Morphic Fields, Quantum Nonlocality and Neo-Idealist Conceptions of Consciousness: Towards A Unification

The idea of morphic fields advocated by Rupert Sheldrake – though dismissed out of hand by scientists and philosophers committed to mainstream conceptions of epistemology and the nature of reality – has gained increased respectability and attention thanks to certain developments in science and philosophy. Within science, the idea that reality is non-local – based on ideas and experiments conducted by Alain Aspect and his team since the 1980s and acknowledged in the award of the Nobel prize for Physics to Aspect and colleagues, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, in 2022 – now presents challenges to the standard orthodoxy of reductionist and materialistic conceptions of our knowledge of the world. Such orthodoxy has long been criticised by Sheldrake and other independent-minded scientists and, with a fascinating sense of poetic justice, such findings seem to resonate with and help to endorse Sheldrake’s notion of morphic fields. In addition, similar criticisms of materialistic and reductionist science have informed current debates about the nature of consciousness, and perspectives offered by scientists and philosophers such as Bernardo Kastrup and Donald Hoffman seem to echo many of Sheldrake’s claims about the nature of reality.