Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA29933 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 24 Aug 2001 02:06:41 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:10:45 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Morphic fields Message-ID: <3B856345.18534.91533E@localhost> In-reply-to: <005001c12c0f$fdb1bce0$a586b2d1@teddace> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 23 Aug 2001, at 13:12, Dace wrote:
> 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.
>
Whuch are based upon fantasy and wishful thinking.
>
> 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.
>
They couldn't conceive of energy teravelling in the absence of a
material carrier, but when ypou get right down to it, there IS
contiguity between the source and the destination of light across
the cosmos, just as much as there is contiguity for an arrow
between bow and target.
>
> > > 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.
>
Here you demonstrate your 'massive' physics naivete. Remember
Einstein's matter-energy conversion equation (e = mc*2)? Matter
and energy are two different configurations of the same existent
stuff. Are you actually trying to maintain that energy lacks
existence, or that matter = mass = existence, exclusively???
>
> 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.
>
Complex communicational, no. One dimensional, yes.
>
> > > 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."
>
No, the complex aggregates are genes. He just notes that even
genes are bound by the physical structure of the universe for their
configurational and growth alternatives (as did D'arcy Thompson
before him), but this does not, for Goodwin, include magical
mystical info-channelling woo-woo. Unlike Sheldrake, Goodwin is
actually trying to remain scientific.
>
> 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.
>
Oh, yeah? An animal as large as a whale could not have its
shape, with legs added, and survive out of the gravity-countering
buoyancy of water. Many smaller plants and animals simply could
not possess their comfigurations were they a whole lot larger.
Check the mass-squared law.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
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>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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