Visions of unity: An exploration of the scientific theories of James Lovelock and Rupert Sheldrake

• Main Author: Green, Michael Ellis
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1998
• Subjects: Biology; Philosophy; Religion
• ISBN: 0599027908; 9780599027909

Modern science seeks a complete and coherent description of reality, but has generally excluded topics incompatible with the prevailing mechanistic model, such as spiritual and paranormal mental experiences. Our modern Western culture has thus been shaped along superficial, secular, and exploitative lines within an increasingly valueless, spiritually sterile, and ecologically degraded world. Modern physics, however, has challenged the mechanistic model, making possible an enlarged scientific vision. The dissertation investigates two contemporary theories which affirm unifying structures unacknowledged by mainstream science, evaluates their legitimacy and implications, and considers their compatibility with non-local and mental causation. British scientist James Lovelock proposes that the earth and the biosphere constitute a single, dynamic, interdependent system, called "Gaia" after the Greek goddess of the earth. For several billion years, this system has automatically controlled conditions critical to its own survival: temperature, atmospheric and oceanic composition, etc. The implications are that we humans share a living planet in a living, creative universe; non-local causation, without mental causation, pervades the web of life. English biologist Rupert Sheldrake believes that the universe is structured by "formative causation," in which the "habits" of an evolving universe are stored in hierarchically-organized, organismic structures of consciousness called "morphic fields." Evidence suggests that learning is cumulative: once begun, any process or skill becomes progressively more easily learned or reproduced everywhere else. The implications are that individual and collective memories, even the ambience of locations, reside in morphic fields outside the brain; non-local and mental causation are fundamental. One possible source of support is the theory of American physicist David Bohm, who proposes that mind and matter both arise from the "Implicate Order," a realm of "undivided wholeness" that underlies and interconnects everything in the physical universe. These theories can be integrated: the implicate order underlies the universe, manifesting as morphic fields of causative intelligence which coordinate all activities within the universe, including those of Gaia. The universe is pervaded by intelligence and creativity, and within its structures, human mental activity is interactive and causative. If these theories are proved valid, non-local and causative mental phenomena have a scientific basis.