Sheldrake: Morphic resonance?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Dinosaur, Oct 26, 2018.

  1. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    How many here know about Sheldrake's thoughts?

    Any believers?

    Any skeptics?
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    He's a kook, but I enjoy reading him.
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I liked this observation;
    I can see that those seven practices contribute to mental balance as long as the procedures are not prescribed but left to the individual.
     
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  7. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    note in india mentally ill people are often defined as touched by god and ignored.
    i think this is a little out there as it gives a valid excuse for people to just ignore them and not seek treatment for community members.
    it suits the purposes of a big population country by giving them an easy out so they can sell off their guilt and throw away their process of empthic association.

    giving yourself a warm fuzzy so you need not do anything to help mentally ill people is not my idea of a sound community mental balance.
    its more cave-man survival of the fittest... which india is.
    over population
    massive corruption at state levels
    massive starvation
    lack of housing
    no equal rights for women
    massive sexual abuse of women and infanticide etc etc etc

    most people do not wish to spend their entire life thinking about th egrim realities of such systems and thought processess.
    however, if your going to try and lie about things to then make money to feed your own ego while pretending to have others best interets at heart,....
    then your just a crook in my opinion.

    philisophicaly speaking, everyone has their place and self justification.
    im sure hitler and ghengis khan thought themselves just.
    equally all the clergy about the massive child abuse that went on for hundreds of years etc etc...

    if your narative is to idlely go about handing out free passes to folk so they dont have to think of the real world impact of philosophy on the human animal and the mental health of society, ten your just practicing borderline narciccism through a viel of religion.. and you may as well choose someting a little more original like satanism or something less common.

    soo ... given that as the reality
    how does that validate or invalidate science ?
    thats a different game.
     
  9. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    But there is something there though, we just don't really know what it is. I suspect that what Sheldrake refers to as "morphic resonance" has something to do with the vastly different and/or superior auditory and olfactory capacities of certain other animals, mirror neurons, and the like.

    It's kind of like chiropracty: the explanations behind it are kinda wacky and borderline non-sensical, but it seems to work regardless.
     
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  10. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Here's an article on Sheldrake and his ideas (from a skeptical website):

    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake

    Extract:

    Sheldrake has devoted much thought and speculation towards trying to find causes for some of life's more peculiar and spooky occurrences: such as how dogs seem to know their owners are coming home, how separated siblings sometimes seem to experience symptoms of the other's illness despite living in a different continent, and how it takes bloody ages to try and get a protein to crystallise, but once one lab manages it, lots of others seem to be able to with ease.

    Science generally has no explanation for observations of such happenings, and indeed scientific wisdom would suggest there can be no causal reason for them and they are simply flukes and/or people seeing patterns which are not there. Sheldrake, however, has developed the concept of the "morphic field" in an attempt to "explain" them.

    According to his 1981 book A New Science of Life, such a field would make it so that once a species has evolved, the next species to evolve would look something like it, apparently due to the Universe having a memory since it is alive.​

    A long time ago, before I was really aware that he was somebody on the fringes of science, I read one of his books, which was mostly about how dogs know their owners are coming home. Sheldrake put it down to "morphic resonance" (although I'm not sure he had invented that term at the time this particular book came out). Others put it down to coincidence and the dogs' familiarity with the owners' regular travel habits.
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    IMO, science is just beginning to explore the field of mirror neurons, allowing for "empathy" in almost all mammals.
    And even in the lowest single celled organisms, the micro tubules seem to display resonance to various wavelengths, which allows it to learn to respond to stimuli of various kinds.

    A slime mold has a "learned" sense of time. When exposed to a cold air blasts at regular intervals forcing the mold to "slow down", the organism will continue to anticipate the cold air and slow down, even if the cold source is removed. This memory fades after a few useless slowdowns and the mold will resume its normal behavior.
    A reprogramming of microtubular functions. Still, it memorized a time interval for a little while, before it recognized that the cold air was no longer present.

    I believe people like Stuart Hameroff are really exploring this phenomenon of "resonance" and morphic fields, by examining the microtubules throughout the neural networks in the body and especially in the brain.

    From Sheldrake:
    https://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance/introduction

    Crystaline patterns and structures may well function as "strings" and determine harmonic resonance.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_structure

    And this remarkable observation:

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    {The space group of hexagonal H2O ice is P63/mmc. The first m indicates the mirror plane perpendicular to the c-axis (a), the second m indicates the mirror planes parallel to the c-axis (b), and the c indicates the glide planes (b) and (c). The black boxes outline the unit cell.}

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_group

    and there is this:

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14645180600916367
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2018
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Jeez....I'm on a quest..lol
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311126/

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule

    Sorry, if this seems overkill, but I believe this gets really close to the source of the evolutionary processes in living organisms.

    Note: I posted this as pertinent to the OP question. IMO, evolution occurs at the micro level and not at the macro level where it may become expressed as observable genetic morphing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2018
  13. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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  14. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Reported for thread hijacking.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I protest. My post is absolutely pertinent to the OP.

    Microtubules resonate at a very fundamental level and are responsible for evolutionary processes (morphing) as well as functioning as dynamic external information processors.
    Where do you want to start? In the middle?

    Maybe it has escaped you before and it just looks to you that I am introducing non-related information thus hijacking the thread. But if you will take a moment to think about it, you will see the relevance of my posts.
    Try to keep an open mind allowing for new and developing scientific information.
    Rupert Sheldrake
     
  16. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Write4U:

    Your posts on microtubules are off topic.

    Since you are apparently obsessed with microtubules, why don't you start a separate, dedicated thread about them? That way you can keep all the microtubule discussion in one place, rather than having it cluttering up threads on other topics.
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you James for your suggestion. I'll take it to heart.

    I am enchanted with microtubules because I suspect that we shall find that microtubules are probably involved in just about every aspect of life and living organisms, hence will touch on many separate threads where I have mentioned their possible involvement.

    Harmonics and resonance are very much part of the microtubular world, according to all who have done research in the field. But I won't argue the point because that would be disrespectful to the OP author.

    I do not post willi nilly or with intent to distract. I post because I seek to contribute. That's my only motive. But new discoveries usually take time to percolate. I'll be patient and restrain my enthusiasm. I hope to be able to present a coherent viewpoint later in a new thread.

    I apologize to all who believe I am just posting with disregard to others. That is not my intent.

    Over and out.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2018
  18. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,516
    The Orch R stuff is about a hypothesis proposing quantum processing in the brain. It may be wacky and dismissed by most, but it is at least a scientific hypothesis.

    Sheldrake's flaky notions are to do with ESP and alleged collective memory. There is nothing testable at all, just the sort of woolly stuff that Deepak Chopra likes.

    There is no connection.

    Why not do as James suggests: start a thread on Orch R and microtubules? (But be aware the microtubules are present in numerous biological structures and not by any means just neurons. Try reading this first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule)
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,076
    Thanks for the additional info. I realize now that the subject truly deserves its own thread.
    I will be doing some serious research before I post anything.

    In any case thanks for the advice....

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    Last edited: Oct 29, 2018

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