Rupert Sheldrake
Rupert Sheldrake
Alfred Rupert Sheldrakeis an English author, public speaker, and researcher in the field of parapsychology, known for his "morphic resonance" concept. He worked as a biochemist and cell biologist at Cambridge University from 1967 to 1973 and as principal plant physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics until 1978...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 June 1942
british-scientist eternal nature theory
The mechanistic theory of nature is a theory of nature, and one that I think is wrong, or at least too limited. It's not an eternal truth.
creative ongoing principles
The universe is not in a steady state; there's an ongoing creative principle in nature, which is driving things onwards.
patterns moments behavior
At the moment of insight, a potential pattern of organized behavior comes into being.
memories animal behaviour
The morphic fields include all kinds of organizing fields...: The organizing fields of animal and human behaviour, of social and cultural systems, and of mental activity can all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent memory.
philosophy reality materialism
Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical.
speech fields culture
Basically, morphic fields are fields of habit, and they've been set up through habits of thought, through habits of activity, and through habits of speech. Most of our culture is habitual...
new-york memories past
The idea is that there is a kind of memory in nature. Each kind of thing has a collective memory. So, take a squirrel living in New York now. That squirrel is being influenced by all past squirrels.
atheist atheism phases
I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14. I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism.
creativity thinking patterns
I think that creativity depends on having sufficient indeterminacy around for a new pattern to arise up within it.
bears belief kind
There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty.
truth discovery self
In practice, the goal of skepticism is not the discovery of truth, but the exposure of other people's errors. It plays a useful role in science, religion, scholarship, and common sense. But we need to remember that it is a weapon serving belief or self-interest; we need to be skeptical of skeptics. The more militant the skeptic, the stronger the belief.
science talking way
I'm talking about science on the leading edge, where it's not clear which way things are going be cause we don't know, and I'm dealing with areas which we don't know about.
inquiry belief open-minded
Science at its best is an open-minded method of inquiry, not a belief system.
cambridge-university years research
I have been a scientist for more than 40 years, having studied at Cambridge and Harvard. I researched and taught at Cambridge University, was a research fellow of the Royal Society, and have more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals. I am strongly pro-science.