From what i've read of Sheldrake's writing, i did not get the impression that his theory is independent of the laws of physics, but rather that he questions the idea of "laws" as abstract entities somehow separate from matter, able to affect matter while not being affected themselves. He is an anti-dualist. From my interpretation of his writings, the existence somewhere in the universe of a mis-folded protein could indeed cause it to happen spontaneously somewhere else, especially the more it happened; but i don't see proximity as a factor being contradictory to his ideas.
This may sound stupid or overly literal, but wouldn't "the persistent patterns of nature are ... habits that are learned by bits of matter locally and which propagate throughout the universe, increasing in likelihood of repetition the more prominent they become" in itself constitute a law that affects matter while not being affected itself?
It seems to me that laws are just the artifacts of filters that we place on reality. We define the problem domain very tightly, define the methodology very tightly, define the acceptable answers very tightly, and when we do all that in a very consistent manner, surprise surprise, everything tends to seem very consistent. We're just playing out tautologies. Which isn't to say that they aren't useful or instructive, but then, so is spoken language.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-05-20 09:05 pm (UTC)This may sound stupid or overly literal, but wouldn't "the persistent patterns of nature are ... habits that are learned by bits of matter locally and which propagate throughout the universe, increasing in likelihood of repetition the more prominent they become" in itself constitute a law that affects matter while not being affected itself?
It seems to me that laws are just the artifacts of filters that we place on reality. We define the problem domain very tightly, define the methodology very tightly, define the acceptable answers very tightly, and when we do all that in a very consistent manner, surprise surprise, everything tends to seem very consistent. We're just playing out tautologies. Which isn't to say that they aren't useful or instructive, but then, so is spoken language.