Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature - Softcover

Rupert Sheldrake

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848313063 ISBN 13: 9781848313064

Publisher: Icon Books, 2011

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

DR. RUPERT SHELDRAKE is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books, including A New Science of Life (Icon, 2008). He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge and a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. He is a visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut and a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California. www.sheldrake.org

From Publishers Weekly:

Biochemist Sheldrake maintains that if a pigeon in London learns a new habit, then pigeons everywhere else will automatically show an increasing tendency to learn the same habit. He holds that invisible energy patterns or "morphogenetic fields" surround and shape all atoms, all crystals, all pigeons and all humans. In his astonishing theory, any natural systemwhether insulin molecules, dandelions or societiesinherits a collective memory from all previous members of that group. Experimental evidence for Sheldrake's hypothesis is inconclusive but tantalizing. If true, it would force a radical revision of our understanding of genetics, evolution, memory, learning. Many books on the "new physics" and the paranormal have discussed Sheldrake's ideas, but his own explanation of morphic resonance is the most lucid and exciting account to date. He uses the theory here to suggest how creation myths and rituals connect past and present.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1848313063
• ISBN 13: 9781848313064
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 560