Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA29436 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:14:36 +0100 Message-ID: <005001c12c0f$fdb1bce0$a586b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <3B830999.26800.A6441B@localhost> Subject: Re: Morphic fields Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 13:12:51 -0700 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> > > Kenneth wrote:
> > > > Environmental selection was/is
> > > > acted upon us by external agencies, they influence(d) something.
> > > > That has always been the tricky part, isn 't it !? Influenced by
> > > > what, emotions, environmental constrains and restrains !? Selected
> > > > by what
> > > > !? Pressures !? Which ones, Joe !? Emotions, constrains and
> > > > !restrains
> > > >
> > > Influenced by CONTIGUOUS (that's touching) environmental
> > > situations, ones that are obsevable, describable and measurable, not
> > > by some frigging woo-woo seance-master drawing-down-the-mo- -jo
> > > astral fantasy line.
> >
> > What's with this obsession with contiguous causation? Contact
> > mechanics disappeared from physics in the 19th century. There's no
> > contact mechanics in the orbits of the planets.
> >
> No complex configurational information passes between them,
> either, just gravitational attraction.
Of course. Because they're influenced by gravitational fields, based on
mass, rather than morpic fields.
The point is that action at a distance is an accepted aspect of scientific
theory. It was only when scientists insisted on contact mechanics that they
couldn't conceive of the universe without an "ether" to provide a material
substrate for gravity and light waves in space. The insistence on a
"genetic program" results from exactly the same flawed reasoning.
> > There's no contact
> > mechanics in the transmission of signals across electromagnetic
> > fields.
> >
> This is untrue; when a radio wave is sent from a transmitter to a
> receiver, the causation is continuous, just as when someone
> shoots an arrow at a target.
Like a gravitational wave, a radio wave is not a material "thing." If it
travels at the speed of light, it cannot have mass. There's no material
connection between transmitter and receiver. You can't have contact
mechanics without some kind of "stuff" that makes contact.
How about the effect of magnets? If you arrange two magnets with their
positive poles close together, they repulse each other. This is action at a
distance. Spooky, yes. Newage, no.
> > What Sheldrake and Goodwin are trying to do, in their
> > different ways, is to bring biology up to date with physics.
> >
> Biological interactions are much too complex to be profitably
> explained in the argot of physics, and the emergent properties of
> complex aggregates that occurs in biological systems cannot be
> reasonably predicted or represented in physics terms. This is one
> of the primary points that Goodwin makes.
And it's why he rejects the notion that organic form follows blindly from
genes. He approaches the matter holistically in terms of field theory,
except that instead of electromagnetic fields, he relies on "morphogenetic
fields."
Switching threads:
> > Goodwin has not branched out into morphic resonance. He maintains
> > that morphogenetic fields are unchanging properties of nature. The
> > equations governing the forms of dinosaurs existed before dinosaurs
> > came into being and continue to exist now. This is why he rejects
> > natural selection as the driving force of evolution. Organisms evolve
> > when they get drawn into a morphogenetic field representing a
> > different bodily structure.
> >
> > He discusses this in his debate with Richard Dawkins, which can be
> > accessed here:
> >
> > http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/organism.html
> >
> All he's saying is that the bigger that organisms get, the greater
> the configurational constraints mandated by gravity.
Goodwin is not an idiot. He's not about to suggest that gravity, which is
incredibly weak, could possibly have any influence over organisms.
Ted
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