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Co-produced by the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Scientific and Medical Network
How is the past still present?
Rupert Sheldrake’s first book A New Science of Life caused both excitement and consternation when it first appeared in 1981. The editor of the journal Nature famously condemned it for heresy, describing it as “the best candidate for burning there has been for many years.” Sheldrake’s proposal was that memory is inherent in nature; the “laws of nature” are not fixed commandments imposed on the universe at the Big Bang, but rather habits that evolve. The process of morphic resonance carries the memory of past systems into subsequent similar self-organizing systems, and applies to molecules, cells, organs, organisms, and societies of organisms. This hypothesis predicts that each species has a kind of collective memory. If rats learn a new trick in London, for example, rats all over the world should be able to learn the same trick quicker.
A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance After 40 Years
Friday, April 30, 2021
11:00am – 12:30pm Pacific
In this talk, Dr. Sheldrake will summarize this hypothesis and discuss how developments in science over the last 40 years have made it more plausible.
HOST
David Lorimer is a writer, lecturer, poet and editor who is a Founder of Character Education Scotland, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, and former President of Wrekin Trust and the Swedenborg Society. He has also been editor of Paradigm Explorer since 1986 and completed his 100th issue in 2019. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Survival? Death as Transition, Resonant Mind (originally Whole in One), The Spirit of Science, Thinking Beyond the Brain, and Radical Prince about the ideas and work of the Prince of Wales. He is the originator of the Inspiring Purpose Values Poster Programmes, which has reached over 350,000 young people. He is also Chair of the Galileo Commission which seeks to widen science beyond a materialistic world view. Visit his website to learn more.
SPEAKER
Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author of more than 90 scientific papers and nine books, including The Presence of the Past. The third edition of A New Science of Life, fully revised and updated, is published in the UK by Icon Books, and in the US, retitled Morphic Resonance, by Park Street Press. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, and a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and of Schumacher College, in Dartington, Devon. He lives in London.
