Outside-In vs Inside-Out Determinism


Paul Mawdsley

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Michael,

My own theories on causality are a lot further along than I write about. I can visualize non-linear, non-local causation in physical systems using the theory of causality I have developed to shape my modelling. I can see how to make intuitive sense of special and general relativity. I can see, to a large extent, inside how a gravitational field and a quantum field can be understood as emerging from an electromagnetic field. I can see how a morphic field can emerge from the EM field and can be produced and maintained in the presence of matter. Shaldrake is claiming that a complex morphic field can be maintained in the absence of any matter sustaining the pattern, and then shape matter in the future. I don't buy this. I am seeing through my causal lens and sensing that Sheldrake's concept of morphic resonance breaks what I see as a fundamental law of the universe: complex patterns in the field exist and are maintained only in the presence of matter maintaining their form.

Rand/N. Branden's formulation of causality: entity-to-action causation-- what a thing is determines what it does.

"Disembodied action": I have borrowed from N.Branden (I believe). I've been using it for so long in my own thinking I'm not sure. It is the idea of an action without a thing that acts. It makes no sense. I agree. That's my point. That's the problem with action at a distance without something acting. Causality requires that we connect the dots so there are no actions (like morphic resonance) without a thing that acts. If I don't accept a separate morphic field, then I must be able to see how the EM field can account for morphic resonance. If morphic resonance breaks the laws of fields (no complex fields/currents without the presence of matter) and breaks the law of causality (no actions without some thing that acts), then I need big evidence to keep my interest.

"Unextended entity": Monty Python referred to Henri Bergson's quote saying, "There is no point of contact between the extended and the unextended," In reference to the dualist view of mind and body. I drew from this that some people believe in unextended entities (entities without extension in time and/or space) like ghosts and gods. I decided this did not fit my experience of the world so my principle is: there are no such things as unextended entities. This is built into my metaphysical morphic field and excludes non-physical entities from my models of existence. If morphic resonance can't find existence in physical fields, I have no place for it in non-physical fields.

Otherwise, Michael, I agree with you. Let Sheldrake continue his experiments and stir up some pressure to step outside of the established box. He is still pointing to some interesting ideas and observations in other parts of his work. I feel the same about Bohm's work. His attempts to produce a causal theory of QM and his views of generating positive dialogue through a more dialectical approach have had a huge influence on me despite the fact that I can't follow him down the implicate/explicate order rabbit hole.

Paul

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Shaldrake is claiming that a complex morphic field can be maintained in the absence of any matter sustaining the pattern, and then shape matter in the future. I don't buy this. I am seeing through my causal lens and sensing that Sheldrake's concept of morphic resonance breaks what I see as a fundamental law of the universe: complex patterns in the field exist and are maintained only in the presence of matter maintaining their form.

Paul,

Just to play the devil's advocate here, I have a question.

To start with, if you sectioned off a chunk of space, then removed all matter and energy from it, would the "space field" still exist? Or would it go out of existence?

(I won't even talk about time here.)

Then, suppose you say this field without matter does exist and you wanted to introduce energy and matter back into it.

In this case, I believe irrespective of how hard you tried, you would not be able to re-introduce matter and energy that are contrary to what existed before in it. Even if you altered them by some process. They would still behave as they always did before. Correct?

And if this is the case, would that consistency be the property of the field or the energy and matter? Which would rule?

Voila.

If you buy the above, at least you have one field that does not depend on matter to exist. It is called space.

But I have a conclusion of my own. I think the idea of matter fundamentally forming the field, or the field fundamentally forming matter is silly. Talk about a false dichotomy. From everything I have read and observed, I conclude that both exist and depend on the properties of each other, even when one is not present. In other words, both are fundamental parts of existence.

Where is it carved in stone that everything in the universe has to fundamentally boil down to one thing only? That's an assumption. And it's a premise you can only accept on faith. I can't see any other reason to hold it. Especially when you look around and start messing with stuff. But if people are going to go in that intellectual direction, God looks awfully good as a proposition...

Michael

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Michael, distance and space have no substance. They are merely two ways of measuring densities of matter and energy. As such they don't exist. You cannot remove matter and energy from space because matter and energy exist physically, but space doesn't. You can adjust density to some extent by packing things on or packing things out, but non-existent space is not nor can it be mutable having nothing unto itself.

--Brant

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Brant,

That's one assumption.

I don't see it as anything else, though.

(btw - I have difficulty groking your formulation and the existence of particle accelerators.)

Michael

If space is itself "dark matter" you may have something. You lost me with "particle accelerators." Aren't they used to ID even smaller and smaller particles heretofore unobserved?

--Brant

reality is really really weird (not original with little ole me)

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I can see how a morphic field can emerge from the EM field and can be produced and maintained in the presence of matter. Shaldrake is claiming that a complex morphic field can be maintained in the absence of any matter sustaining the pattern, and then shape matter in the future. I don't buy this. I am seeing through my causal lens and sensing that Sheldrake's concept of morphic resonance breaks what I see as a fundamental law of the universe: complex patterns in the field exist and are maintained only in the presence of matter maintaining their form.

Do you think Sheldrake's claims are compatible with what Lawrence Krauss said: "The dominant energy in the Universe resides in empty space" ?

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Here are a few images and texts I found at the summary page on epigeneticsfrom the Universityof Utah's Genetic Science Learning Centre.


A fun, illustrated diversion or side-alley to my earlier points of discussion, but one that I hope illustratesone of my concerns.


Even if you think Sheldrake has it right -- that a morphic field surely mustguide development (among other things) adjunct to the 'genetic code' in livingthings, I think it bears looking at how that posited field might act among theprocesses research has uncovered. To identify, implicate, tease out its operation and its potency from today's findings would be useful to Sheldrake, but he does not ever refer to today's state of knowledge nor note the current 'rock-face' of studies into that which puzzled him as a gap in scientific knowledge circa 1981.


Knowing now of the many 'flags' and communications that a cell receives andregisters in its lifetime, can we see a place for or a need for extra invisible'resonances' in this developmental matrix -- a necessary 'other' to explain howspatial and temporal development is accomplished?


If the morphic field(s) do have useful relevance to epigenetics,morphogenetics, gene regulation, methylation and so on, what would be thesignals that would indicate the operation of such a field?


By wandering at the edge of current research, questions come to my mind:would Sheldrake be able to link up these findings with his theories? Does moreknowledge obviate the need for a new special mechanism?


Would anything in his theory change in light of fuller understanding of themechanisms?


Click the link above to get the whole fun and informative page, and see whatcomes to mind as still necessitating an extra morphic field. Is the explanatorygap descried by Sheldrake in 1981 still as large and forbidding? Though the page does not get down to the details of what is known of morphogenesis today (as with Wikipedia's notes, which are cogent to this thread), it gives glimpse enough of the field to lead further inquiry at UU's site. There you can read about adhesion molecules and laminin, fibronectin, and integrins -- and how to induce signal transduction cascades!


Proteins Carry Signals to the DNA
Gene Regulatory Proteins Have Two Functions
Experiences Are Passed to Daughter Cells
The Changing Epigenome Informs Gene Expression

Cells Listen for SignalsEpigenomeLearns03.gif

The epigenome changes in response to signals. Signals come from inside thecell, from neighboring cells, or from the outside world (environment).

Early in development, most signals come from within cells orfrom neighboring cells. Mom's nutrition is also important at this stage. Thefood she brings into her body forms the building blocks for shaping the growingfetus and its developing epigenome. Other types of signals, such as stresshormones, can also travel from mom to fetus.

After birth and as life continues, a wider variety ofenvironmental factors start to play a role in shaping the epigenome. Socialinteractions, physical activity, diet and other inputs generate signals thattravel from cell to cell throughout the body. As in early development, signalsfrom within the body continue to be important for many processes, includingphysical growth and learning. Hormonal signals trigger big changes atpuberty.



EpigenomeLearns02.gif
Early in development, genes are "poised" like runners in the starting blocks,ready to jump to action.


In a differentiated cell, only 10 to 20% of the genes are active. Differentsets of active genes make a skin cell different from a brain cell.


Environmental signals such as diet and stress can trigger changes in geneexpression. Epigenetic flexibility is also important for forming newmemories.



EpigenomeLearns04.gif

Thanks, Paul, for the notes and observations upthread. I drafted another reply that I will post to you backstage. My concerns have been stated and illustrated as best I can, so I will sit back and watch the rest of the ride.

Edited by william.scherk
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To identify, implicate, tease out its operation and its potency from today's findings would be useful to Sheldrake, but he does not ever refer to today's state of knowledge nor note the current 'rock-face' of studies into that which puzzled him as a gap in scientific knowledge circa 1981.

William,

I promised myself I was not going to debate slurs on Sheldrake as I find them distracting from ideas, but I will note that the statement above is quite a statement. And I notice that you have made similar veiled comments about Sheldrake's academic limitations.

So I'll just leave it to say you must be quite intimate with Sheldrake's works to keep making such claims.

Michael

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Shaldrake is claiming that a complex morphic field can be maintained in the absence of any matter sustaining the pattern, and then shape matter in the future. I don't buy this. I am seeing through my causal lens and sensing that Sheldrake's concept of morphic resonance breaks what I see as a fundamental law of the universe: complex patterns in the field exist and are maintained only in the presence of matter maintaining their form.

Paul,

Just to play the devil's advocate here, I have a question.

To start with, if you sectioned off a chunk of space, then removed all matter and energy from it, would the "space field" still exist? Or would it go out of existence?

Michael, I have no problem playing with the devil. Think I dated her once...lol.

In an ideal lab you would be able to remove all the matter from a "chunk of space." However, my understanding tells me you would not be able to remove the energy and leave the field. You can remove a farmers crops and you still have a field of soil. Remove the soil and you won't be calling it a farmer's field anymore. Energy does not exist separate to the EM field and the EM field does not exist separate to the energy it contains. They are different aspects of the same thing.

(I won't even talk about time here.)

Then, suppose you say this field without matter does exist and you wanted to introduce energy and matter back into it.

In this case, I believe irrespective of how hard you tried, you would not be able to re-introduce matter and energy that are contrary to what existed before in it. Even if you altered them by some process. They would still behave as they always did before. Correct?

Not following 100% but yes, they would behave as they did before.

And if this is the case, would that consistency be the property of the field or the energy and matter? Which would rule?

Yes, there would be an energy field from which matter can emerge and which matter can shape into more complex forms of field/currents.

Voila.

If you buy the above, at least you have one field that does not depend on matter to exist. It is called space.

This does not follow. Firstly, I never said any field depends on matter to exist. I said, "Complex patterns in the field exist and are maintained only in the presence of the matter maintaining their form." It's the "complex patterns" that don't exist and are not maintained outside of the presence of matter. The energy field is more primary than matter. Matter is an emergent property of the EM field in my view. I am saying that there is no evidence that the kind of complex patterns Sheldrake is talking about can exist in the absence of the matter that maintains them in the EM field, in the same way that magnets, of some material form, are needed to maintain magnetic fields at all scales. Show me a magnetic field in the absence of a magnet and I will consider thinking about morphic fields existing in the absence of the matter that maintains them, as Sheldrake is suggesting with his concept of morphic resonance.

Space is not a field. It is the conceptual nothingness that frames what we put into it. We can measure an EM field. One day I believe it will be shown that both gravitational and quantum fields are emergent properties of the EM field that come into being from the interplay between matter and the EM field as matter emerges. I see gravitational and quantum fields as the result of a causally reciprocal interplay between the parts (matter) and the whole (field). These complex fields emerge as matter emerges. No matter, no complex fields.

But I have a conclusion of my own. I think the idea of matter fundamentally forming the field, or the field fundamentally forming matter is silly. Talk about a false dichotomy. From everything I have read and observed, I conclude that both exist and depend on the properties of each other, even when one is not present. In other words, both are fundamental parts of existence.

E=mc2 Didn't say matter fundamentally forms the field. I'm not describing a dichotomy, false or otherwise. If you would rather start with dualism, that's up to you. I don't like where dualism takes us. Em field is everpresent. Matter is not. Combine this with Einstein's equation and you have EM field is more fundamental than matter.

Where is it carved in stone that everything in the universe has to fundamentally boil down to one thing only? That's an assumption. And it's a premise you can only accept on faith. I can't see any other reason to hold it. Especially when you look around and start messing with stuff. But if people are going to go in that intellectual direction, God looks awfully good as a proposition...

It's not and assumption. It's not faith. It is a theory born from following the evidence and making sense of things. From human beings to bacteria, from superclusters to stars, from complex molecules to subatomic particles, there is a sense of the universe being shaped by evolutionary forces from the simple to the more complex. Sheldrake himself talks about nested hierarchies (a concept I am interested in pursuing further) that also suggests an evolution from the simple to the complex as a pattern of the universe. Reverse engineer this and we get back to a few or one. It makes more sense to see matter as a knot in the EM field than to postulate dualism, in my mind. I actually see both as being grounded in something more fundamental and simpler, whose simple individual actions contribute en mass to all we observe. I still have trouble seeing a farmers field without the soil to give it the properties of a farmers field. The field needs to be seen from the inside-out as well as the outside-in.

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Reverse engineer this and we get back to a few or one.

Paul,

When you scratch it and dig with almost everyone, it is never "a few." It's always "one."

But as I age, I'm beginning to favor "a few."

The good news is nobody knows.

:smile:

Michael

EDIT: btw - I mean that few to go both ways, too. From the big to the small and from the small to the big.

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I've been biting my tongue, but I have to do a playful poke.

Those pichers William posted shore are purdy, but, gosh darn it, there are sum big-ass wurds in thar.

:smile:

William is far more subtle than normal with the highfalutin tangential science report in the place of an argument, but I still see it. I am very familiar with this rhetorical device. It has crossed my path many times before, albeit not with the delicious ambiguity that merges style and substance that William does.

For the record, two points: (1) I will study the stuff William presented until I understand it fully, and (2) William knows exactly what he is doing (and I mean the rhetoric stuff).

The problem with doing rhetoric like that is you have to set it up properly for it to work. This means the audience has to be prepared. On OL, the audience is a mixed bag, so I imagine his approach will resonate with some and fall totally flat with others.

Generally, when I point this out to people who do it, they get really mad. For example, a few years ago, I started a thread for people who didn't know anything about climate change to get a feel for what all the yelling was about. I tried to present the pros and cons on each side as best I--qua no-nothing novice at the time--was able to discern after pecking around. One poster--an anti-global warming person--said, uh huh, then presented a long series of posts linking to (and copy/pasting) gobs of highly technical scientific reports. He kept saying, uh huh, between each one. He must have presented about 400 hours of eye-bleeding mind-numbing reading all at once--and you needed a good dictionary to plow through it. Obviously, the point was not to educate, but to intimidate. When I pointed this out to him and asked him to slow down enough for folks to catch a breath, he left OL for good. Really pissed. Really really pissed.

I have a theory about why this happens and it involves the core story (or framing story or whatever you want to call it). This story often blinds a person to very obvious things. For example, one progressive core story concerns backwater Southern crackers being the main Christians on the right. So to these progressives, most people in the Tea Party are racists. And no amount of facts to the contrary changes their erroneous perception. (Erroneous, that is, with reality. It is totally on point with the framing story.)

But the booby-trap in the framing story operates on a more subtle level, too. Often, a person will try to put another down, but it doesn't come off. Not because the put-down is bad. It's because the audience is framed by a different story.

I have yet to be able to get someone who does the big-word intimidation technique to grok what I am talking about, so maybe a story about the innocence of a child and the framing story from his eyes will make it clear. Or at least clear to the reader.

* * * * *

Once upon a time, an Emperor was being swindled by men who claimed to sew for him the most imperial garments of all time. They convinced the Emperor that only a noble kind of person would be able to see the majesty of the attire and people of lesser character would not. But they were merely pretending to sew and vest the Emperor. There were no clothes.

The Emperor went from person to person in the palace to display their handiwork and ask for opinions. All were afraid of falling in disfavor, so they lavished praise on the imaginary apparel.

With great fanfare, the Emperor decided to go before his subjects. His assistants went earlier to prepare the crowd and warn them against making negative statements. Then the trumpets played and Emperor appeared. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing.

Suddenly a little boy spoke loudly. "Papa, the Emperor has no clothes on!"

The immediate silence was absolute. Time stopped. Someone coughed lightly. Suddenly, up stepped a kindly but stern looking gentleman with an odd twitch in his nose. He looked down at the boy.

"My dear child, do you know anything about haute couture?"

The boy shook his head no as the boy's father, ears flaming in embarrassment, looked down at his feet.

"As I thought. Did you know it would take a fourteen year apprenticeship before an uncultivated ragamuffin of your station would be qualified to lick the very boot of the royal couturiere?"

He sniffed.

"Behold. That is no mere stitchery, my boy. Shall I educate you? Shall I proceed with the tedium of the common schoolroom? The bombyx mori is the father of the faille, so to speak? Or shall I merely bring before your sprightly percipience the kingly habiliments and regal accoutrement of the Emperor are not to be characterized with facile pruriency?

The boy tried to speak but the gentleman shouted, "Silence!"

The crowd looked on. His voice suddenly quivered with passion.

"Have you no eyes? Just look, boy. Witness the plaiting, the exquisite plicature, the splendiferous shirring, the very tuck and dart boasting of soul-subduing trim, ornamentation and fancywork. Simply put, you are in the presence of the ineffable grace and refinement of superior culture. Maybe that is wasted on you?"

With that, and a gesture of dismissal, the gentleman turned and glided off as if on a swan.

After a long moment, the father whispered to his son, "You have brought great shame upon us. Let us take our leave."

The boy blurted out, a little too loudly, "Papa, I know I have much to learn. but why is the Emperor naked?" He also thought--but didn't dare say to his father--Wowie. He has a really big dick, too. Look at that thing. When I grow up, will my dick get that big?

The crowd went, "Ahhhhh," and parted as the father led the boy off by the scruff of his neck.

* * * * *

As I tried to say, there is a gap in communication.

:smile:

Michael

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Bravo, Paul Mawdsley, Michael K., Brant, Xray, whYNOT, etc., and especially Rupert Sheldrake for his intelligent discourse! If you guys ever plan to demolish Determinism in an article or book, you should have the ammunition (or should I say, the TNT)?

To paraphrase Rupert Sheldrake: “Fields extend beyond physical materials and energy.” I like his thinking. His Field Theory extends the reality of *causality* and *volition* beyond the billiard ball into the fundamental universe. All is linked, from the near to the far, based on distance between fields and entities ensconced within each field. The “big field” – which includes atoms, molecules, magnetic - gravitational fields, solar systems, animals, DNA, etc., encompasses the whole universe.

And so, on to the field of *volition*? What a unique way of thinking. Though, I can’t say I agree with his and Jung’s theory of collective unconscious. I don’t have time to listen to Sheldrake’s whole lecture but I heard ten minutes of it. I plan to get back to it.

Here is an old letter that I wrote to George H. Smith when he was arguing against Determinism on the old Atlantis site. Read it or not – it is your volitional choice.

From: "Peter Taylor" solarwind47@hotmail.com

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Re: Ghs and Determinism

Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 00:30:07 -0000

Bravo, George! If you ever plan to demolish Determinists in an article or book, you certainly have the ammunition, just as when Cyrano was told, “Your nose is rather large.”

The self-evident, Naive Philosophical view:

“After several centuries of arrogant proclamations, no determinist has come up with anything like a theory determining all of men's actions. Surely the burden of proof must rest on the one advancing a theory, particularly when the theory contradicts man's primary impressions.”

The self contradictory view:

“For determinism, as applied to man, is a self-contradictory thesis, since the man who employs it relies implicitly on the existence of free will . . . In short, the determinist must rely, for the spread of his ideas, on the non - determined, free-will choices of others, on their free will to adopt or reject his ideas." (*Scientism and Values," ed. Schoeck and Wiggins, p. 161.)

The semantics issue – is it an island or a peninsula?

“I would never use this kind of language -- i.e., I would never say that I have "no choice" but to marry someone (unless perhaps it is literally a shotgun wedding) -- and I don't recall ever meeting someone who thinks like this. Moreover, to say that a person has "no reason to choose otherwise" in no way implies that his choice is causally determined -- unless, of course, we fail to understand the nature of "reasons" and insist on treating them like mechanistic causes . . . The soft determinist want to substitute the *interpersonal* concept of a *voluntary,* non-coerced choice with the *intrapersonal* concept of a *free* choice. This merely bypasses the problem by cashing in on various meanings of "free." Lord Acton once estimated that the word "freedom" has been defined in 200 different ways. Although this rich vein of definitions may provide a good deal of wiggle room for the determinist, the practice of hopping from one definition to another doesn't solve any philosophical problems . . . The soft determinist may have great faith in the power of this verbal legerdemain to solve complex philosophical problems. But I don't share this interest in word magic, so I will let the matter rest here and move on to more serious issues . . . I stand by my original statement. What Bill Dwyer regards as "careful analysis," I see as definition-hopping.”

Oh my word, Roxane! Soft Determinism rejects the sciences of Psychiatry, Psychology, Biology and most Scientific studies of Consciousness:

“In the final analysis, to say that a person acts on the basis of his preferences doesn't tell us anything at all about the free-will problem -- for it doesn't say *how* those preferences are formed; and it doesn't explain how, from a welter of conflicting preferences, one is eventually chosen over others. A theory should have at least some explanatory value, but soft determinism explains nothing at all. It is an article of faith based on the erroneous assumption that "reasons" in the inner world of consciousness function exactly like "causes" in the external world of physical objects.”

It should be able to predict but it cannot. It just may be a dishonorable sham, not worth dueling over:

“As I said before, I prefer to confront the phenomena of consciousness on their own terms, rather than resort to a pseudo-explanation that, in the final analysis, explains nothing at all. When the soft determinist is able to postulate a causal law of consciousness that will enable us to predict our future thoughts and actions, then I will be impressed. Until then, I will continue to regard soft determinism as a circular method of "explanation" that derives from a inappropriate analogy with physical causation.”

It 'cashes in on' and twists Logic, Reason, and Rationality, and in the end, it is a bad concept. It does not have a place within the coherent system called Objectivism. Objectivism rejects Determinism in all its forms as it regards much of human action.

They shall never destroy your, “White Plume,” George.

Thank you.Peter Taylor

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To continue on the subject of morphogenetic fields, OL readers need not submit to more than the first eleven minutes of Sheldrake's 2007 lecture to get it from the source. All the major claims are laid out, and what little citation he does is done there.

I mean to quote from the video, compare Sheldrake assertions against extant research. The language of the scientific disciplines implicated may seem like jargon, even highly faluted jargon, but I actually found it delightful to learn of integrin, and other specific actors in the regulatory network attending a cell, both genetic and epigenetic. It was rewarding to review various sites and explications on morphogenesis -- the details are intriguing and helped me see where the 'rock-faces' have moved and what remains unknown in our understanding of developmental biology. I even met something called Morphogen and Operon ...

While my two remaining fans wait, faint with hope of closure for the shortened video of Sheldrake's morphogenetic claims, here is some homework I am going to to: find online anything and everything that Sheldrake has written concerning 'epigenetics'. Since he clearly says that DNA and chemicals are not enough to explain morphogenesis, he will have said or written something about epigenetics. If not, we can write him a polite enquiry.

I am giving myself two extra falute points for doing this fun stuff.

Look, Ma! Signal transduction pathways!

1000px-Signal_transduction_pathways.svg.png

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To continue on the subject of morphogenetic fields, OL readers need not submit to more than the first eleven minutes of Sheldrake's 2007 lecture to get it from the source.

William,

Actually, OL readers--including you--could have looked at the video I embedded two days ago, seeing that it's the exact same video (on YouTube instead of on Google Video).

Helpfully,

Michael

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As long as I'm in a helpful mood, let me present one more contribution, not as an end point or attempt at anything profound or complete, of course, but merely as an humble offering.

Sort of like the little bird who flies back and forth to get water in its beak to drop on a forest fire. When chided that such effort would not put out the forest fire, the birdie said, "Yes, but I'm doing my part."

Please click here.

:smile:

Michael

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Bonus morphogenesis video featuring the fruit fly, to make up for the dreary tone of what follows.

"Migration of pole-cells from posterior end"! "The hind-gut envaginates"! "The groove then seals off, as the cells that remain exterior zipper up"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb6TJzTLg_E



To continue on the subject of morphogenetic fields, OL readers need not submit to more than the first eleven minutes of Sheldrake's 2007 lecture to get it from the source.


Actually, OL readers--including you--could have looked at the video I embedded two days ago, seeing that it's the exact same video (on YouTube instead of on Google Video).


Michael, you asked upthread earlier if either Paul and I were looking at what you were looking at, asked if we had watched the whole video . I saw no need to answer, as my next answers referred to the content of the video.

Confusion comes from a missing bit of information. Here below is part of a comment that I did not post. You" title="">You and I have discussed Sheldrake before of course, so I thought you were being playfully procedural. In the unposted draft I gave the whole lineup of the conference where his video was shot.

The video is the same, the notation is different. The Youtube version doesn't give any information like date or title or whatever. The Google Video I mentioned and linked to (first in the draft below) is more forthcoming.

Rupert Sheldrake - The Morphogenetic Universe

1:20:27 - 4 years ago

In 1981 Rupert Sheldrake outraged the scientific establishment with his hypothesis of morphic resonance. A morphogenetic field is a hypothetical biological field that contains the information necessary to shape the exact form of a living thing. A presentation at the Biology of Transformation Conference in 2007.


You are right that a person interested in reviewing the first eleven minutes of the video could click back a page and scroll upthread and watch the first eleven minutes of your embed rather than just click the link I provided. The result is the same, so I thank you. Market targeting!

I haven't finished the distillation of the first eleven minutes that introduces morphogenetic fields.
i have only cut up the first five minutes so far, so bear with me if you are interested in the nuts and bolts of my concerns. A couple of quotes that will feature are at the bottom.**



[NB. Draft post. Not posted in the forum]

Did either of you watch the video I embedded?


Yes. I am listening to it for the second time through as I write this. It contains nothing new -- Sheldrake has written copiously, and certain phrases, explanations and potted analogies and examples recur in his work. The title of his talk, incidentally, was The Morphogenetic Universe.

I suspect you guys are not looking at what I am looking at....


I am familiar with Sheldrake. He has been writing and lecturing on the same subjects since 1981. The video represents an hour and some of ground well-trodden, with nothing new presented in the video. The lecture is from 2007, as noted at Google Video's copy:

Posted Image

Here is the lineup a the lecture.


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Dr. Eric Pearl

Patients soon reported receiving miraculous healings from cancers, AIDS-related diseases, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, birth disfigurements, cerebral palsy and other serious afflictions. All this occurred when Eric simply held his hands near them – and to this day, it continues. His patients’ healings have been documented in six books to date, including Eric’s own international bestseller, The Reconnection: Heal Others, Heal Yourself,

Dr Todd Ovokaitys

He maintains that DNA is a structure of coils within coils in an environment of moving charges that permits DNA to send electromagnetic signals much as a radio transmitter. Further, DNA could receive and be conditioned by electromagnetic signals.

Peggy Phoenix Dubro

A distinguished international speaker and teacher, Peggy Phoenix Dubro is the originator of the EMF Balancing Technique®, a human to human energy balancing system with thousands of practitioners and hundreds of teachers in over 70 countries throughout the world.

Lynne McTaggart

in recent years her attention has turned more to quantum physics and the new science. The result was the phenomenal best-selling book ‘The Field’, which, in turn, led to the 48-part course on holism, science and spirituality called ‘Living The Field’

Dr Bruce Lipton

His discoveries, which ran counter to the established scientific view that life is controlled by the genes, presaged one of today’s most important fields of study, the science of epigenetics. His book, ‘Biology of Belief’, is a cult best-seller.


** "Morphic fields are the organizing fields of self-organizing systems at all levels of complexity. They underly the organization of minds, of bodies, of crystals of plants, of molecules, of stars and of galaxies. They are the fields that give things their form, their shape, their organization."





"Matter arises from fields, not fields from matter. Fields are not made of matter, but rather matter's made of fields, of energy bound within fields."



"In Quantum Theory, quantum matter fields, particles are vibrations within quantum fields."
"Nobody understands how embryos develop."

"DNA and chemicals alone can't explain morphogenesis. All biologists agree on this. Molecular biology too."

"What tells the cells what to do?

The answer within Biology, the now very mainstream answer is that it is morphogenetic fields. That's what shapes it. An invisible shaping blueprint."

Edited by william.scherk
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Sheldrake considered naming his latest book "The Science Delusion' contra Dawkins. (He decided on "Science Set Free").

Set free from what? Repeatable experiments and peer review?

It looks to me like he doffed his science robes in 1981 and has been a happy nudist ever since.

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Sheldrake considered naming his latest book "The Science Delusion' contra Dawkins. (He decided on "Science Set Free").

Set free from what? Repeatable experiments and peer review?


Carol,

I have a long one coming for William, but just to answer the stone you cast, according to Sheldrake, set free from dogma. I believe he discusses 10 main current dogmas in science in the new book. (Just look at me. I promised myself I would not get sucked into defending The Scapegoated Outcast, but here I am. One day I'll learn...)

 

btw - Your characterization is inaccurate. His work is published under the title of The Science Delusion in the overseas edition and he denies any intentional riff off the Dawkins book. He changed the title for the American market.

 

Sheldrake actually spends most of his professional time engaged in repeatable experiments. This is all documented and all you need to do is read a little. He, also, constantly submits his results to peer review publications. Not every place accepts publishing him, though. It's not because of his method so much as because of the hypotheses and theories he tests. (His critics try to bash his method, but you see people using the same tools over and over in the publications they support.) Sheldrake tells the story of one editor who frankly informed him that he would never publish a paper on telepathy irrespective of who did it. And he was willing to take the risk of later in history being considered in the class of flat-earther. (Sheldrake's comment was at least this one was honest.)

 

Here are a few of Sheldrake's published results. You will not find much of this in publications accepted by Web of Science, but the periodicals are still peer-reviewed and many illustrious and serious people do present their work in them.

 

I have not finished watching the video below, but, from what I have seen of it (about half last night--I will finish it today), it will give you an idea of what Sheldrake is questioning. I, myself, do not go along with some of his answers, but I love his questions--especially how they drive the orthodoxy nuts. :)

 

You will find more about where I am coming from in my long thing to William. The fairy tale I rewrote giving the perspective of the little kid looking at the Emperor and not even being aware of THE STORY the others were so engaged in is a hint. To highlight and contrast the different perspectives, I guess I jazzed it up a bit too much, but there it is. :)

 

 

You might be interested to know that Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery will be released in the USA on September 4 by Random House. You might also be interested to know that Random House published another controversial work a while back that many people bashed. Especially the orthodoxy. It is called Atlas Shrugged.

 

I'm not insinuating any kind of comparison of intellectual similarity, but I'm just sayin'...

 

:)

 

Michael

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<p>

Sheldrake considered naming his latest book "The Science Delusion' contra Dawkins. (He decided on "Science Set Free").

Set free from what? Repeatable experiments and peer review?

Carol,

I have a long one coming for William, but just to answer the stone you cast, according to Sheldrake, set free from <em>dogma</em>. I believe he discusses 10 main current dogmas in science in the new book. (Just look at me. I promised myself I would not get sucked into defending The Scapegoated Outcast, but here I am. One day I'll learn...)</p><p> </p><p>btw - Your characterization is inaccurate. His work is published under the title of <em>The Science Delusion</em> in the overseas edition and he denies any intentional riff off the Dawkins book. He changed the title for the American market.</p><p> </p><p>Sheldrake actually spends most of his professional time engaged in repeatable experiments. This is all documented and all you need to do is read a little. He, also, constantly submits his results to peer review publications. Not every place accepts publishing him, though. It's not because of his method so much as because of the hypotheses and theories he tests. (His critics try to bash his method, but you see people using the same tools over and over in the publications they support.) Sheldrake tells the story of one editor who frankly informed him that he would never publish a paper on telepathy irrespective of who did it. And he was willing to take the risk of later in history being considered in the class of flat-earther. (Sheldrake's comment was at least this one was honest.)</p><p> </p><p><a href="http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/"><strong>Here</strong></a> are a few of Sheldrake's published results. You will not find much of this in publications accepted by Web of Science, but the periodicals are still peer-reviewed and many illustrious and serious people do present their work in them.

Thank you for the list of his publications post 1981. I note that they are mostly periodicals about Jungian Thought, Parapsychology and alternative medicine/ Few are in his area of expertise, cell biology.

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Few are in his area of expertise...

Carol,

Who woulda thought it? You do have the true-believer bug lurking down inside...

Cast away, woman. I will not bother your stones further.

Michael

I would never cast any first stones. And I certainly do, like everyone, want to believe what is true.

Thanks for allowing us all here to thrash out what truth we can find, nonviolently.

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Michael, <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12349&st=20#entry168248" title="">you asked upthread earlier</a> if either Paul and I were looking at what you were looking at, asked if we had watched the whole video . I saw no need to answer, as my next answers referred to the content of the video.

Confusion comes from a missing bit of information.

William,

I have been mulling whether to challenge this or not, and what to do about the bad taste it is leaving in my mouth.

In my view, you did not even look at the video I embedded and posted an identical one as if it were new. Normally, when someone completes missing information, he says he is... er... completing missing information. He doesn't present something as if it were brand new with a smug "recommendation" for the audience.

I have a long post I am willing to write that is outlined in my head. It might explain to you why I go off on these things that you think are crackpot. And I have no doubt you have not considered some of it.

But I am not willing to take the time from my projects--which sorely need my dedicated time--in order to play gotcha and deniability mind games.

If you don't value my time enough to say what it is the way it is, I do.

So I'm thinking if I should even bother...

Go on and bash Sheldrake to the skies to feel good within THE STORY you have adopted. I have better things to do than play this game.

Michael

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Sheldrake considered naming his latest book "The Science Delusion' contra Dawkins. (H edecided on "Science Set Free").

Set free from what? Repeatable experiments and peer review?


In an interview that led to a piece in the Guardian ("Rupert Sheldrake: the 'heretic' at odds with scientific dogma"). we get a cryptic answer from the man on his choice of book title:

The title of his book seems to take direct aim at Dawkins's The God Delusion. Was that, I wonder, his express intention in writing it?

"Slightly," he suggests. But the title was really his publisher's idea. "It is dealing with a much bigger issue. But Richard Dawkins is a symptom of the dogmatism of science. He crystallises that approach in the public mind, so to that extent, yes, it is a pointed title."


The Guardian wisely chose a life-style writer to take on the Sheldrake profile, rather than someone who has had science training or knowledge, and so there are no intelligent questions asked of the author. For example, find in the article how the dogmas that are said to afflict science are presented, with the questions attendant to the dogmas/doctrines beggared**:
  • "Are the laws of nature fixed?" (meaning that the Dogma as he sees it is The Laws of Nature are Fixed)
  • "Is matter unconscious?" (meaning Dogma says Matter is Unconscious}
  • "Is nature purposeless?" (Nature is Purposeless)
  • "Are minds confined to brains?" (Minds are confined to Brains)

By beggaring the question, I mean that the very statements of presumed dogma are assumed to be accurate sketches of Science. These four are probably the least contentious of the ten and are probably the most accurate. It is in the ballpark, so to speak, and so Sheldrake has identified a cleavage between his body of assumptions and those of the grand edifice that he has self-excluded from.


So, to biology, I think he is correct in the large -- but only if we accept his underlying terminology and assumptions embedded. In biological sciences, the components and their relations are not assumed to have a consciousness separate from their chemical interactions. For example, Sheldrake would be right to flesh out the Unconscious Matter at the level of biochemistry. The signals and chemical reactions at this level are not assumed to have an elan vital or invisible motivator. Biochemists look at the level of the material and in the material.


But this does not mean that the next level (or implicated level as with systems biology) do not look for things that could be crudely characterized as consciousness.


I think it is important not to let words trip us up too much, so bear with me. I argue against Sheldrake that biology is very much concerned with the components of consciousness. This consciousness is approached at the level of the elements under study. When we are at the level of cell biochemistry, we are looking at the mechanics of communication. Crudely, how does the cell take in information from outside its lipid barrier? How is the cell 'conscious' of the surrounding cells? How would a cascade of blood-borne hormones (from a conscious brain) affect the actions inside the cell? How does the cell 'know' when it is time to die?


This is the kind of 'consciousness' that can be examined at the level of biochemistry, cell biology. This is the 'consciousness of the cell' that is studied hard as we speak.


Do you follow that, Carol? That Sheldrake is right to say that Science considers Matter to be Unconscious, but at the same time Sheldrake is wrong that Science considers Matter to be Unconscious?


I do this without making mention of the invisible new memory-plan-blueprint-field unknown to physics that somehow guides the detail of chemistry. So here again Sheldrake is right and wrong. Science does not yet see -- in the gross aggregate -- a need for an additional actor (in the morphic field) of spiritual consciousness separated theoretically in time. So science does discard or not put under scrutiny that 'something extra,' that extra layer of speculation on non-physical actors such as psi, phlogiston, N-Rays, ether, etcetera -- once they fail to show up where they should show up.


It follows that the other three Dogmas that Sheldrake cites can be examined for underlying assumptions tied to language. Does "Science" say with one ringing voice that Minds are Confined to Brains? Yes and No.


There is not much in science of the brain that a priori assigns an actor 'Mind' as independent of the flesh. Sheldrake is right here.


And yet, Science glorious Science does daily grapple with the mystery of the Mind in Flesh. The 'details' are the frontier, the coal-faces of inquiry. If it does not consider a something extra (spiritual, of another realm, an orthogonal immortal personality with no physicial manifestation), is this a modern encrustation of dogma as Sheldrake asserts, or simply the design of the sciences? If he is correct that Science is instrinsically Materialist, is it a recent corruption?



[H]is publications post 1981 ... are mostly periodicals about Jungian Thought, Parapsychology and alternative medicine/ Few are in his area of expertise, cell biology.

Carol, if you look at the more rigorous of the experiments he has published, you can see that he does ape the format of the scientific paper (most closely to those of the social sciences, however). The tests he applies to his results are fairly standard insofar as they present statistical methods. This is why a few folks outside the paranormal field have worked together with him or have entered into printed exchanges with him. For example, the folks associated withCSI (the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, formerly CSICOP) published critiques and rejoindersby Sheldrake to his research on The Staring Effect. I find notable that the challenges, exchanges, followups, etc, did NOT appear in the journal where his findings first appeared.


This underlines the dissociation from normal science that afflicts all ofSheldrake's work. He himself has built the wall between him and 'normal science.'


Where science sets aside shoddy or unproved or disconfirmed hypotheses, to the circular or pending file, it is notable indeed that Sheldrake does not drop anything from his theory. Nothing in the exchanges I have noted caused him to shift even one comma in the wall of theory. No findings set aside by another as uninterpretable or insignificant are accepted by Sheldrake as weak -- he does contortions to make sure every dud or marginal result is massaged to significance.Instead of circumscribing his conclusions (Morphic Fields are Real and Psychic Dogs Prove It!) he expands them. See that lineup from the conference where he presented the video in question. Not one person on the line-up was there to challenge or question -- they all larded on MORE extrapolations -- and none of these wilder extrapolations was challenged by Sheldrake. That was not a scientific conference. This was shilling and ass-kissing by New Age 'healers' almost to a man ...


Carol, if you care to have a look at one or more examples of the original papers presented, note that the argument for psychic animals and feeling eyes on your head and crossword-learning fields is always presented as a statistical argument, and that his interlocutors at SI challengehim stoutly his interpretation. The signal in his findings (signals ofabove-chance psychic 'hits) are always on the margins. Even if the stats areviewed rosily, the function of a psychic dog or parrot are never robust andrepeatable.


See also the gulf between his reading of the psychic parrot experiments,where he tangled with Robert ToddCarroll and others -- outside the pages of the journal in question, Iunderline heavily again the fact that Sheldrake does not indulge this kind ofexchange in the actual peer-reviewed literature in which his claims firstappear (I append a list of references from the Wikipedia page on 'The PsychicStaring Effect' at bottom. It is worth tracking down the Journal ofConsciousness Studies references to see what passes for peer-review therein.


_____________

|| (from the Guardian feature: 'In America, the book is called Science SetFree, which [sheldrake] thinks is probably a better title. "They wereaware that if they called it The Science Delusion it would be seen asa rightwing tract that was anti-evolution and anti-climate change. And I wantno part of that."'

** Sheldrake notes in the intoduction to the book (via Amazon) that he uses the list of dogmas asquestions:

'I will turn each of these doctrines into a question. Entirely new vistas open up when a widely acceptedassumption is taken as the beginning of an inquiry, rather than as unquestionable truth. For example, the assumption that nature is machine-like or mechanical becomes a question, "Is nature mechanical?" The assumption that matter is unconscious becomes "Is matter unconscious?" and so on.'


♥ Titchener, E. B. "The 'feeling of being stared at.'" Science,1898, New series Volume 8, pages 895-897.


Rupert Sheldrake, Papers on The Sense of Being Stared At. .


David F. Marks and John Colwell (2000). The Psychic Staring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization. Skeptical Inquirer, 9/1/2000.


Lobach, E.; Bierman, D. (2004). "The Invisible Gaze: Three Attempts to Replicate Sheldrake's Staring Effects" . Proceedings of the 47th Parapsychological Association Convention. pp. 77–90.


Sheldrake, Rupert (2005). The Sense of Being Stared At Part 1: Is it Real or Illusory? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12(6):10-31.


Sheldrake, Rupert (2003). The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind, London: Hutchinson.


Rupert Sheldrake (2005). The Sense of Being Stared At, and open peer commentary. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12:6, 4-126.


David F. Marks and John Colwell (2000). The Psychic Staring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization, Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2000.


Sheldrake, Rupert. "Skeptical Inquirer (2000)", March/April, 58-61

Edited by william.scherk
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