Sheldrake's Morphogenic Field - Innovation (Evolution)

by BBella , Friday, September 30, 2016, 07:09 (2975 days ago) @ dhw

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). - I do see exactly what you are saying (from your point of view), and what you are saying does make perfect sense, and I almost want to agree. But, we may be at an impasse, because I cannot imagine an individual being able to make a decision if there is no information to cause an individual to make it. Information is what causes/helps me to make decisions! Can all this information exist within and without me and me make no decision? Without information, there is no decision to cause me to make a decision. So,for me, that is how it is not either/or, but is both. 
 
> 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. - I agree.
 
> 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. - I agree. - > 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? - Yes, every new innovation that sticks (through habit) and creates new images within the morphic field will be added as new information within the collective. - >And we have agreed that new information comes from individual consciousnesses. - New information comes from both the individual consciousness making decisions and by the information afforded it by the collective field. New information can only be created by memory of current information put together in new innovative ways by the individual, but only because of the memory that resides within the collective. If there were no memory there could be no cause to make decisions. - >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. - I do not know (how can anyone?) whether the collective field "comes from" a God that created it, or whether it is itself, God. But I do believe the collective field has a vibratory sense that enables each individual field as well as the collective, to maintain a certain order within the all that IS, as a separated whole.