Rupert Sheldrake

In two words, the reception has been: not good. As you can see from the dissertation by Phillip Stevens, Sheldrake has been criticized ever since he proposed the idea of morphic resonance and formative causation.

Readers of this site know that I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Sheldrake and his work. He has observed some significant flaws in the current model of biology (and other places, too). His proposals are a long stride in the direction of a solution to the issues he raises. If anything, though, i think he is being too cautious.

Where he says morphic resonance, I say life force. While he is ambiguous about what holds morphic resonance, I propose the idea of a soul. I think this is more than using different words. When you have morphic resonance, it’s a hard thing to measure. Using the idea of extended mind helps, but it just doesn’t lead to the kind of detailed predictions you can get from a soul model.