the architectural differences between organisms are not in the building materials, nor the energy involved in their design, but in the underlying blueprint. geneticists and embryologists once called these morphogenic fields: a cluster of cells able to respond to local biochemical signals so as to differentiate as a group. this original morphogenetic field hypothesis of Alexander Gurwitsch's means that a region of cells could be directed to become partiular tissues, organs and forms, and it explained how an embryo could be cut in half, and still the whole final form would develop. the modern appreciation of morphogenetic fields, though, has been modified by botanist Rupert Sheldrake, who has redefined the morphogenetic field to encompass an energy field surrounding these cellular clusters. Sheldrake's fields, then, contain virtual future forms which attract the developing organism toward them.
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the principle of superposition states that the world can exist in any of many possible configurations of wave-particles and fields. what David Bohm, then, calls the explicate world is the result of the observer "choosing" between various patterns of constructive and destructive wave interference. from this "choice" emerges an individual field from the many possible fields contained in the implicate world. when an observation is made the wave function derived from Schrodinger's equation, which represents one of the possibilities, collapses and then corresponds to one said possible outcome.
superposition is also the basis for Fourier's laws suggesting infinite complexity in th universe. this infinite complexity is complementary to the implicate order in that it defines it as infinite potential from which the finite explicate order is derived.
this infinite complexity provided by superposition of wave-particles gives substance to the idea of an ever-expanding universe, as, with time, more and more of the infinite possibilities are "chosen" to emerge as explicate fields. said expansion, in turn, supports evolution as more potential complexity is incorporated from implicate to explicate. it also supports regression of some complexities as explicate forms both feed back and revert to implicate forms. and the notion of the implicate order fits in quite nicely here, i think, because it is at the plane where possibility crosses over into actuality that quantum mechanics fails, and it does so because quantum physical equations don't describe anything actual, but merely probability of the collapse distinguished by the observer... "chooser."
[my opinion for the moment is that the observer does indeed have complete control over the actuality of things on a quantum level. however, i don't believe that observation of more gross physicalities (animate and inanimate) has an effect on their overall condition. put more clearly, i don't believe in the power of modern humans to harness telekinesis, or change the final form of rocks with their eyes... i merely acknowledge that the activity of individual or clusters of smaller particles (electrons, fluid behavior, chemical interaction) may be subject to manipulation. and i think Sheldrake is a little obtuse in his rationale of morphogenetic fields explaining telepathy.]
so who is this "chooser?" whose observation directs evolution at the level of the wave-particle by collapsing infinite possibility into finite actuality? is it in the hands of the mind, or the zpf?
i'm intrigued by the idea of answering addressing these thoughts using the morphogenetic field hypothesis... as a combination of Gurwitsch and Sheldrake's notions (because Sheldrake takes the abstraction a bit too far and Gurwitsch not far enough). Gurwitsch goes no further than explaining that a whole embryo, when cut in half, continues to generate as a whole due to communication between cell clusters (biological MF's). why? because as in the case of magnets, the whole field is contained in every part such that if you chop a magnet in half, each chunk still has a full magnetic field with north and south poles complete with field lines. it is this phenomenon through which Sheldrake later jumps to evolution of the universe being directed by morphogenetic fields as magnetic fields as opposed to clusters of cells responding in like to biochemical signals. Sheldrake's MF's (physical MF's), then, would be the directors of those biochemical signals.
where i am skeptical is concerning the point at which DNA and G-S morphogenetic fields would interact. certainly it's possible that transcription and translation of DNA into differentiated final forms could be guided by an electromagnetic field; if a field is holographic and can differentiate potential complexities into finite actualities, why not, right? but what is it that would make this interaction a necessary explanation of evolution?
[to clarify, Sheldrake is somewhat of a leech hippie who is overstepping the smaller inconsistencies of morphogenetic fields in order to explain telepathy. what he's suggesting is cool; the idea that the mere existence of a form is sufficiently helpful to allow the same form to come into existence somewhere else. and yes, evolution could be based on an idea like this. HOWEVER. Gurwitsch's morphogenetic fields were proposed in the 1930's, long before Rupert the fagele...]
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genes. genes code for proteins. but they don't explain the final destination of cells, tissues, etc.; they're necessary but not sufficient for the final form of an organism, as such. so morphogenetic fields would supposedly direct the hierarchical organization, and the evolution of genes and the products of their encoding.
neat. how?
they have memory, says hippie Sheldrake. morphic resonance. that's right. morphic resonance refers to the communiction between individual morphogenetic fields. MF's which contain only information - no energy or architectural materials - hold memory of forms which they have directed in the past. which actually reminds me of Jaques Benveniste's studies that demonstrated water retaining memory of IgE antibodies that weren't actually in solution any longer (via antigen immunoreactivity). the MF explanation of his findings would be that water retained memory of the antibody because the morphogenetic resonance of fields in the liquid retained the memory. but this was years and years ago and i'm getting off track...
...morphogenetic fields. evolution. memory contained within morphic resonance. and while i approach this theory with scalpel in hand, i will remind, too, that there was a time at which DNA was no less abstract and metaphysical an idea than morphogenetic fields are currently. okay, back...
Sheldrake suggests that the blueprint memory in morphic resonance is supervened on the inference patterns of waveform activity. lovely. how does this resonance among MF's direct alterations in gene expression so as to dictate evolution? it ends up being very similar to the idea of acquired characteristics... a phrase which makes biologists cringe. grossly, acquired characteristics refers to Lamarck's principle that adaptations of individual organisms could be passed to the next generation. based on Mendelian genetics and observations of inheritance, Lamarck's theory was abandoned. now, with morphogenetic resonance, it is somewhat resurfacing, if only at a quantum level. a change in the environment of a population of an organismic species can supposedly trigger a tuning-in to new ranges of the possible outcomes described by superposition, resulting in a new sequence of genetic changes. which is to say, the MF would respond to changes in the environment, morphic resonance would retain memory of said MF adaptation, and the field would then alter transcription of DNA within the cluster of cells under dictation of that particular MF.
while this is a badass theory and a neato explanation of evolution as controlled by magnetism... it gets a little too magical for me here. i like the idea of electromagnetic fields creating condensed and localized fields from which matter and mind emerge, but i'm also hugely skeptical of the degree of realism that... seems to be missing. the realism, then, returns to my original question: as "choosers" of actuality from infinite possibility, how would morphogenetic fields interact with DNA to direct trascription?
it is because there is no algorithmic explanation for why genes are translated in the manner that they are that morphic resonance and morphogenic fields are so appealing. they allow for responsibility to be supervened on a substance (or physical force, as it were), which is more attractive than responsibility arising out of nowhere. however, without algorithmic definition or non-circular logic, MFs also seem to arise out of nowhere...
it seems like the cluster of cells under the dictation of a given morphogenetic field would be aggregated by said field. then again, it's a question of who came first, the chicken or the egg.
but.
were it the case that morphogenetic fields arose... out of some essence described by a combination of quantum mechanics and relativity... that they could effectively gather un-programmed cells, and direct the biochemical pathways which determine the genetic sequences that are transcribed for that particular group. magic.
then again, there's the issue of the role of consciousness as the observer. how can these collapses of genetic possibility into actuality occur when a meaningful combination of genes already exists to be translated? does the collapse occur before the genes are in place? but this gets into concepts of spontaneous DNA formation which i'm not ready to flush out.
my brain has no idea where to go from here.
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when think about evolution, i do so in the context of evolution of the universe... none of this "earthly organisms evolve but the universe is quintessential and eternal" crap.
the big bang... from the percept of morphogenetic fields... would go something like... the emergence of form being made possible by a progressive cooling process that began with the sun spitting out electrons at 2500 degrees C, which cooled enough to coagulate into atoms which cooled enough to aggregate into molecules, etc. and this progression occurred as novelty with endurance such that persistent novelty didn't result in complete chaos. i like it. i'll develop it later...
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