Force Fields, Behind the Fog of Maths: Sheldrake–Vernon Dialogue 87

Einstein remarked that there was physics before Maxwell and physics after Maxwell, the difference being the introduction of modern field theory. So what difference did fields make and, more to the point, what are they? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore how electromagnetic and gravitational, quantum and morphic fields shape modern science. They ask whether fields are a way that mechanistic understandings of nature have revived Aristotle’s notion of formal and final causes and look at the fact that fields aren’t energetic or material causes. They draw on ancient notions of soul to ask how fields can be part of an expansive notion of science, which has long drawn on entities that aren’t directly detectable to understand nature. Fields as realities in themselves are rarely discussed by scientists, the nature of fields hidden behind a fog of mathematics. But they fascinated figures like Faraday and Maxwell and might fascinate us again.

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Dr Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist and writer with a rich academic background in physics, theology, and philosophy. He contributes to programmes on the radio, writes and reviews for newspapers and magazines, gives talks and podcasts. His books have covered themes including friendship and God, ancient Greek philosophy and wellbeing. His new book, out August 2019, is "A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness". He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. He used to be an Anglican priest.

Mark's latest book is...
A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness

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Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University, as a Fellow of Clare College, he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells, and together with Philip Rubery discovered the mechanism of polar auxin transport. In India, he was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, where he helped develop new cropping systems now widely used by farmers. He is the author of more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and his research contributions have been widely recognized by the academic community, earning him a notable h-index for numerous citations. On ResearchGate his Research Interest Score puts him among the top 4% of scientists.

[bjsmith]

I love his curiosity and playful delight in science. He has discipline but that doesn't mean he has boundaries, which is why he's an outsider. We can't have a free spirit in science it seems.

[TheWorldTeacher]

😇 May God Bless You Always, Dr. Sheldrake! And thank you for responding to my email yesterday.

[kencrotty]

Over twenty years ago, I worked in the Federal Public Service in Western Australia, . A colleague approached me on one occasion and asked me if I would like to join a Chi Gong group, run by a Chi Gong practitioner, who was also a
physiotherapist. I had no idea what the term entailed, so I said, 'Why not.'

Right from the beginning, Irena. the leader was at pains to demonstrate the action of the 'Chi, ' in a palpable manner. All twelve of us formed a circle; one half of the circle would breathe-in, raising their arms vertically and then as their arms came down to their lowest level, the other half of the circle would raise their arms similarly, to the vertical level. As this process continued, the leader asked each of us, individually, to stand in the center of the circle, while the rest of us in the group continued the reciprocal arm movements.

To my surprise, the person standing in the middle of the group, swayed back and forth, in accordance with the arm movements of those in the circle. When it became my turn, I could feel myself irresistibly being pulled from one side of the group to the other, in an inexorable swaying motion. Also, it fitted within the parameters of empiricism and was repeatable, albeit, invisible fields.

[georgegolitzin]

Great discussion. The article on A N Whitehead in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy contains the following relevant passage:

In Whitehead’s eyes...the development of Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism constituted an antidote to Newton’s scientific materialism, for it led him to conceive the whole universe as “a field of force—or, in other words, a field of incessant activity” (1934 [2011: 27]). The theory of electromagnetism served Whitehead to overcome Newton’s “fallacy of simple location” (1925 [1967: 49]), that is, the conception of nature as a universe of self-sufficient isolated bits of matter. Indeed, we cannot say of an electromagnetic event that it is "here in space, and here in time, or here in space-time, in a perfectly definite sense which does not require for its explanation any reference to other regions of space-time." (1925 [1967: 49])

The theory of electromagnetism “involves the entire abandonment of the notion that simple location is the primary way in which things are involved in space-time” because it reveals that, “in a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times” (1925 [1967: 91]). “Long ago”, Whitehead wrote, Faraday already remarked “that in a sense an electric charge is everywhere”, and: "the modification of the electromagnetic field at every point of space at each instant owing to the past history of each electron is another way of stating the same fact." (1920 [1986: 148])

The lesson that Whitehead learned from the theory of electromagnetism is unambiguous:

"The fundamental concepts are activity and process. … The notion of self-sufficient isolation is not exemplified in modern physics. There are no essentially self-contained activities within limited regions. … Nature is a theatre for the interrelations of activities. All things change, the activities and their interrelations. … In the place of the procession of [spatial] forms (of externally related bits of matter, modern physics) has substituted the notion of the forms of process. It has thus swept away space and matter, and has substituted the study of the internal relations within a complex state of activity." (1934 [2011: 35–36])

[MasoudJohnAzizi]

The great philosopher-biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake indeed speaks the #truth. May he continue his great and enlightening works! Ahhmeeen.

[RSEFX]

This is a very compelling discussion. The influences of the unseen, that part of the universe that is invisible to all of our senses, but can be measured by the "extra-sensory" instruments our minds have devised.
Thank you so much for this (and all the other) dialogues.

[seanmchugh]

Do appreciate that guys, especially the genuine scientific spirit of enquiry- as so lacking in establishment academia.

[mauriziorestaldo]

These are all high quality contributions what your giving to us. Thank you Dr. Sheldrake!

[donovan]

A perfect example of how confused humanity has been since trying to understand action at a distance, no levers or anything!!

[anonymoushuman]

It's strange how physical science is taught with the focus almost exclusively on calculating quantities and solving equations, rather than on understanding the nature of the physical phenomena and processes the equations describe. Children could learn a lot more about the physical world early on if teachers had an intuitive understanding of the physical phenomena behind the equations. All of us could have a much richer general, qualitative understanding of the physical world. Right now, for the most part, you either learn to solve the equations or you don't learn the phenomena.

[barrycrump]

Thank you for a most engaging and enlightening discussion. More please.

[chandraleekrohn]

I’d like to thank both of you, Mark Vernon and Rupert Sheldrake, for this delightful podcast. It is a pleasure beyond words; though, I am confident that both of you are well equipped to eloquently deliver my feelings through the medium of verbal expression.

[williamwalker]

The speed of light is not a constant as once thought, and this has now been proved by Electrodynamic theory and by Experiments done by many independent researchers. The results clearly show that light propagates instantaneously when it is created by a source, and reduces to approximately the speed of light in the farfield, about one wavelength from the source, and never becomes equal to exactly c. This corresponds the phase speed, group speed, and information speed. Any theory assuming the speed of light is a constant, such as Special Relativity and General Relativity are wrong, and it has implications to Quantum theories as well. So this fact about the speed of light affects all of Modern Physics. Often it is stated that Relativity has been verified by so many experiments, how can it be wrong. Well no experiment can prove a theory, and can only provide evidence that a theory is correct. But one experiment can absolutely disprove a theory, and the new speed of light experiments proving the speed of light is not a constant is such a proof. So what does it mean? Well a derivation of Relativity using instantaneous nearfield light yields Galilean Relativity. This can easily seen by inserting c=infinity into the Lorentz Transform, yielding the GalileanTransform, where time is the same in all inertial frames. So a moving object observed with instantaneous nearfield light will yield no Relativistic effects, whereas by changing the frequency of the light such that farfield light is used will observe Relativistic effects. But since time and space are real and independent of the frequency of light used to measure its effects, then one must conclude the effects of Relativity are just an optical illusion.

Since General Relativity is based on Special Relativity, then it has the same problem. A better theory of Gravity is Gravitoelectromagnetism which assumes gravity can be mathematically described by 4 Maxwell equations, similar to to those of electromagnetic theory. It is well known that General Relativity reduces to Gravitoelectromagnetism for weak fields, which is all that we observe. Using this theory, analysis of an oscillating mass yields a wave equation set equal to a source term. Analysis of this equation shows that the phase speed, group speed, and information speed are instantaneous in the nearfield and reduce to the speed of light in the farfield. This theory then accounts for all the observed gravitational effects including instantaneous nearfield and the speed of light farfield. The main difference is that this theory is a field theory, and not a geometrical theory like General Relativity. Because it is a field theory, Gravity can be then be quantized as the Graviton.

Lastly it should be mentioned that this research shows that the Pilot Wave interpretation of Quantum Mechanics can no longer be criticized for requiring instantaneous interaction of the pilot wave, thereby violating Relativity. It should also be noted that nearfield electromagnetic fields can be explained by quantum mechanics using the Pilot Wave interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (HUP), where Δx and Δp are interpreted as averages, and not the uncertainty in the values as in other interpretations of quantum mechanics. So in HUP: Δx Δp = h, where Δp=mΔv, and m is an effective mass due to momentum, thus HUP becomes: Δx Δv = h/m. In the nearfield where the field is created, Δx=0, therefore Δv=infinity. In the farfield, HUP: Δx Δp = h, where p = h/λ. HUP then becomes: Δx h/λ = h, or Δx=λ. Also in the farfield HUP becomes: λmΔv=h, thus Δv=h/(mλ). Since p=h/λ, then Δv=p/m. Also since p=mc, then Δv=c. So in summary, in the nearfield Δv=infinity, and in the farfield Δv=c, where Δv is the average velocity of the photon according to Pilot Wave theory. Consequently the Pilot wave interpretation should become the preferred interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. It should also be noted that this argument can be applied to all fields, including the graviton. Hence all fields should exhibit instantaneous nearfield and speed c farfield behavior, and this can explain the non-local effects observed in quantum entangled particles.




Dr. William Walker - PhD in physics from ETH Zurich, 1997

[chrisjudd-ucsh]

One of your best podcasts guys for a variety of reasons including the comments, thank you.

[exxzxxe]

Einstein is reported to have said "I understood relativity until the mathematicians became involved."

[henrikjansson]

Hello there,
Your fieldapproach attracts me.
If i visualize the tiniest particle, and want to make a drawing, it will allways have a shell, no matter how many billions of times you cut- never ending story..
In fact, leadbeater and annie bennet meditated and found the first elements, including quarks, the right amount, so they had part of the periodic system before bohr, or whom ever it was constructing it.
At the shell, they zoomed it in, and found bubbles. Still, if there is a bubble, it contains a shell- consisting of what?

Another version: our mind; a tiny part of our mind- nonphysical, created our ego, and this ego created our 5 senses, and those senses creates what we percieves.
The solid world- a trick we cant track down.
James Mahu, in principle.
Another version, similar:
Each of us, our mind, creates our universe, many..
Sometimes they interfere.

Well, Rupert Sheldrake, you are one of the few. And you are created in my mind..- yes, scary heavy shit!

So, the suggestion from Mahu, stop thinking- accept- and know you are one eternal spirit, non physical, and all what we percieve, is a creation of our ego- field or not.

Do have a shot Rupert- you are nice to listen to. And please ad remoteviewing to your physics- farsight.org- they are hard to wave away

[CosmicEnergy]

Always interesting and refreshing! Thank you for these talks 😊

[earthstick]

His theory about people being aware that they are being watched is scoffed at by conventional science, but it's not far from the quantum observer effect. Would any scientist dismiss the observer effect? Rupert just extends the effect beyond the minute scale.

[bavingeter]

Is there a connection between Morphic fields and the phase space if an attractor? Are they essentially the same?

[NotAnotherName]

But the net attraction can be simply explained by the minimization of the energy contained in the stray field. So, in effect, the minimization of energy is a requirement for organizational structures.