The Presence of the Past

Összefoglaló

Why are rabbits rabbit-shaped? Once blue-tits began pecking the tops off milk bottles, why did the habit spread magically across Europe? After Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile, why did it begin to be broken everywhere? In The Presence of the Past Rupert Sheldrake's explosive scientific theory provides a new and radical solution to the conundrums of life. Dr Sheldrake's hypothesis is that memory is inherent in nature — all natural.ystems from crystals to man inherit a collective memory of their kind.Thus, rabbits are rabbit-shaped not only because their DNA encodes their proteins, but also because nature has a `morphia field', n their case, a rabbit-habit, that informs their growth and instinctive behaviour. According to Dr Sheldrake's theory of 'formative causation', this inherent memory depends on `morphia resonance', a process that involves action at a distance in both space and time. Far from being stored as material traces within our brains, our own memories result from our tuning in to ourselves in the past.