One of Rupert Sheldrake's more charming examples of morphic fields lies in the idea of joint attention. Children, it seems, are especially amenable to and desirous of such collaborations, at least in my experience. And I think Sheldrake's theory of morphic fields offers intriguing insights into the dynamic, because the relation formed is not so much the formation of a connection between two or more observers, but an entry into a zone of attention by those concerned.
For example, there is no denying the special feeling one gets when stooping down to examine a flower with a child. The practice of examining something with another person, especially a child, imparts a feeling that is different from doing it alone. How does this sharing take place? Materialists would point to some known agent or mechanism: maybe an airborne chemical or perhaps to a cultural of social construction based upon proximity and direction, or to notions about vision and other senses and related cognitive and somatic responses.
My question is if the proposed scenario is a dynamic or a trinamic, if you forgive the coinage, the first involving the adult and child, and the second including also the flower. Is there a field into which both or all three participants enter and is it responsible for the special feeling that accompanies such encounters? Again, the so-called morphic field that Sheldrake proposes is similar to others with which we are already familiar: gravitational, electro-magnetic, et cetera. I think the morphic field theory is actually more intriguing in the scenario I propose rather than one in which the flower is replaced with a cat or dog, for example, which would likely generate more common explanations, such as one involving some kind of chemical or psycho-social relationship.
There is no denying that this special feeling exists, whatever its cause. Sigmund Freud referred to it as an 'oceanic' feeling and saw it as key to understanding the ubiquity of religion, this feeling of being immersed in some larger force. Sheldrake's contention is that these forces exist but are simply a part of everyday nature, not some kind of imagined or supernatural phenomenon. The ability to sense that one is looking at you, another manifestation of his morphic field theory, would have had a clear function in the evolution of predator-prey relations: prey that had it would be more likely to escape in time and would therefore have emerged as the better adapted and therefore surviving species.
I have no doubt that when people speak of 'communing with nature' that it is this same feeling of immersive relation to which they refer. It is definitely place-based, to use a geographer's term; it is not a feeling of being connected so much to individual elements in nature, but to the vastness of nature, and what better word to use to refer to a natural vastness than 'field'? In the case of the flower, or the dog or cat for that matter, I am speaking of an individual, their status as elements of nature depending upon where you draw the line between nature and culture, which is ultimately irresolvable.
Michelangelo Antonio does a wonderful job of depicting this sense of immersion in the final scene of L'Eclisse, which you can view here.
For example, there is no denying the special feeling one gets when stooping down to examine a flower with a child. The practice of examining something with another person, especially a child, imparts a feeling that is different from doing it alone. How does this sharing take place? Materialists would point to some known agent or mechanism: maybe an airborne chemical or perhaps to a cultural of social construction based upon proximity and direction, or to notions about vision and other senses and related cognitive and somatic responses.
My question is if the proposed scenario is a dynamic or a trinamic, if you forgive the coinage, the first involving the adult and child, and the second including also the flower. Is there a field into which both or all three participants enter and is it responsible for the special feeling that accompanies such encounters? Again, the so-called morphic field that Sheldrake proposes is similar to others with which we are already familiar: gravitational, electro-magnetic, et cetera. I think the morphic field theory is actually more intriguing in the scenario I propose rather than one in which the flower is replaced with a cat or dog, for example, which would likely generate more common explanations, such as one involving some kind of chemical or psycho-social relationship.
There is no denying that this special feeling exists, whatever its cause. Sigmund Freud referred to it as an 'oceanic' feeling and saw it as key to understanding the ubiquity of religion, this feeling of being immersed in some larger force. Sheldrake's contention is that these forces exist but are simply a part of everyday nature, not some kind of imagined or supernatural phenomenon. The ability to sense that one is looking at you, another manifestation of his morphic field theory, would have had a clear function in the evolution of predator-prey relations: prey that had it would be more likely to escape in time and would therefore have emerged as the better adapted and therefore surviving species.
I have no doubt that when people speak of 'communing with nature' that it is this same feeling of immersive relation to which they refer. It is definitely place-based, to use a geographer's term; it is not a feeling of being connected so much to individual elements in nature, but to the vastness of nature, and what better word to use to refer to a natural vastness than 'field'? In the case of the flower, or the dog or cat for that matter, I am speaking of an individual, their status as elements of nature depending upon where you draw the line between nature and culture, which is ultimately irresolvable.
Michelangelo Antonio does a wonderful job of depicting this sense of immersion in the final scene of L'Eclisse, which you can view here.
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