Sheldrake's Morphogenic Field - Innovation (Evolution)

by BBella , Thursday, October 06, 2016, 23:37 (2748 days ago) @ dhw

We seem to be in agreement now on the idea that the collective field comprises ALL fields, all are interdependent, but individuals are able to make their own decisions which in turn may have their impact on all existing fields. So far we are also following Sheldrake. The one area that remains open seems to be this:
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> Dhw: I do not know whether the collective field can be regarded as a single conscious being (God), or as having any consciousness at all of its own. It may simply be an ever expanding field of information that can only be accessed by individual consciousnesses.
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> BBELLA: Sheldrake's work/study on the collective (memory) field seems to disagree with your assessment. He has concluded, so far, even that which seems unconscious, like crystals and water, - are also able to access the collective memory field - quite quickly - according to fluidity. 
> Dhw: This is panpsychism: that all things have some mental aspect. Maybe they do.
> BBELLA: There doesn't seem to be a "maybe". They do - according to his study.
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> Dhw: The “maybe” is mine. 
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> BBELLA: Whatever one might want to call it, it happens. Though I cannot or would not say it happens because "all things have some mental aspect". 
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>Dhw: Are you disagreeing with Sheldrake's panpsychism, or saying that what happens is NOT as a result of all things having a mental aspect?-Sheldrake doesn't embrace, fully accept, believe in panpsychism, but uses it as a possible explanation or comments on it's similar function for what he has observed in inanimate objects in particular. I dont think Sheldrake has fully come to believe that all things that exists have a mental aspect. How anything accesses memory is what I too am questioning.-> BBELLA: Is this what that would mean? It does happen! What are the implications? It is one of the very reasons, even the main reason that I looked forward to this discussion. To maybe have a bit more clarity on the implications of this particular process and maybe even expand on it a bit.
 
>Dhw: That is what we are doing, but there is a limit to the degree of clarity we can get. Hence the maybe's. What I wrote below seems to me to be an accurate summary of how far we can take the discussion, but you often come up with new angles!
 
> Dhw: That still gives us individuals accessing the expanding field of information, but it does not make the field of information itself conscious or inventive. We have no way of knowing the extent of consciousness, from crystals (and their individual fields and their “species'” collective field) right through to the ultimate collective field of all that IS, which some people think is God.
> BBELLA: I tentatively agree.
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> Dhw: So I guess the next question is why your agreement is only tentative.-I say tentative, because I cannot yet visualize in my mind where the line is drawn between that which does the accessing, inventing, tuning into, remembering or just plain being, from the information used. How can any-thing "be" without some kind of process we might conflate with consciousness? Some-thing or some ability lies within or without a thing making it by information/memory, what it IS.-We tend to place the word consciousness and self awareness in a field of it's own. Yet, how can a newly created inanimate object, like a crystal, suddenly "gather" information it has no previous connection with? What is the process which causes the crystal to gain information? Does that process come from within the crystal or outside it? That is my query and why I say tentative.