It's worth reading at least the first few chapters of Sheldrake's "A new Science of Life". There are apparently a whole range of phenomena that demonstrate what I've named a "Critical Density Principle". For example, rats running a new maze take much longer to solve it than different rats in other labs during subsequents tests, suggesting a "remote learning" capability. We only have to look at the "computer literacy" of the younger generations versus the older folk to see similar evidence in humans. Even at the chemical level, the first crystallization of a new substance can take considerably longer than subsequent events. These are the sorts of phenomena that led Sheldrake to propose his Theory of Formative Causation.
My own experience is that most people don't WANT to accept new possibilities, and will find any and every "reason" why they can't exist. On the other hand, Radin warns of the ease with which we can deceive ourselves in this sort of work. Older traditions teach that the mind is both an organ of creation and an organ of perception - thus is it easy to create a mental image, become attached to it, and insist on its validity because it "looks so right".
Einstein said, "It is the theory that decides what we can observe. I believe that there is now so much evidence pointing to the probability of phenomena beyond the physical that we need to open our minds to it in order not to shut it out. Further more, the final consensus of the 2005 Solvay Conference - the peak worldwide convention of physicists - was that "We don't know what we are talking about. We have no idea what our theories mean." Dialectical materialism was formally adopted by physicists at the 1927 Solvay Conference, so we've effectively come full circle.
If you're interested, I can outline a new approach to electromagnetic theory that is quite in accord with existing theory, but extends it in such a way as to demonstrate new possibilities in atomic structure. I'm not the only one to suggest this, but I do have a couple of new angles. These ideas arose as a consequence of my interest in the psychophysical interface (PPI) - if consciousness does interact with matter, it must do so across a boundary or "interface" of some sort. Once this has been identified and its properties understood, we have the possibility of "opening a window" directly into the realm of subjective phenomena, a breakthrough I've long been waiting for, and one that would allow rapid progress thereafter.
11 May 2008, 7:19 pm
