I know I've never heard of it.
Still an interesting concept.

I've heard of it before. It inspired the Morphogenics "Sufficiently Advanced Technology" aka Magic in my fictional settings.

Ever read Grant Morrison's run on 'Animal Man?' It's basically three trade paperbacks full of material about the morphic field and how it could run rampant in the multiple co-existing universes of the DC Comic Universe. That all sounds boring, but it's actually wonderfully bizarre and really funny (it also gets extremely crazy-awesome when all the ruckus hits its peak). Plus the trades are cheap because... well... not many people want their comic books to be living lectures on the fantasy properties of morphic fields. Also it's ANIMAL MAN. I'd highly suggest it though if you're into the theory and enjoy science fiction literature.

yeah what they said...

yeah what they said...

I managed it watch it about 25 seconds.

Then I realized I wasn't going to agree with it.

Then I had a glass of orange drink.

Now I am commenting.

.-.

This man is obviously insane. Everybody KNOWS the God of Abraham created the Earth and the rest of the universe in seven days by taking an enormous shit!

I've been reading about it since the 80s from New Science of Life through Seven Experiments and The Sense of Being Stared At which is still on my recent reading shelf. It's a tremendously important idea and of course so contentious someone tried to kill him at a conference recently. And I don't see what the mechanistic alternative is supposed to be that critics of his work would be supporting if they weren't too busy going crazy about him. Where is the organizing principle?

Well.. yeah, I've never heard of it before, I can tell you that.

Oh Mif, you so craaazy!

It's interesting, though it's not something I could fully believe in until he can actually show the field in a visual manner and show ways he's able to control it with full demonstrations of it's effect.

I find it interesting, and believable, but I know little of science really.

Watched the first 7-8 minutes of it before I got fed up with his invented explanation.

Yeah, wow, I'm going to do the most polite thing possible and write off his ignorance to the fact that I've got an extra 3 decades of scientific exploration to guide my understanding of the world.

I recently wrote a paper about "life" and what we define it as. In short I said it was self-preserving complexity, which was kinda like what he said, things which are self-organizing. I never wrote about WHY we see things which exhibit the life phenomenon but that's because I would think the answer to be retarded simple: if something doesn't actively self-preserve (or reproduce), unless it's really big (say, Mars) or small (a proton), its existence is generally just a blip and it is soon forgotten to the universe. How do embryos grow, he asks? Not through morphofucktarded fields. They're formed from a cell (well, two cells technically, but the sperm is so tiny it's kinda a moot point). A very complex cell. A cell which has the ability to self-replicate and change. It's a lot like asking how human society is able to form from just a few individuals. They reproduce. Their offspring take up new roles (and in the process, build new things). Repeat until you have a thriving, dynamic society. Is the explanation that there is also a field which forces humans to structure themselves into a social "organism"? (you tell me, I didn't watch much of the video)

I just don't get why people have the urge to invent bullshit explanations like that...

As was stated in another comment here, the mechanical process of self organizing is well understood but the actual process by which DNA is capable of creating a complex form from just two cells is not. The most interesting stuff is towards the end of the video when he starts describing his experiments.

Sure it's understood. DNA codes for the creation of proteins, which when created cause certain things to happen. It may be immensely complex, and we might not be able to sit down and watch every single protein form and interact, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. DNA and cells are immensely complicated systems which exist and follow the laws of physics, that's quite literally all the explanation that is needed. Some people may ask HOW it is that such a complex system can exist, and the answer is simple: as I said before, if it wasn't complex enough to self-replicate, it probably won't exist for very long.

A cell is comparable in ways to a computer. The entire thing exists for the purpose of storing information and executing orders based on those data. When the computer is needed to perform an activity, its physical form causes it to read a particular part of the data corresponding to that activity, and from the resulting binary it is able to decode more complex instructions, which are then executed to carry out the desired task. Computers continue to exist because they're able to do this: if they couldn't store and execute programs, they would have no use for us and we would not make them. Cells continue to exist because they're able to do this: if they couldn't store and execute programs, they wouldn't be able to keep making themselves. Clearly, computers are not created, organized, and run by morphogenetic fields... but rather deterministic logical circuits.

I dunno, explain to me what part is not understood?

Er, typo. If computers couldn't store and execute programs, WE would have no use for THEM and we would not make them.

His presentation is a conglomeration of fallacies and mis-statements. Sadly, his theory is just as much bunk now as it was when he first brought it out.

I'd go through and debunk each and every one of his statements and experiments, but I'm just too lazy to do that on an FA journal. :P

Great idea for comic book story lines though. It would certainly explain a lot about the Power Cosmic. ;)

"In 1981 Rupert Sheldrake outraged the scientific establishment with his hypothesis of morphic resonance." He seems to be saying that a kind of force-field surrounds and infuses every living thing, determining how it will develop. I think at on point quantum physics implied that the universe can be directly influenced by conscious thought--possibly by interacting with the fields. I have always believed that an "ordinary" person could achieve superhuman (psychic etc) abilities through sheer force of will. I was BORN in 1981. Coincidence?

heard of it - facepalmed to it ; / ;