I’ve argued elsewhere more than once (i.e., on Ghulf Genes) that we are “heading back,” thus that we are—culturally—on our way back from the summit of Mount Matter to climb again Mount Spirit. On the way there, thus at present, we’re in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I find it fascinating that these days those who newly discover that the transcendental order must be real after all—and wish to persuade others of this fact—almost reflexively reach for their proofs in physics. The chosen methodology has little to do with the facts of the matter but everything to do with human nature. To persuade others you need Authority; and these days physics has authority. Einstein is the word that equals wise today—and the atomic bomb made the biggest thunder ever over Japan just a few decades back. If physics is the orthodox religion of modernity, quantum physics is its mysticism, hence the best pool of proof of all.
I was reminded of this forcefully reading a book by Pim Van Lommel on the near-death experience. Lommel is a cardiologist and, these days, a leading figure in NDE studies. The book is Consciousness Beyond Life. It’s a mixed sort of product, stunningly excellent in parts. But it fails as a “work.” It is a kind of together-binding of magazine or journal articles padded out into chapters. The book’s early chapters cover the same ground Raymond Moody did in Life After Life; in many areas Lommel’s book is more complete and thorough, in others interestingly selective. Moody gave very strong emphasis to the spirit’s reception in the beyond by a “being of light.” In Lommel’s presentation the testimonials he chose to illustrate this aspect support a much more pantheistic feeling. But it is Lommel’s main thematic I found interesting as an indicator of our times; but Lommel’s case, I hasten to add, is just one of many. He reaches out to physics for his theme and latches on to the concept of non-locality, a discovery of quantum mechanics.
In the crudest form, locality means that if someone punches me hard on the chin, the lady waiting for the bus a block away won’t fall down. She cannot be affected by what happens to me. In more sophisticated form, this means that for B to be affected by A in some way, communication must be possible between A and B; and this communication cannot take place more rapidly than the speed of light. Non-locality means that in some way, anyway, the pain I feel when punched does affect the lady waiting for the bus; my negative experience is communicated to everyone; others don’t have to feel it consciously, but it is so. It also means that instantaneous communications between A and B are possible, even if these two are moving away from each other at the speed of light.
Now it so happens that non-locality has been proved to exist in quantum physics. Two elementary particles can be caused to come into being by producing particle decay. These particles will be “entangled” with each another; thus if A has an upward then B will have a downward spin. If you change the spin of A, the spin of B will necessarily change as well; that’s what entanglement means. And this can happen even when they’re far apart. Experiments have been conducted so that A and B are caused to fly apart at the speed of light. Then the spin of one is forced to change—while the spin of the other is detected. Sure enough, as A changes, so does B. B seems to know that A has changed and thus conforms to be in harmony—but the “signal” between the two, if there is a signal, must have travelled faster than the speed of light. As physicist understand the matter—and they are clearly concerned not to violate Einstein’s iron law on the speed of light—no signal actually passes. Far separated although in space they are, A and B remain linked in a mysterious field relationship.
Now, you might ask, what does any of this have to do the ability of a human consciousness to survive the death of its body? The commonality here is relatively limited. Communications at a distance without a signal are difficult for modern man to grasp. Indeed, Einstein hated the notion of non-locality and tried to defeat it to the best of his ability. Similarly, for the modern mind—but not for those of us who grew up still embedded in hoary old traditions—the notion of human survival of death is a similar scandal. That’s the real linkage. What is interesting here is that appeal to physics, rather than to human reason and intuition, strikes Lommel as appeal to a Higher Authority. Lommel might have used Rupert Sheldrake’s Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home as his proof; Sheldrake’s findings also show “action at a distance” without discernible signaling, especially when the owner is downtown and the dog in the suburbs thirty miles away. Alas the truth is that the highest authority available to us is our own mind.
Showing posts with label Sheldrake Rupert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sheldrake Rupert. Show all posts
Friday, October 1, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Theorizing: The Transition to Sleep
It seems to me that we may live our lives close to another kind of world, a more subtle one; but that world feels and looks much like our own. It may well be that we visit that realm in sleep—in deep rather than in REM sleep. Here is the speculation. We don’t remember our time in deep sleep because, while we are in bodies, what we remember must be stored using the brain’s intermediation. When the brain falls asleep, it stops storing experiences. At the same time, when the brain is awake, its noisy functioning prevents our linking to the more subtle memories in the state we inhabit during deep sleep. This view requires the idea that memories are not stored in tissue but in something like Sheldrake’s morphic fields.
The simple rule here is that we must be at least half-awake to form reliably retrievable memories while we’re in bodies. We are therefore half-awake when we dream; rapid eye movements (REM) attest to this fact. In transition to sleep, when hypnagogic vision sometimes briefly occur, the brain is still active enough to make a record the experience; but it is then in the process of shutting down its memory-storing activity. Therefore we only remember the beginnings of these visions. Those who remember them in toto have found the trick of keeping the brain minimally awake—minimally because, otherwise, the visions would be inaccessible. I’ll try to say more about this point.
I imagine the mechanics of this process as follows. Even to glimpse the subtle realm, the physical state must be in neutral; it cannot be very active. Under normal circumstances, thus ignoring special practices like meditation, we reach this quiet state only at the time when we’re going to sleep. I’ve noticed the following sequence.
All of this leads me to conclude that physical existence, including ordinary mentation, causes a great deal of noise. It comes from the body itself and from the brain’s activity as it perceives physical reality. As this noise diminishes, awareness of a subtler world emerges. But so long as the brain is still active enough to store memories, it will record what I perceive. And, I would emphasize, it also reacts to the appearance of these phenomena. If these are incongruous—like the startling appearance of a stunningly real landscape—they surprise the brain. In response it activates the body to a higher state of alertness. And that very alertness then breaks (interrupts, interferes with) the subtle perception.
All of the above illustrates that to make sense of this sequence of events requires various theoretical underpinnings which cannot be independently checked by third parties. I’m well aware of the fact that most people don’t experience this sort of thing frequently enough (if at all) to build what might be called a data base. I’ve had this experience many times before; therefore it makes me curious, indeed it all this fascinates me.
Now as for dreams, I’ve discussed those at various points in this blog at length. To provide a summary, I think dreams are the equivalent of waking-thought but experienced in half-awake states; and because those states are more primitive, as it were, the thoughts are rendered into animal forms: they’re translated into images. As the body comes awake, the first thoughts might, indeed, be about the visions the soul sees in the other world; or they may simply be memories last stored before going to sleep.
The simple rule here is that we must be at least half-awake to form reliably retrievable memories while we’re in bodies. We are therefore half-awake when we dream; rapid eye movements (REM) attest to this fact. In transition to sleep, when hypnagogic vision sometimes briefly occur, the brain is still active enough to make a record the experience; but it is then in the process of shutting down its memory-storing activity. Therefore we only remember the beginnings of these visions. Those who remember them in toto have found the trick of keeping the brain minimally awake—minimally because, otherwise, the visions would be inaccessible. I’ll try to say more about this point.
I imagine the mechanics of this process as follows. Even to glimpse the subtle realm, the physical state must be in neutral; it cannot be very active. Under normal circumstances, thus ignoring special practices like meditation, we reach this quiet state only at the time when we’re going to sleep. I’ve noticed the following sequence.
- I close my eyes and see a sort of darkness. It is not a uniform black totality; rather, it is darkness with patterns. In nine cases out of ten, after a brief period in this state sleep takes me away. Most instances of falling asleep never proceed past this stage.
- If I maintain a kind of observant alertness during the first phase of darkness, I begin to perceive more and different patters. The new patterns are only minimally visual but they will have mental shapes. I signal that by putting the word “see” in quotes. Something suggests faces or figures, motions or moving patterns. The faces “seen” are not really made of light; they are more felt—but they’re also quite distinct. The same holds for whatever else I “see.” The darkness appears to be “populated.” Sometimes these patterns produce quite unpleasant visions, minimally vulgar, sometimes funny, sometimes violent. Ignoring these—sometimes willfully ignoring them—brings about the next phase.
- In this, the third phase, I perceive dim light. It appears as a graying out of the darkness on the periphery of what we would call vision; sometimes it is ahead. A dim sense of light grey will then develop more luminosity. These patches may also have shapes, but not of any object—just bits of cloud or a circular shape.
- Finally, and invariably startling me, the blackness abruptly vanishes. It is replaced by a panorama of vivid reality—usually outdoor scenes, landscapes, skyscapes, trees. This vision may also feature built-up structures, animals, people. The startling nature of this vision invariably, in my case, brings me awake. But as I’m shocked, as I’m surprised into awareness, the vision instantly disappears. And it is precisely this “awakening” that makes me realize that, a moment before, I was almost entirely detached from my physical surroundings, thus my awareness lying in bed with my eyes closed. That feeling had retreated far into the background, the attention entirely on the vision—be it of darkness, patterns, or dim light.
- Now, curiously, this brief last stage of awakening also rapidly disappears. Vivid images return but, this time, more dimly defined, almost as if behind a thin veil; and, my attention being drawn by them, they are the last thing I hazily remember.
All of this leads me to conclude that physical existence, including ordinary mentation, causes a great deal of noise. It comes from the body itself and from the brain’s activity as it perceives physical reality. As this noise diminishes, awareness of a subtler world emerges. But so long as the brain is still active enough to store memories, it will record what I perceive. And, I would emphasize, it also reacts to the appearance of these phenomena. If these are incongruous—like the startling appearance of a stunningly real landscape—they surprise the brain. In response it activates the body to a higher state of alertness. And that very alertness then breaks (interrupts, interferes with) the subtle perception.
All of the above illustrates that to make sense of this sequence of events requires various theoretical underpinnings which cannot be independently checked by third parties. I’m well aware of the fact that most people don’t experience this sort of thing frequently enough (if at all) to build what might be called a data base. I’ve had this experience many times before; therefore it makes me curious, indeed it all this fascinates me.
Now as for dreams, I’ve discussed those at various points in this blog at length. To provide a summary, I think dreams are the equivalent of waking-thought but experienced in half-awake states; and because those states are more primitive, as it were, the thoughts are rendered into animal forms: they’re translated into images. As the body comes awake, the first thoughts might, indeed, be about the visions the soul sees in the other world; or they may simply be memories last stored before going to sleep.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Fascinating Parallels
Those who read very obscure books and have the stomach for extraordinarily outlandish ideas—such people sometimes stumble across fascinating parallels.
To maintain, for instance, that there are choirs of angels that concern themselves exclusively with kidney functions most people would dismiss as beyond—and I mean way beyond—the pale. Yet Emanuel Swedenborg offers this idea in all seriousness not only in his Heaven and Hell, which he intended for the general public, but also in his Arcana coelestia (Heavenly Secrets) intended for the learned. Swedenborg arrives at this idea because he learned, in his contacts with the heavenly realm that—
With that, let me go on to the archangels of Mazdaism. In the theology of that religion we encounter, first of all, heavenly counterparts to every living individual here on earth; they are the fravartis—and if you’re reading this, Zoroastrians would say that you have a fravarti too. We also have, above them, holy beings, spentas, archangels, who have charge over—and importantly also act as guides for—humanity, animals, plants, fire and light (we might say energy), minerals, earth, and water. I learned of these matters in Henry Corbin’s Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth. That book contains a summary of the cosmology of Mazdaism. The formulation is much more ancient than Swedenborg’s, to be sure; Mazdaism, indeed, has been classified as the oldest known higher religion of humanity. Old it is, but the structure of this cosmology is functionally very similar to Swedenborg’s—and like Swedenborg’s correspondences between a material and a heavenly reality, we also find, in Mazdaism, the notion of interacting realms or dimensions a higher one above guiding and constituting the lower. The difference is that Mazdaism conceives of the upper realm as an infinite column of light rather than as a “Grand Man.” The column of light enfolds the heavens—and their mountains, rivers, waterfalls, plains, cities, and habitations. There too, as above, so below—but in the lower realm another column, of infinite darkness, is mixing with the light. And we, engaged in the work of the creation, will either succeed individually or descend into the darkness if we’re tempted by its allurements.
Now to complete this picture, I would offer the proposals of Rupert Sheldrake, a modern, living scientist. Sheldrake is a biologist. Sheldrake suggests that undetectable morphic fields exist and correspond to all material phenomena. They contain the forms and patterns of the material, not simply statically but dynamically as well, thus they also hold patterns of motion and behavior. And these fields are alive in the sense that they can and do change over time. They are a cosmic memory. And all things are in active contact with these fields at all times. We thus have a scheme that parallels Mazdaism: not only living entities but inorganic stuff also takes its guidance, as it were, from vast accumulations of highly organized banks of memory, the morphic fields. Fields exist at all levels and are hierarchically arranged. There would thus be a morphic field specific to mammals as well as for, say, rabbits and people, the latter fields hierarchically beneath the field for mammals. And above the field for mammals would be a more general field for all living entities. The interesting parallel here is that this undetectable but physical reality is proposed as a naturalistic explanation forced on us by looking at matter. We infer these fields from what we see on the ground—and we need the fields as a hypothesis in order to explain certain categories of events that, thus far, we cannot reduce to a chemical or a mechanical sets of causes. The embryo’s development is usually cited as an example. Our science has not been able, thus far, to offer what might be a hard chemico-mechanical explanation for the changes we actually behold.
Sheldrake’s most relevant works here are A New Science of Life. The Hypothesis of Formative Causation and Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature.
Swedenborg’s proposals, and Mazdaism, too, for that matter, are dismissed as outdated religious mumbo-jumbo. We’re beyond such things today. Sheldrake is dismissed on the grounds of parsimony, chopped away by Occam’s razor. Modern science says it doesn’t need yet another level of explanation. Just wait until we’ve figured things out the hard way, by patient experiment. All right. But that view—alongside the earlier mumbo-jumbo dismissal—depends on a hard commitment to the notion of materialism and its consequent affirmation of the meaninglessness of existence.
People like me don’t wish to make that commitment. And for those who don’t, the ideas sketched in here—just enough to become visible—can take on a certain level of interest. To delve deeper, of course, means to endure trials and tribulations not unlike those that science is condemned to accept. But these may lead to insight; those of science promise more of the same old, same old until the sun burns out.
To maintain, for instance, that there are choirs of angels that concern themselves exclusively with kidney functions most people would dismiss as beyond—and I mean way beyond—the pale. Yet Emanuel Swedenborg offers this idea in all seriousness not only in his Heaven and Hell, which he intended for the general public, but also in his Arcana coelestia (Heavenly Secrets) intended for the learned. Swedenborg arrives at this idea because he learned, in his contacts with the heavenly realm that—
It is an arcanum still unknown in the world that heaven reflects a single person if it is fully grasped, but in the heavens this is most common knowledge. Knowing this even in specifics and details is a specialty of the understanding of angels there. Many things follow from it, things which cannot be crisply and clearly conceptualized without this as their pervasive first principle. Since angles know that all of the heavens—even all of their communities—reflect a single person, they actually call heaven “the Greatest and Divine Man.” The term “Divine” is used because the Lord’s Divine makes heaven. [Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell, VIII, §59]Such ideas are jarring unless you get used to them—gradually. John von Neumann once said, and his quip applies elsewhere too, “In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.” So let’s get used to the idea, for the moment, anyway. You can discard this, if you like, after you’ve absorbed the message here, namely that the heavens are organized “organically” into communities of angels that relate to Swedenborg’s “Grand Man,” the higher reality—and that what is in heaven has direct correspondences down here on earth. As above, so below, we might say, echoing Hermes.
With that, let me go on to the archangels of Mazdaism. In the theology of that religion we encounter, first of all, heavenly counterparts to every living individual here on earth; they are the fravartis—and if you’re reading this, Zoroastrians would say that you have a fravarti too. We also have, above them, holy beings, spentas, archangels, who have charge over—and importantly also act as guides for—humanity, animals, plants, fire and light (we might say energy), minerals, earth, and water. I learned of these matters in Henry Corbin’s Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth. That book contains a summary of the cosmology of Mazdaism. The formulation is much more ancient than Swedenborg’s, to be sure; Mazdaism, indeed, has been classified as the oldest known higher religion of humanity. Old it is, but the structure of this cosmology is functionally very similar to Swedenborg’s—and like Swedenborg’s correspondences between a material and a heavenly reality, we also find, in Mazdaism, the notion of interacting realms or dimensions a higher one above guiding and constituting the lower. The difference is that Mazdaism conceives of the upper realm as an infinite column of light rather than as a “Grand Man.” The column of light enfolds the heavens—and their mountains, rivers, waterfalls, plains, cities, and habitations. There too, as above, so below—but in the lower realm another column, of infinite darkness, is mixing with the light. And we, engaged in the work of the creation, will either succeed individually or descend into the darkness if we’re tempted by its allurements.
Now to complete this picture, I would offer the proposals of Rupert Sheldrake, a modern, living scientist. Sheldrake is a biologist. Sheldrake suggests that undetectable morphic fields exist and correspond to all material phenomena. They contain the forms and patterns of the material, not simply statically but dynamically as well, thus they also hold patterns of motion and behavior. And these fields are alive in the sense that they can and do change over time. They are a cosmic memory. And all things are in active contact with these fields at all times. We thus have a scheme that parallels Mazdaism: not only living entities but inorganic stuff also takes its guidance, as it were, from vast accumulations of highly organized banks of memory, the morphic fields. Fields exist at all levels and are hierarchically arranged. There would thus be a morphic field specific to mammals as well as for, say, rabbits and people, the latter fields hierarchically beneath the field for mammals. And above the field for mammals would be a more general field for all living entities. The interesting parallel here is that this undetectable but physical reality is proposed as a naturalistic explanation forced on us by looking at matter. We infer these fields from what we see on the ground—and we need the fields as a hypothesis in order to explain certain categories of events that, thus far, we cannot reduce to a chemical or a mechanical sets of causes. The embryo’s development is usually cited as an example. Our science has not been able, thus far, to offer what might be a hard chemico-mechanical explanation for the changes we actually behold.
Sheldrake’s most relevant works here are A New Science of Life. The Hypothesis of Formative Causation and Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature.
Swedenborg’s proposals, and Mazdaism, too, for that matter, are dismissed as outdated religious mumbo-jumbo. We’re beyond such things today. Sheldrake is dismissed on the grounds of parsimony, chopped away by Occam’s razor. Modern science says it doesn’t need yet another level of explanation. Just wait until we’ve figured things out the hard way, by patient experiment. All right. But that view—alongside the earlier mumbo-jumbo dismissal—depends on a hard commitment to the notion of materialism and its consequent affirmation of the meaninglessness of existence.
People like me don’t wish to make that commitment. And for those who don’t, the ideas sketched in here—just enough to become visible—can take on a certain level of interest. To delve deeper, of course, means to endure trials and tribulations not unlike those that science is condemned to accept. But these may lead to insight; those of science promise more of the same old, same old until the sun burns out.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
A Vast Network of Souls
Twenty-year-old Willis had been away from his Pennsylvania home for several years, but he returned for frequent visits, especially after his grandfather’s stroke. The two had always been close…. One night, soon after his return from a visit, Willis struggled awake at his grandfather’s call. “Willis, Willis.” The room, ordinarily very dark, was lit up brightly and, momentarily, he saw his grandfather smiling at him. Startled, uncomprehending at first, Willis lay motionless for a bit, but he then put on the light. It was 1:10 A.M. He could sleep no more. At 6:00 A.M. a phone call from his brother came, but Willis spoke first: “Grand-pop died last night!”This quote by way of introducing Rupert Sheldrake’s fascinating book, The Sense of Being Stared At. You will find five other posts on Borderzone where Sheldrake is being mentioned, principally for his theories of morphic fields. Those theories are presented in The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988) and A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (2005). I strongly recommend these works to any serious student of the paranormal. In Sheldrake’s hands, the paranormal becomes normal, and many puzzling phenomena receive a theoretical foundation. You will find summary of this theory on this blog here. I don’t want to repeat it. Suffice it to say, the theory suggests that all life-forms are able to communicate. And Sense of Being Stared At is a narrower and, in many ways much more accessible analysis of this contention, relating to humans as well as animals (and presumably plants), in ways that link to our everyday experience. A very succinct summation of the content of this book is presented by Sheldrake in two sentences on page 9. It runs as follows:
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“He came to see me—it was about one-ten.”
“Yes, that was when he died.”
[L.E. Rhine, The Invisible Picture: Experiences. McFarland. 1981, p. 20, quoted in Rupert Sheldrake’s The Sense of Being Stared At, Three Rivers Press, 2003.]
If the seventh sense is real, it points to a wider view of minds—a literally wider view, in which minds stretch out into the world around bodies. And not just human bodies, but bodies of nonhuman animals, too.
Worth reading. The book is available on Amazon here.
Monday, August 10, 2009
A Modern Platonist
It is an odd characteristics of human behavior that labels give us comfort even when we don’t properly understand a thing. We give it name. We get used to the name. And after a while we feel as if we understand something just because we’ve classified it. Miraculous healings are a case in point. We assign them to a higher order; we endow this order with limitless powers; doing so we escape the burden of explanation; we can avoid specifying exactly how the higher order achieves a miraculous healing. Some people—those who won’t buy the “higher order” explanation—also adopt magical tactics of explanation. They speak of spontaneous healing without explaining how it could possibly have worked—how this particular very rapid spontaneous healing differs from the ordinary slow kind. Alternatively they deny the health condition: there was nothing wrong in the first place, the ailment was imagined. And so it goes.
While this is a characteristic human approach, good theories are also formulated by careful observation, the discovery of where the limits of knowledge are, by naming or circumscribing the unknown element, and then trying to penetrate that region in some new way. An example of this approach, which might have some relevance to miraculous healings, is the concept of morphic fields proposed most recently by Rupert Sheldrake (1942-), a British biologist. You pursue this idea in detail in Sheldrake’s two books on the subject: The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988) and A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (2005).
Morphic field theory has (in my opinion, anyway) a close kinship to the Platonic concept of eternal forms, but in a modern variant. The term itself is taken from the Greek for “form.” The idea is that any organized aggregate or any kind has a field associated with it; this field may be likened to a memory of how something is organized, thus as a deposit or a record. The field and the organized entity are linked one to the other, as we are to our memories. Thus we continuously add to our memories and, when needed, we retrieve them and they guide us in our activities. Substitute morphic field for memory, and you have a reasonable grasp of Sheldrake’s theory. In Sheldrake’s scheme our own personal memories, however, are just one instance of a morphic field. Our bodies have their own field; the bodies of humanity as a whole have another. In this theory, morphic fields are associated with all organized entities. The fields hold the patterns that describe each—individual or collective. Actual events are taken up into the field and stored there, modifying the pattern.
An interesting idea. It is structurally much the same as hylomorphism, suggesting that everything is a duality of matter (hyle) and form (morphē), an Aristotelian proposal. We’re already used to that idea, therefore it doesn’t strike us as outlandish—whereas Sheldrake’s much more detailed concept of “fields” out there, somewhere, holding a more dynamic sort of form—and zillions of them, for individuals as well as whole species and subspecies—strikes us as weird. But the idea produces less and less resistance as you ponder it over time. At least that is what happened in my case. My reflexive reaction was to say: “We don’t need another whole order of things out there.” Then, later, it occurred to me that I did not object to the Platonic/Aristotelian form-matter conceptualization when I first heard it, although the same “doubling” of everything is also implied there. Why didn’t I object to that? Because I was younger? But enough. Let me continue and sketch in how this idea first surfaced.
The idea was first proposed, not using the same phraseology, by a very important biologist and thinker, Hans Driesch (1867-1941); he is considered the father of embryology. Driesch discovered something rather astonishing. He was experimenting with sea urchin embryos. He cut them in half and then waited to see what would happen. To his astonishment, the embryos developed despite having been halved. They developed into real, living sea urchins, but much smaller ones than those that nature normally produces. This work became the foundation of modern embryology. Driesch, however, came to be classified as a vitalist, thus placed outside scientific orthodoxy in retrospect. Why? He could not explain the phenomena he was observing without recourse to what he called “a unifying non-material mind-like something…an ordering principle which does not add either energy or matter” to the process. This “something” is what Sheldrake later called the morphic field. The term itself is actually a generalization of a more narrow descriptor introduced around 1907 by another biologist, the Russian Alexander Gurwitsch. Gurwitsch spoke of “morphogenetic fields”; he offered it as a suggestive hypothesis, little more than that; his use of the “genetic” suffix limits the concept of biological development, whereas Sheldrake enlarges it to any organized phenomenon. Ross Granville Harrison and others went on to explore this “field” phenomenon in experiments, but their work was marginalized later by emerging mechanistic theories. What this shows is that Sheldrake has a lineage in scientific exploration and speculation, all arising from the puzzle that embryonic development produced—and still does. To this day we do not know with any kind of precision what guides embryonic development. The modern view that chemical feedback loops do the whole job would have to be proved by detailed mapping of all the chemical reactions, showing that they take place by rigid determination, each step necessarily forcing the next. We have no such proof.
* * *
Now it might be objected that “morphic field” is also nothing but a label, nothing more useful than “miraculous.” But here I would point out that a theory of morphic fields—separate from the actual organism—is a much more useful concept for understanding phenomena like miraculous cures. Let’s take it seriously for a moment. Let’s say that every body is formed from a pattern stored “off-line” as it were, thus in a field at least analogous to electromagnetic fields; those also exist, mysteriously, “out there.” Sheldrake describes the interaction between a morphic field and the organism as taking place by what he calls a resonance. He largely leaves it at that, but the suggestion is something akin to a frequency or a vibration; the frequency to be sure, would have to be of a much more complex sort than we associate with electromagnetic waves. Here I would use the example of a memory which has multiple modalities: image, sound, emotion, even smell: a complex experience retrieved as a packet. A morphic resonance related to the body, would similarly have chemical, structural, and dynamic aspects, including electromagnetic states, temperature, and so forth.
Now let us assume that states of disease or malformation come about, in part at least, because something interferes with the proper communication between the organism and its field. Let us assume, further, that a powerful flow of psychic energy, such as a healer is able to generate, stimulates the body of the sick person once more to “tune in” to its field. If that actually happens, rapid healing may take place. It would, indeed, be spontaneous—in the sense that processes that would have taken place slowly and naturally anyway now take place rapidly, possibly helped by the excess energy also present.
This sketch represents a somewhat more thinkable alternative to the concept of a miraculous healing—but that’s all it is, a thinkable hypothesis. This field has not been developed. The reason for that is simply that current theories have no room for non-material mind-like somethings. Sheldrake appears intent in persuading his fellow scientists to engage in meaningful experiments that will definitely establish the reality of morphic fields. His aim has not been to commit cosmology, to echo George Will. Therefore he has avoided speculations of the sort that arises as corollaries to his ideas: What comes first? The field or the organism? Is this a purely naturalistic phenomenology? If yes, pure materialism is better, is more parsimonious. Morphic fields are obviously less than perfect—else we’d never have deformed embryos and malformed babies. I regret, to be sure, that orthodox science is as hostile to metaphysics as it is to theories that wander across the borderzone in search of explanations—which may be the right ones, once fully fleshed out. Not in the current form, to be sure. But the direction may be the right one.
While this is a characteristic human approach, good theories are also formulated by careful observation, the discovery of where the limits of knowledge are, by naming or circumscribing the unknown element, and then trying to penetrate that region in some new way. An example of this approach, which might have some relevance to miraculous healings, is the concept of morphic fields proposed most recently by Rupert Sheldrake (1942-), a British biologist. You pursue this idea in detail in Sheldrake’s two books on the subject: The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988) and A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (2005).
Morphic field theory has (in my opinion, anyway) a close kinship to the Platonic concept of eternal forms, but in a modern variant. The term itself is taken from the Greek for “form.” The idea is that any organized aggregate or any kind has a field associated with it; this field may be likened to a memory of how something is organized, thus as a deposit or a record. The field and the organized entity are linked one to the other, as we are to our memories. Thus we continuously add to our memories and, when needed, we retrieve them and they guide us in our activities. Substitute morphic field for memory, and you have a reasonable grasp of Sheldrake’s theory. In Sheldrake’s scheme our own personal memories, however, are just one instance of a morphic field. Our bodies have their own field; the bodies of humanity as a whole have another. In this theory, morphic fields are associated with all organized entities. The fields hold the patterns that describe each—individual or collective. Actual events are taken up into the field and stored there, modifying the pattern.
An interesting idea. It is structurally much the same as hylomorphism, suggesting that everything is a duality of matter (hyle) and form (morphē), an Aristotelian proposal. We’re already used to that idea, therefore it doesn’t strike us as outlandish—whereas Sheldrake’s much more detailed concept of “fields” out there, somewhere, holding a more dynamic sort of form—and zillions of them, for individuals as well as whole species and subspecies—strikes us as weird. But the idea produces less and less resistance as you ponder it over time. At least that is what happened in my case. My reflexive reaction was to say: “We don’t need another whole order of things out there.” Then, later, it occurred to me that I did not object to the Platonic/Aristotelian form-matter conceptualization when I first heard it, although the same “doubling” of everything is also implied there. Why didn’t I object to that? Because I was younger? But enough. Let me continue and sketch in how this idea first surfaced.
The idea was first proposed, not using the same phraseology, by a very important biologist and thinker, Hans Driesch (1867-1941); he is considered the father of embryology. Driesch discovered something rather astonishing. He was experimenting with sea urchin embryos. He cut them in half and then waited to see what would happen. To his astonishment, the embryos developed despite having been halved. They developed into real, living sea urchins, but much smaller ones than those that nature normally produces. This work became the foundation of modern embryology. Driesch, however, came to be classified as a vitalist, thus placed outside scientific orthodoxy in retrospect. Why? He could not explain the phenomena he was observing without recourse to what he called “a unifying non-material mind-like something…an ordering principle which does not add either energy or matter” to the process. This “something” is what Sheldrake later called the morphic field. The term itself is actually a generalization of a more narrow descriptor introduced around 1907 by another biologist, the Russian Alexander Gurwitsch. Gurwitsch spoke of “morphogenetic fields”; he offered it as a suggestive hypothesis, little more than that; his use of the “genetic” suffix limits the concept of biological development, whereas Sheldrake enlarges it to any organized phenomenon. Ross Granville Harrison and others went on to explore this “field” phenomenon in experiments, but their work was marginalized later by emerging mechanistic theories. What this shows is that Sheldrake has a lineage in scientific exploration and speculation, all arising from the puzzle that embryonic development produced—and still does. To this day we do not know with any kind of precision what guides embryonic development. The modern view that chemical feedback loops do the whole job would have to be proved by detailed mapping of all the chemical reactions, showing that they take place by rigid determination, each step necessarily forcing the next. We have no such proof.
* * *
Now it might be objected that “morphic field” is also nothing but a label, nothing more useful than “miraculous.” But here I would point out that a theory of morphic fields—separate from the actual organism—is a much more useful concept for understanding phenomena like miraculous cures. Let’s take it seriously for a moment. Let’s say that every body is formed from a pattern stored “off-line” as it were, thus in a field at least analogous to electromagnetic fields; those also exist, mysteriously, “out there.” Sheldrake describes the interaction between a morphic field and the organism as taking place by what he calls a resonance. He largely leaves it at that, but the suggestion is something akin to a frequency or a vibration; the frequency to be sure, would have to be of a much more complex sort than we associate with electromagnetic waves. Here I would use the example of a memory which has multiple modalities: image, sound, emotion, even smell: a complex experience retrieved as a packet. A morphic resonance related to the body, would similarly have chemical, structural, and dynamic aspects, including electromagnetic states, temperature, and so forth.
Now let us assume that states of disease or malformation come about, in part at least, because something interferes with the proper communication between the organism and its field. Let us assume, further, that a powerful flow of psychic energy, such as a healer is able to generate, stimulates the body of the sick person once more to “tune in” to its field. If that actually happens, rapid healing may take place. It would, indeed, be spontaneous—in the sense that processes that would have taken place slowly and naturally anyway now take place rapidly, possibly helped by the excess energy also present.
This sketch represents a somewhat more thinkable alternative to the concept of a miraculous healing—but that’s all it is, a thinkable hypothesis. This field has not been developed. The reason for that is simply that current theories have no room for non-material mind-like somethings. Sheldrake appears intent in persuading his fellow scientists to engage in meaningful experiments that will definitely establish the reality of morphic fields. His aim has not been to commit cosmology, to echo George Will. Therefore he has avoided speculations of the sort that arises as corollaries to his ideas: What comes first? The field or the organism? Is this a purely naturalistic phenomenology? If yes, pure materialism is better, is more parsimonious. Morphic fields are obviously less than perfect—else we’d never have deformed embryos and malformed babies. I regret, to be sure, that orthodox science is as hostile to metaphysics as it is to theories that wander across the borderzone in search of explanations—which may be the right ones, once fully fleshed out. Not in the current form, to be sure. But the direction may be the right one.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
What Does "Higher Power" Mean?
One of the more interesting books around—especially for people who read such blogs as this one—is Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. The book is by Rupert Sheldrake and is subtitled “And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals.” The amazon.com link to the paperback is here. I read the book in fascination. I consider Sheldrake to be one of our time’s most original thinkers about biology. He is also a creative experimenter and a genuine scientist. In certain narrow circles of scientific orthodoxy, to be sure, he is a heretic. But never mind them. What the book demonstrates is that dogs as well as other animals appear to have what for them—for us too, for that matter—are “higher powers.” Telepathic abilities are classed as paranormal at least. Animals also evidently have powers of orientation in the wild inexplicable by ordinary sensory capacities. They seem to have a kind of sight that, traditionally, we call “second sight.” Yes, they’re at home in border zones much as some people are. And, as with us as well, the talent isn’t uniformly present. Nor are these capacities limited to mammals; birds display such powers too.
I start here with animals to make a point. We have a reflexive way of assuming that higher powers, when they manifest, must come directly from God—and if not from God then still from some higher, conscious entity. I’ve pondered this matter for quite a long time and have another take on the matter. But let’s begin with some sorting.
* * *
By “higher powers” I mean phenomena like miraculous healing, ecstatic states, and prophetic visions. In these cases God does the healing, God manifests in the ecstatic states (or the mystic experiences union with God), and God sends the prophetic vision. To be sure, in all of these instances, the phenomenon itself transcends ordinary experience; it is therefore logical enough to use a word that signifies the Transcendent writ large as its cause. But when people speak of God this way, they have something more concrete in mind. They imagine an Agency, distinct and separate, acting deliberately in this specific case whereas, in all other cases, God acts in a more nebulous and indirect way. This must be what people mean. If God sends me a prophetic message but lets you read tea leaves, the only way to understand the distinction is that God intervenes in reality deliberately in some but not in other cases.
People don’t usually invoke divine action to explain telepathy. It is a paranormal power but mild in effect and common enough to be assigned to a lower agency, say to a “talent” or to a “gift.” But notice that even here, using the word “gift” suggests a divine dispensation given to some, not to others. By contrast, people rarely assign a run of bad luck to God. But why not? If in one case God rewards us for being good, in others he might punish us for our careless acts of stupidity. Finally, when in legalese we speak of an “act of God,” what we mean then is simply “accident”; the lawyers don’t intend to suggest that floods, lightning strikes, or tornadoes are literally acts of God.
I think I’ve outlined the issues sufficiently here to show that referring strange, unusual phenomena to God serves no rational or meaningfully explanatory purpose. I strongly lean toward the view that God cannot be pulled down to our level and assigned roles in our ordinary experience. Technically this is known as negative theology: man should not presume. Furthermore, the use of God as a mechanism of explanation amounts to little more than saying, “It happened because it happened.”
Let’s look at these phenomena from another perspective. Let’s look at miraculous healings. Healers are often involved. They often speak of a flow of energy or of a power that aids them—and they report feeling this whatever in themselves. The consequence, namely healing, is assigned to a “higher” power only because the healing is extraordinary. It is also highly desirable. We give the desirable a “high” value. But what exactly happens in a healing? Some kind of rearrangement of matter takes place. Cancerous cells are destroyed, their remains carried away as waste. Chronic chemical, hormonal balances are restored because the organs that produced or failed to produce them are realigned in proper ways. Something physical happens or no healing could possibly take place. This process requires two factors, it seems to me. One is some kind of knowledge about the right arrangements of the biochemistry and bone structure involved. The other is some kind of energy that removes obstructions and speeds up a process that, in ordinary healing, takes its own sweet time. Let’s examine these factors.
The knowledge may be present in the body already, but the body’s mechanisms may be too weak to implement the healing. In that case the healing stream overcomes weakness, energizes natural processes, possibly catalyzes reactions, and thus leads to rapid recovery of a status quo ante. An alternative possibility is that the healing current itself carries both knowledge and energy. That concept needs special parsing.
When we speak of “energy” in these cases, the justification for using the word is the reported experience both of healers and those who are healed. But the energy involved is not the sort we usually experience—thus mechanical pushes and pulls, gravitational attraction, electrical current, heat, or, more generally, radiation. The very reason why such healings are “miraculous” is because something very different is present. Or is it?
Here things become complicated because, ultimately, we don’t really understand what life really is. We think it is ordinary energy manifesting in material structures. But let us suppose that life itself is just as transcendent a phenomenon as the healing current itself. We don’t think so because we’re all too used to its normal manifestations. One possible explanation of miraculous healings is that they are a temporary intensification of life energy, something that always flows through our bodies but in a relatively thinned-out form. It may be possible to tap into it in such a manner that it flows much more abundantly, and when it does, it will manifest its ordering powers rapidly, setting this right where, in our body, it encounters disturbances in what should be the healthy pattern.
I began this post with a reference to Sheldrake. I’ll also end it on that note. Sheldrake’s theories of morphic fields suggest a way of thinking about miraculous cures along the lines I’ve just sketched in above. I’ll discuss that application of the morphic field theory in a future post and continue this outline then. For now, as the medievalists used to say, satis.
I start here with animals to make a point. We have a reflexive way of assuming that higher powers, when they manifest, must come directly from God—and if not from God then still from some higher, conscious entity. I’ve pondered this matter for quite a long time and have another take on the matter. But let’s begin with some sorting.
* * *
By “higher powers” I mean phenomena like miraculous healing, ecstatic states, and prophetic visions. In these cases God does the healing, God manifests in the ecstatic states (or the mystic experiences union with God), and God sends the prophetic vision. To be sure, in all of these instances, the phenomenon itself transcends ordinary experience; it is therefore logical enough to use a word that signifies the Transcendent writ large as its cause. But when people speak of God this way, they have something more concrete in mind. They imagine an Agency, distinct and separate, acting deliberately in this specific case whereas, in all other cases, God acts in a more nebulous and indirect way. This must be what people mean. If God sends me a prophetic message but lets you read tea leaves, the only way to understand the distinction is that God intervenes in reality deliberately in some but not in other cases.
People don’t usually invoke divine action to explain telepathy. It is a paranormal power but mild in effect and common enough to be assigned to a lower agency, say to a “talent” or to a “gift.” But notice that even here, using the word “gift” suggests a divine dispensation given to some, not to others. By contrast, people rarely assign a run of bad luck to God. But why not? If in one case God rewards us for being good, in others he might punish us for our careless acts of stupidity. Finally, when in legalese we speak of an “act of God,” what we mean then is simply “accident”; the lawyers don’t intend to suggest that floods, lightning strikes, or tornadoes are literally acts of God.
I think I’ve outlined the issues sufficiently here to show that referring strange, unusual phenomena to God serves no rational or meaningfully explanatory purpose. I strongly lean toward the view that God cannot be pulled down to our level and assigned roles in our ordinary experience. Technically this is known as negative theology: man should not presume. Furthermore, the use of God as a mechanism of explanation amounts to little more than saying, “It happened because it happened.”
* * *
Let’s look at these phenomena from another perspective. Let’s look at miraculous healings. Healers are often involved. They often speak of a flow of energy or of a power that aids them—and they report feeling this whatever in themselves. The consequence, namely healing, is assigned to a “higher” power only because the healing is extraordinary. It is also highly desirable. We give the desirable a “high” value. But what exactly happens in a healing? Some kind of rearrangement of matter takes place. Cancerous cells are destroyed, their remains carried away as waste. Chronic chemical, hormonal balances are restored because the organs that produced or failed to produce them are realigned in proper ways. Something physical happens or no healing could possibly take place. This process requires two factors, it seems to me. One is some kind of knowledge about the right arrangements of the biochemistry and bone structure involved. The other is some kind of energy that removes obstructions and speeds up a process that, in ordinary healing, takes its own sweet time. Let’s examine these factors.
The knowledge may be present in the body already, but the body’s mechanisms may be too weak to implement the healing. In that case the healing stream overcomes weakness, energizes natural processes, possibly catalyzes reactions, and thus leads to rapid recovery of a status quo ante. An alternative possibility is that the healing current itself carries both knowledge and energy. That concept needs special parsing.
When we speak of “energy” in these cases, the justification for using the word is the reported experience both of healers and those who are healed. But the energy involved is not the sort we usually experience—thus mechanical pushes and pulls, gravitational attraction, electrical current, heat, or, more generally, radiation. The very reason why such healings are “miraculous” is because something very different is present. Or is it?
Here things become complicated because, ultimately, we don’t really understand what life really is. We think it is ordinary energy manifesting in material structures. But let us suppose that life itself is just as transcendent a phenomenon as the healing current itself. We don’t think so because we’re all too used to its normal manifestations. One possible explanation of miraculous healings is that they are a temporary intensification of life energy, something that always flows through our bodies but in a relatively thinned-out form. It may be possible to tap into it in such a manner that it flows much more abundantly, and when it does, it will manifest its ordering powers rapidly, setting this right where, in our body, it encounters disturbances in what should be the healthy pattern.
* * *
I began this post with a reference to Sheldrake. I’ll also end it on that note. Sheldrake’s theories of morphic fields suggest a way of thinking about miraculous cures along the lines I’ve just sketched in above. I’ll discuss that application of the morphic field theory in a future post and continue this outline then. For now, as the medievalists used to say, satis.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Forgetting
Let me use the analogy of a person who descends into a very deep cave on an elaborate spelunking expedition. He carries a radio. His team of supporters is above ground monitoring his progress below; they’re leaning into computer screens. Now the explorer has reached such a depth that the interfering rock formations cause him to lose communications. The radio sputters, here and there he can make out a phrase, but not enough to carry on a meaningful conversation.
Let me apply the analogy. The cave and the rock that forms it represent the material order. The surface represents the order of the soul. The explorer is one soul descending into the density of matter. The radio is his mind communicating rather well with his base camp at first, but then interference all but cuts off his contact. His descent is what Wordsworth means by our birth; the failure of the radio is our “forgetting” of a previous existence. The analogy isn’t perfect. It merely illustrates that “interference” may explain our forgetting. A situation like the one described might be elaborated to explain plausibly the Hindu concept of reincarnation, structurally an emanationist concept. To make this case we need just a few elements.
These are (1) some evidence that souls have really preexisted before; (2) an understanding of memory as a field phenomenon, and (3) a conceptualization of orders based on some kind of density.
Evidence for Preexistence. In eastern culture people accept reincarnation as a traditional belief; it’s been around a long time, not least in the West, if we go far enough back. The first westerner to give it scientific study was the Canadian, Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia. The late Stevenson’s studies of people who claimed to remember an earlier life represents an opus of evidence not as extensive but as persuasive as the corpus of NDE reports. It represents empirical proof, as best as we can get it, for preexistence. Others have continued such studies after Stevenson.
Memory. No one questions the role of the brain in memory, but the subject of where memories reside is more controversial. The orthodox answer is that tissue holds memories, but proof of that is speculative. New theories therefore keep springing up. The Austrian, Karl Pribram, has been the latest theorizer, suggesting a holographic storage of memory across tissues. This suggestion has not firm proof either. The British biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, is the chief proponent of a theory that memories reside in what he calls morphic fields, thus fields analogous to the electro-dynamic kind, but not detectable by our instruments. He offers some intriguing empirical support for this suggestion (see The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature (Park Street Press, 1995). This alternative fits a metaphysical perspective better—without in any way denying the role of the brain.
Concerning memory, especially in this context, it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that in daily awareness we don’t actually remember our entire life in full detail. What we have is a very compressed précis of our past. But if we want to remember something, we have potent powers to evoke those things by effort. The day-to-day functioning of our memory is in response to stimuli. Those things not “evoked” by something lie dormant. We have enormous stores of memory that we never visit—and when we do, we tend to be amazed. I’d completely forgotten that, we say—but evidently we have not. We need to keep this in mind in reflecting on the subject in this context.
Orders of Density. There is ample philosophical as well as experiential evidence for a subtle reality—that which I keep calling the “soul-order.” Its most obvious proof is human consciousness. I include life itself as an element of proof—although that’s more controversial. Tradition supports the concept. People believe in other words, and NDE reports appear to back up those beliefs. If such orders exist, however, science cannot prove them by definition. If those world are more subtle, our physical instruments can no more detect them than they can detect consciousness.
With these elements in mind, let me suggest the following model for explaining why we can’t remember previous lives. I assume, for starters, that when a soul is born (unites with matter), it enters a realm of greater density. The soul-order is subtle, in other words. The “noise” of this environment, to change the metaphor, overwhelms the channel by means of which we gather knowledge (memory is knowledge). What we hear across this channel reaches us almost too faintly to decode: intuitions, intimations. When our souls form new memories, our brain mediates their storage. But when the brain retrieves memories in response to stimuli, it always fetches the most recent deposits to this store, especially as we age. In rare cases only, the brain may actually bring back memories created in times predating our current life, but these would have less context. After we die, presumably, we shall recover our older memories, but only after appropriate stimuli, those arising in the soul-order, actually evoke them. What I’m suggesting as a reasonable assumption is that we never really lose contact with our continuous memories, but our ability to evoke them from within this dark spelunking cave becomes much weaker.
How then can some people remember earlier existences while the great majority do not? While I’m into idle speculation, why not tackle that one too. The remembering of some is no idle claim of this or that small thing remembered. On the contrary. Stevenson’s work indicates that the recovery of memories is quite complete and quite detailed. One explanation might be that, in childhood, many of us do remember previous lives but too fragmentarily. We’re unable to link up enough of them to reproduce a sense of forgotten self-awareness. The shock of entry into this world may have been greater for most than some. Other explanations might be that the tuning powers of the brain are better is some than others, that the environmental stimuli are sharper for some, and finally that some have been gone but a short time. Concerning the last point, the point is that the memories remembered would be more current. In most of the cases Stevenson reports, the life remembered had been lived but a few miles away and ended just a few years earlier. For most other people, possibly, the last stretch of existence may not have been physical but “subtle,” thus in a quite different order, the soul-order. Physical stimuli here may not evoke memories of that one, except perhaps for feelings. The two orders may be very different in character. Remembering lives may therefore be rare because the conditions necessary to evoke earlier memories may also be rare.
What I’ve managed here, perhaps, is to show that some element of plausibility attaches to the reincarnation scheme and, therefore, indirectly, to the proposition that another realm might be invading matter or—what may be a rougher row to hoe—may have been caught here involuntarily.
Let me apply the analogy. The cave and the rock that forms it represent the material order. The surface represents the order of the soul. The explorer is one soul descending into the density of matter. The radio is his mind communicating rather well with his base camp at first, but then interference all but cuts off his contact. His descent is what Wordsworth means by our birth; the failure of the radio is our “forgetting” of a previous existence. The analogy isn’t perfect. It merely illustrates that “interference” may explain our forgetting. A situation like the one described might be elaborated to explain plausibly the Hindu concept of reincarnation, structurally an emanationist concept. To make this case we need just a few elements.
These are (1) some evidence that souls have really preexisted before; (2) an understanding of memory as a field phenomenon, and (3) a conceptualization of orders based on some kind of density.
Evidence for Preexistence. In eastern culture people accept reincarnation as a traditional belief; it’s been around a long time, not least in the West, if we go far enough back. The first westerner to give it scientific study was the Canadian, Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia. The late Stevenson’s studies of people who claimed to remember an earlier life represents an opus of evidence not as extensive but as persuasive as the corpus of NDE reports. It represents empirical proof, as best as we can get it, for preexistence. Others have continued such studies after Stevenson.
Memory. No one questions the role of the brain in memory, but the subject of where memories reside is more controversial. The orthodox answer is that tissue holds memories, but proof of that is speculative. New theories therefore keep springing up. The Austrian, Karl Pribram, has been the latest theorizer, suggesting a holographic storage of memory across tissues. This suggestion has not firm proof either. The British biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, is the chief proponent of a theory that memories reside in what he calls morphic fields, thus fields analogous to the electro-dynamic kind, but not detectable by our instruments. He offers some intriguing empirical support for this suggestion (see The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature (Park Street Press, 1995). This alternative fits a metaphysical perspective better—without in any way denying the role of the brain.
Concerning memory, especially in this context, it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that in daily awareness we don’t actually remember our entire life in full detail. What we have is a very compressed précis of our past. But if we want to remember something, we have potent powers to evoke those things by effort. The day-to-day functioning of our memory is in response to stimuli. Those things not “evoked” by something lie dormant. We have enormous stores of memory that we never visit—and when we do, we tend to be amazed. I’d completely forgotten that, we say—but evidently we have not. We need to keep this in mind in reflecting on the subject in this context.
Orders of Density. There is ample philosophical as well as experiential evidence for a subtle reality—that which I keep calling the “soul-order.” Its most obvious proof is human consciousness. I include life itself as an element of proof—although that’s more controversial. Tradition supports the concept. People believe in other words, and NDE reports appear to back up those beliefs. If such orders exist, however, science cannot prove them by definition. If those world are more subtle, our physical instruments can no more detect them than they can detect consciousness.
With these elements in mind, let me suggest the following model for explaining why we can’t remember previous lives. I assume, for starters, that when a soul is born (unites with matter), it enters a realm of greater density. The soul-order is subtle, in other words. The “noise” of this environment, to change the metaphor, overwhelms the channel by means of which we gather knowledge (memory is knowledge). What we hear across this channel reaches us almost too faintly to decode: intuitions, intimations. When our souls form new memories, our brain mediates their storage. But when the brain retrieves memories in response to stimuli, it always fetches the most recent deposits to this store, especially as we age. In rare cases only, the brain may actually bring back memories created in times predating our current life, but these would have less context. After we die, presumably, we shall recover our older memories, but only after appropriate stimuli, those arising in the soul-order, actually evoke them. What I’m suggesting as a reasonable assumption is that we never really lose contact with our continuous memories, but our ability to evoke them from within this dark spelunking cave becomes much weaker.
How then can some people remember earlier existences while the great majority do not? While I’m into idle speculation, why not tackle that one too. The remembering of some is no idle claim of this or that small thing remembered. On the contrary. Stevenson’s work indicates that the recovery of memories is quite complete and quite detailed. One explanation might be that, in childhood, many of us do remember previous lives but too fragmentarily. We’re unable to link up enough of them to reproduce a sense of forgotten self-awareness. The shock of entry into this world may have been greater for most than some. Other explanations might be that the tuning powers of the brain are better is some than others, that the environmental stimuli are sharper for some, and finally that some have been gone but a short time. Concerning the last point, the point is that the memories remembered would be more current. In most of the cases Stevenson reports, the life remembered had been lived but a few miles away and ended just a few years earlier. For most other people, possibly, the last stretch of existence may not have been physical but “subtle,” thus in a quite different order, the soul-order. Physical stimuli here may not evoke memories of that one, except perhaps for feelings. The two orders may be very different in character. Remembering lives may therefore be rare because the conditions necessary to evoke earlier memories may also be rare.
What I’ve managed here, perhaps, is to show that some element of plausibility attaches to the reincarnation scheme and, therefore, indirectly, to the proposition that another realm might be invading matter or—what may be a rougher row to hoe—may have been caught here involuntarily.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Memory
Sufi-Style Joke
A drunk is looking for his car-keys by night in the circle thrown by a street lamp. His strange behavior draws the attention of a passer-by. He asks the drunk why he’s crawling around feeling the gutter. The drunk mumbles his answer. The passer-by looks around. “Where’s your car?” “Down there,” mumbles the drunk and points into the deep shadows far off under thick trees. “Why are you looking here? Did you drop them here?” “No,” says the drunk, “but there’s no light there. Can’t see anything back there.”
Where’d You Put Those Memories?
Today the New York Times announced successful experiments by neuroscientists to suppress selective memories in mice and rats. That memory is linked to brain chemistry no one doubts, but no one has succeeded in showing that memories are actually stored in the tissues of the brain. That they are stored there is an article of faith; the problem is that no one has produced a testable hypothesis of how that storage is accomplished. What we do know is that different parts of the brain are associated with different activities; the assumption therefore is that memories are polled at certain brain locations for certain behaviors. By inhibiting activities in neuronal synapses using chemical substances of a certain design, we can now interfere with or block memory.
Rupert Sheldrake has proposed the idea* that memory is stored in what he calls morphic fields—off-line, as it were, not in tissue. Memory narrowly defined is but a part of a much more ambitious conceptualization Sheldrake offers to explain the enduring forms we find in nature as a whole, including their evolution. His theory is modestly naturalistic in outline but has enough flavor of the transcendental (undetectable and subtle fields accessed by resonance equally undetectable) so that he is treated as a pariah and heretic by orthodox science.
This is an example of the iron curtain philosophical presuppositions produce in the Borderzone. We cannot actually get any closer to understanding mind—or one of its functionalities, like memory—if we dogmatically restrict our search for answers to places where our light actually shines.
__________
*In Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. Sheldrake's site is here.
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