Sheldrake's Morphogenic Field - Innovation (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, September 29, 2016, 12:38 (2975 days ago) @ BBella

Once again, I'd like to juggle with the different parts of your post, because it seems to me that we are in agreement on most points, but others perhaps need further clarification. The two main issues are innovation, and separation between the parts and the whole. - BBELLA: Is innovation “caused” by the collective memory of the morphic field? I cannot see how it cannot be. - But you completely agree with me that each “decision” is made by each individual conscious entity. However, if “the collective information of all that IS is also the acting intelligent collective conscious of all that IS” (your words), and if it is this active collective consciousness that causes innovation, how can we say the individual causes it? I don't see how you can have both: either the collective causes innovation or the individual causes it (but uses the collective information to help it do so). - In brief, my suggestion is that the individual USES the collective information in the morphic field in order to come up with something new, which is then added to the collective information in the morphic field.
 
This, as you say, does not answer the question; where is the separation between the parts and the whole, but I thought I did answer that: “on the holistic level there is no separation, but on the atomic level there is, and each is as valid (in my view) as the other.” To put it in terms of your next question: no, we cannot have consciousness without something to be conscious of (holistic level), but our individual consciousness can use what it is conscious of to create its own new information (atomic level) - which in turn becomes part of the whole and which other individual consciousnesses can then access. - The only other question you raised is whether “new information becomes part of the existing field”. You agreed with me that “the morphic field is not static, but expands in a never ending process of development”. How can it expand unless it absorbs more and more information? And we have agreed that new information comes from individual consciousnesses. David will argue that it all comes from God, which would mean individual consciousnesses discover what is already there. However, you agreed with me that it was NOT “a collective consciousness making all the decisions” but that humans use “existing information to CREATE NEW information”, and that other organisms do the same.