Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery

by Rupert Sheldrake

Self-organizing systems have their own ends or goals, attractors toward which they move. All living organisms show goal-directed development and behavior. Developing plants and animals are attracted toward developmental ends, and if their development is disrupted they can often reach the same end by a different pathway. Animal behavior is directed toward ends or “consummatory acts.” In physics, goal-directed behavior is modelled in terms of attractors, as if future ends had an influence working “backward” in time, and several quantum theorists have proposed that causal influences move from the future toward the past, as well as from the past toward the future. Chemical processes like protein folding also seem to be directed toward attractors or ends. End-directed behavior is usually unconscious; even in humans, most purposes and goals are habitual. Conscious purposes are the exception rather than the rule. Both evolution and progress can be interpreted in terms of attractors, with influences working backward in time from future goals.