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
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.
inquiry belief open-minded
Science at its best is an open-minded method of inquiry, not a belief system.
spring creativity opportunity
The biggest bursts of speciation that we know about in the history of the earth are soon after great cataclysms, like the extinction of the dinosaurs, which create new opportunities, and all sorts of new forms spring up... So, quite often, the reasons for creativity depend on accidents or disasters that prevent the normal habits being carried out.
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.
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.
mind matter development
Matter is merely mind deadened by the development of habit to the point where the breaking up of these habits is very difficult.
bears belief kind
There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty.
creativity thinking patterns
I think that creativity depends on having sufficient indeterminacy around for a new pattern to arise up within it.
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.
patterns moments behavior
At the moment of insight, a potential pattern of organized behavior comes into being.
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.
mean thinking people
What you do, what you say and what you think can influence other people by morphic resonance. There is no immoral filter in morphic resonance, which means that we have to be more careful about what we are thinking if we are concerned about the affect we have on others.
philosophy reality materialism
Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical.
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.