Thousands of years ago, a Greek philosopher named Plato
developed the idea that humans had a part of them that
survived death. In Watchtower-Land, (a fantasy realm)
Witnesses are told about 'Platonic' philosophy - without
ever examining why he thought the 'soul' survives the body
or why his hunch might have been right!
Plato looked around and saw that while humans, animals,
and plants died and decayed, their FORMS appeared to be
eternal. Babies kept being born with two eyes, two legs,
and ten fingers, century after century. How was it possible
that things died yet the forms kept reliably returning?
He concluded that there must be a World of Forms - a hidden
dimension or invisible world where all the specific forms
were kept, like blueprints or templates, ready to make
more people, cattle, or olive trees.
As centuries passed, laws of heredity were discovered
and it was supposed that eventually all the 'blueprint'
information for each form would be found somewhere in the
cells of living things. However, a few observers still
expressed skepticism that all form and INSTINCTS were
recorded in the cells. (Vedanta, Voice of Freedom 1902
page 260,261). In 1949, the professor of zoology at Oxford
Alister Hardy, wrote that "there is a general subconscious
sharing of a form and behavior design, a sort of psychic
blueprint between members of a species" and that "the
mathematical plans of growth seem to have all the appearance
of a pattern outside the physical world which has served
as plan for selective action by way of changing combinations
of genes." In 1980, an article appeared in Coevolution
Quarterly called "Dogma & Iconoclasm in Biology: The Gene
Is Not Enough" It offered the thought that some believed
that since "the color of the eye is controlled by genes,
the formation of the eye is also controlled by genes.
But this is an extremely dangerous extrapolation."(pg.61
No.26).
This brings us up to recent years when after the human genome
was decoded, the chief scientific officer at Celera Genomics
made clear that the human genome is NOT a blueprint.
"it's not true, we don't think blueprint is the right
metaphor" (Science News Yahoo/ Reuters Feb. 11, 01).
I subscribe to Science Frontiers which keeps me up to date
with more and more of these anomalies suggesting that
'something' is radically missing from our concept of how
living things develop - How do you encode a map of terrain
into genes that can guide a bird or insect succesfully
in migration - even when it is raised away from its parents?
If you wish to read more about this, try "The Spiritual
Universe" by Fred Wolf (PH.D in physics) or "Synchronicity,
Science, and SoulMaking" by Victor Mansfield (Professor
of Physics and Astronomy at Colgate) or "Recovering the
Soul" by Larry Dossey(M.D.).
My 'obsession' with this subject is based on the one
fact that researchers are running out of possible causes
for forms. Eventually, you hit the quantum level, and that's
it, all she wrote!
If the search for forms runs into a dead end, think of the
consequences for the world. Will reincarnation gain
new respect? Will the world change spiritually?
Will religions like the Watchtower evaporate in favor
of more tolerant, universal creeds?
Maybe so
I'm waiting eagerly to see
metatron