Sheldrake's Morphogenic Field - Innovation (Evolution)

by BBella , Thursday, October 27, 2016, 05:17 (2732 days ago) @ dhw

So very sorry for my late response, we've had guests for the week.

BBELLA: What is generic information?

I’ll try again. The above distinguishes between individual (ever changing) and generic (unchanging), which I hope is now clear. But even the generic fields change, because humans were not always humans. The generic morphic field that kept pre-humans pre-human eventually changed into the generic morphic field that keeps humans humans.

Ok, got it. What confused me is your use of the word "information". When I exchanged the word information for morphic field/s, that helped me understand what you meant.

Dhw: And so there are different forces that bring into being all that IS in every moment.
BBELLA: Or, just as possible, one force that brings into being all that IS in every moment.
Dhw: It depends what level we are talking on: […] you can say that whatever drives the universe brings into being all that IS in every moment. Or you can say that each individual force interacts with other individual forces to bring everything into being. Top down, or bottom up?
BBELLA: Again, I am lost. Can you give an example of the level you are talking about that has different forces? I am only thinking of one force that holds all things together, processing all matter and energy to create what IS, including the memory of the morphic field/s.

I would regard evolution as an example. If life began with single cells, and if each of those cells had the intelligence to cooperate with other cells, you ultimately have billions of individual intelligences (each with its own morphic field and memories) combining to produce every single organism (each with its own morphic field and memories) that ever existed. There would then be no single force creating all that IS in the organic world, but only billions of individual forces (intelligences) building more and more individual forces in an endless process of creation.

Ok, I see where you were going with the word "forces" instead of force, by using it interchangeably with the word intelligence's. Although, I was using the word force to sum up all forces, like someone would use the word wood to sum up all things wood, even though there is a lot of different types and kinds of wood - they are all wood. So it was on that level I used the word force instead of forces. Because all forces are force. But is all force intelligent? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure intelligence is another word for force or more a type/kind of force? Maybe intelligence has it's own morphic field and is one of the many forces?

BBELLA: 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.
Dhw: If consciousness has a morphic field which is independent of all matter (including organisms),...
BBELLA: I dont know if consciousness is independent of all matter…

Nor do I, but consciousness on its own (= having its own morphic field, as you suggest), separated from a material being, would have to be part of what we might call the spirit world. If it’s not separated from a material being, then it’s not on its own!

Dhw:...it could only be the sort of immaterial power people call God.
BBELLA: I cannot (at this time) agree with that statement. If consciousness has it's own morphic field and is itself a part of, connected to, resonates with the other many morphic fields, does not mean to me that it is God. It is one part of a whole.

Yes, all morphic fields are part of the one great morphic field which is the universe, and morphic fields can connect up with each other, but I can’t see disembodied “consciousness” as a morphic field that exists independently of individual beings.

I agree that all morphic fields are a part of the one morphic field, and do not see consciousness as an independent, disembodied morphic field. But, I can see how consciousness can have it's own morphic field. No morphic field is an independent field separate unto itself. All fields are dependent and exist within a symbiotic relationship with other fields. Consciousness may exist as a morphic field in different levels of existence within all or many things - yet effect all things. We believe we are the highest level of consciousness - though some may think there is a God that has a higher level of consciousness than our own. Then some may think there are levels higher than humans but not as high as God, like alien beings or angels, etc. Humans may just be a different level of these types of beings. So, it makes sense to me then that consciousness could have it's own levels of morphic fields as well.

Even David’s world of the afterlife, in which we retain our identity, would consist of individual consciousnesses, not consciousness as a whole with a morphic field of its own. Only a universal consciousness (= some sort of God) of which all consciousnesses are a part would have a morphic field of its own.

Yes, of course there are individual consciousness, just like there are individual bacteria, humans, plants and animals etc. But that doesnt preclude there being one morphic field for consciousness - just like there is one morphic field for humans, dogs, etc. Bacteria live in all those mentioned, so might morphic fields inhabit all or many things as well on many different levels.