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Show NOTE I must include Rupert Sheldrake. Philosopher of science he made a most profound observation on the metaphysics of building. In his 1988 book on "morphic resonance and the habits of nature" he destroys the architects world in one paragraph: For example, as a house is built it takes up a particular structure. Its form is symbolically represented in advance in the architect's diagrams, and to start with it originated in someone's mind. But this form cannot be understood by weighing or chemically analyzing the house not the blueprints nor the architects's brains. The architect's brains contribute to the problem. Nor can it be captured by demolishing the house and examining its constituent parts. With the same building materials and the same amount of labor, houses of different shape and structure could have been built. None of these houses could exist without the materials or without the energy expended by the builders: but neither the materials nor the amount of work done in building fully explain the form of the house. So what is it? It exists materially in the house, but it is not itself material. It is a pattern or arrangement, or structure of information that can be repeated more or less exactly in many individual houses, as in housing developements. It is more like an idea than a thing, but nervertheless it is eseential to these actual houses and cannot be separated from them: it is not only or merely an abstract idea. Rupert Sheldrake THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST MORPHIC RESONANCE AND THE HABITS OF NATURE (Times Books/Random House 1988 New York) pg 52 |