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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 209.135.115.121 (talk) at 23:00, 30 May 2006 (it is not said in talk that you put back 'pseudoscience' in text! .. And it is refered to HYPOTHESIS of Formative Causation (and not some 'notion')). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A morphic field (a term introduced by Rupert Sheldrake, the major proponent of this concept, through his Hypothesis of Formative Causation) is described as consisting of patterns that govern the development of forms, structures and arrangements. The theory of morphic fields is not accepted by mainstream science.

In a manner similar to Platonic idealism, morphic fields are defined as the universal database for both organic (living) and abstract (mental) forms, while morphogenetic fields (term that was already in use in environmental biology from 1920's after unrelated research of three biologists - Hans Spemann, Alexander Gurwitsch and Paul Weiss) Sheldrake defined as the subset that deals only with living things.

“The term is more general in its meaning than morphogenetic fields, and includes other kinds of organizing fields in addition to those of morphogenesis; 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 contatin an inherent memory.” - Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past (Chapter 6, page 112)

According to these ideas, the morphic field underlies the formation and behavior of holons and morphic units, and can be set up by the repetition of similar acts and/or thoughts. Form is described as tuning into its morphic field, storing and reading the related information through morphic resonance.

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