the standard scientific explanation. In fact a friend pointed out to me that the morphic field explanation often seems little more than a restatement of the problem: 'the reason it behaves as it does is there is some special thing [labelled a morphic field] which makes it behave like that'.

Sheldrake also often backs up his theory by quoting some curious long-forgotten early 20th century research into or theorizing about the topic (and I wonder how much credibility scientific literature of that vintage can have).

That's not to say there isn't something to Sheldrake's theory; but it's a very vague theory, and this book doesn't make it more convincing. What is needed is experimental evidence for it; a few possible experiments are outlined here, but they haven't been carried out. More interesting from this viewpoint are his other books "7 experiments that could change the world" and particularly "Dogs that know when their owners are coming home", which provides quite convincing evidence of animal telepathy, though whether this has anything to do with morphic fields is an open question.

So my verdict: read his other books in preference, particularly if you're new to Sheldrake's theories.

A vast information field underlies the physical world - Rated
Although quite dry Sheldrake's scholarly book proposes the important idea that a vast information field underlies all reality, from crystals through to complex life forms. These fields are often nested i.e. a complex organism such as the human body would have a multiplicity of fields sitting as it were one inside the other. Not only do these fields pre-exist, perhaps in the sense of archetypes, but new forms of activity create new fields and also changes in activity update the fields. These fields might also be considered as the 'habits' of nature.
Sheldrake also examines ideas from history which support his idea of morphogenesis.
In my view the book is a must read for those who wish to understand different and non-mechanistic approaches to the problem of evolution and the development of consciousness.

A new way to say "there is something strange going on". - Rated
"Familiarity with concepts conceals a deep problem". Mr Sheldrake is right to point this out, but never quite gets to grips with the problem he is tackling because ironically, he is never quite able to escape the familiarity of his own field of expertise. Like every scientist who is trying to say something new, he struggles to keep it in the fold of accepted thinking and to that purpose does no more than invent a new language in his conception of morphogenetic fields which does little more than the old idea of psi-fields or holons. From a scientific point of view, it gives to the kind of information he is dealing with an acceptable image, but in the end it is the same as saying that there is a something-I-know-not-what going on. The fact that experiments he has performed or reported on suggests something extraordinary in the nature of reality amounts to no more than saying that there may be something in it. The book has a lengthy section analysing the notion of a law as it has come down to us from the Greeks, but he never actually challenges the familiarity of the basic concepts of science that are passed down the generations as immutable. Consequently, he picks on the notion of a "field" within whose boundaries he presents his case for the morphogenetic experience and causative formation, not noticing that this conception itself is designed to bolster the laws of inertia which are now some three hundred years old and still unrevoked. Consequently, he is blind to the role that death plays in the structure of reality and within morphogenesis itself, merely noting that dead languages or familiar languages can be learnt faster than gobbledegook or invented languages never spoken before. Furthermore, it suffers from a flaw that was a criticism of the platonic Forms in that Mr Sheldrake thinks that new fields arise with the formation of new ideas. He does not consider that, in the event of a field existing, it is just as capable of being switched off! To try to demonstrate the drama of experience in a test-tube is to invite the drama to dissipate and leave only a husk of itself for eyes to pry. It was the same problem for those experiments exploring psychic phenomena: how can the interest of the phenomenon be sustained over long periods of cold examination? Usually the experiments are held up as evidence of disproof by the skeptical and the positivist. At the end of the day, given the narrow parameters of operation, and the desire to be scientific, the best one can say is that there may be something in it and that is the end of that. What is really needed are ideas that challenge the autocratic position of science which is self-assumed which demands that anything concerning the nature of reality must comply with the conditions laid down by etc.etc. Even so, it is an interesting read, as far as it is prepared to go.