...And We Will Have Snow

Chapter 11: Drake

When everyone had settled Dema turned to Cern and said, "Okay, what else are we trying to bottle?"

"What?"

"You said Tengri hinted at something else."

"You mean, beside Gaia in a bottle, and the sun in a bottle?" Dema nodded. Cern looked at Tengri, who smiled knowingly and said, "Change in a bottle. We're getting there. Drake, do you want to tell us about morphogenetic theory?"

Drake looked around slowly, smiled, and cleared his throat. "Uhm. Yes. Morphogenesis, the creation of form. We see it all around us. Plants grow. Animals grow. Somehow each one knows what form to grow into. Modern biologists like to attribute it all to the genetic code. But there is good evidence it isn't all genetic. The accepted term for that is epigenetics, but that's a catch-all for biological phenomena that are not well understood."

He looked around again, apologetically. "I'm sorry, I don't want to be too technical. Really it's an idea that goes back to Plato, that for every animal form there is an archetype that each individual is attempting to express.

"Plato of course was vague about it, he was merely expressing a personal view of things that seemed to make sense to those around him. Modern neuroscientists speak of mirror cells, neurons that fire in the brain when an animal performs an act, which also fire sympathetically when the animal witnesses another performing a similar act. Not really a much better explanation than Plato's." He looked around briefly with a little smile and a twinkle in his eyes.

"Frankly, I believe these are but weak attempts to explain something that is all too familiar, and really needs no explanation. They are examples of failing to see the forest because we are too intimate with our individual trees." He looked around again. He had not quite lost his audience, but it looked like he was verging on it.

"Alright then. Let me jump to the chase. The term I like to use is 'morphic resonance'. By that I mean a form becomes easier to express when there are already other forms like it, and this is because there is an established pattern for the new one to imitate, a mature example. It's easy for a tree to grow in a forest among similar trees, and I believe that there is a real phenomenon at work that creates an acceptance, an expectation, of the new tree taking that form. And this applies not just to trees, but to all living, growing things."

Now he had them. Dema, in particular, appeared to be almost glowing with interest. He felt like she wanted to tell the rest for him. He quickly continued.

"Now words like acceptance and expectation probably sound anthropomorphic, but I think that view is an inversion of the case. The phenomenon applies equally to plants and people. But in people it attains a new significance, because people have a unique level of cultural awareness. We tell each other stories. We make things up. We explain things to each other. We trade ideas! The contents of our minds resonate in ways that have almost nothing to do with observed physical reality.

"So along with morphic resonance we now have cultural resonance. And culture can evolve much faster than form. And that is exactly because culture can bypass the genetic medium, and the morphic resonance as well, and evolve in the medium of mind."

Drake paused to take a breath. He surveyed his audience again. He still had them. He decided to tell them the rest of it.

"There is another word I like to use, an engineering term meaning a space that contains something. The word is plenum. I think of the plenum as a place where patterns are stored, and where they can resonate.

"In physics we consider that space-time has four dimensions. In string theory people discuss ideas requiring as many as eleven or more dimensions, depending on what day you talk to them. Mathematicians easily find reasons to consider any number of dimensions, even infinitely many. Most of those ideas about dimension have little or no significance in everyday life. We get along quite well with the four of space and time. But I think we really do need one more, the dimension of mind, the one I call the plenum. Because it is obviously there, we all have access to it, and yet it seems not to reside in anything physical.

"It's only for lack of a clearer concept that we tend to think of it as another dimension, or a space that has one point of access for each of us. But through that access we can create a resonance with anything it contains. And it apparently contains all memories. Not just our own, but of everything. It's obviously impossible to access all of it at once, but through the phenomenon of morphic resonance we can access any part with which we are in some sense familiar. When two of us share a thought we access the same part of it together, create an agreement.

"Some of my acquaintances with a penchant for plumbing the depths of philosophy like to speculate that the plenum is the source of the physical universe, that the Big Bang sprang from the plenum. To me such ideas are of little use. But as a working hypothesis to explain things that rely on shared memories I find it very useful, so I use it.

"I think it already works to explain biological forms." 

Dema nodded her agreement enthusiastically.

"But I think we can also use it to explain the workings of human culture, and how to identify points of resonance that can be used to obtain agreement among different cultural perspectives.

"Tengri agrees with me about this, and thinks you will agree with me too and find it useful.

"I hope he's right."

Drake found that he was leaning forward in his chair, his body tense with the excitement that relaying these ideas always aroused in him. With a deep breath he leaned back and tried to relax, but his eyes searched those of his listeners, looking for hints of agreement. His mind sensed that the agreement in the room was actually very strong. His sense at that moment of resonance with the plenum, and through it of resonance with these other bright points of access to it, was exhilarating. It was as if his own mind had left his body behind and entered the plenum entirely, the sense of physical existence dwindling to the point of being inconsequential.

The moment passed, and he noticed that in another corner of the lounge Ray was sprawled deep in a big soft chair, his eyes wide and his hand raised tentatively. Drake became aware that those eyes were focused on him, and he said, "Hi Ray. What's up?"

"I just wanted to mention that I can model that in VR. I'm not sure it's the same thing, but the quantum portal on the supercomputer gives us access to the quantum realm, and that could mean that we can find points of resonance with the plenum."

Everyone looked at Ray. He sank deeper into his chair. But they were smiling so he smiled back.

Cern said, "He's right, you know."

Heads nodded. Ray lit up like the sun. With no bottle.