Sheldrake's Morphogenic Field - Innovation (Evolution)

by BBella , Friday, October 14, 2016, 05:26 (2743 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I don't have any difficulty conceiving of wind, water, waves, cliffs unconsciously “being” or even "becoming". When the wind drives the water into giant waves that eventually bring the cliffs tumbling down, there is no accessing, inventing, tuning into or remembering, even though every atom and every movement is full of information. We can't be sure they're non-conscious, but if pressed, I would actually draw the line of consciousness between the animate and the inanimate. I'd say information is not conscious, but is used by consciousness - separate but interdependent, because consciousness needs something to be conscious of.

BBELLA: I think I have pinpointed my discomfort in why I cannot be in complete agreement with your two statements above; it comes down to where the placement of consciousness fits within a relationship to the morphic field. If you will allow, I would like to rewrite your recent statement making it more in agreement with how I see it:
I don't have any difficulty conceiving of wind, water, waves, cliffs as “being” or even "becoming". When the wind drives the water into giant waves that eventually bring the cliffs tumbling down, there is a force accessing, inventing, tuning into or remembering every atom and every movement and placement, causing these forms to be what they ARE by accessing memory of what it was. We know there is a force organizing all animate and the inanimate matter (including consciousness itself) into being what it IS by the memory of what it was. I'd say, this force is not conscious in how humans think of consciousness, but nevertheless, this force IS an organizing process, bringing into being all that IS in every moment.

For me the trouble with terms like accessing, inventing, tuning into, remembering etc. is that they do involve some sort of consciousness.

This is how I see it: if a wave is a wave, it is only a wave because of the invisible wave morphic field. If that which makes up the wave, which would be water, is placed in a bucket and poured into dry dirt, the water disappears into the dirt and becomes something else. Everything that is matter and energy goes thru that same process of change - even though the morphic fields stay the same - though can change over time. Something, which I will call force, keeps the memory of the fields in their place and continually arranges matter and energy to recreate what IS by those fields.

And so there are different forces that bring into being all that IS in every moment.

Or, just as possible, one force that brings into being all that IS in every moment.

They are all interconnected, and they can’t exist without one another,

Morphic fields are all interconnected by morphic resonance, like drawing like, as well as the separate parts all contained in the whole (holographic idea). I'm not sure one morphic field cannot exist without another - since it seems to me that a morphic field could possibly, eventually disappear; like an animal going extinct for example - though I'm not sure if they completely disappear or remain in the field memory forever.

but some seem to be non-conscious collections of information, and some seem to be conscious collections of information that consciously (though not necessarily with human self-awareness) access other collections of information. As I said earlier, I don’t know where consciousness begins and ends, but if pushed, I’m inclined to opt for the line between animate and inanimate.

I don't know where consciousness begins and ends either, but I do believe it's possible that consciousness too has its own morphic field.