Interesting

[jaybreak]

Edit: I found a copy locally that I can use.

Good to hear, Ed.

I noticed, trawling through some of the related videos, that Sheldrake's theories tie into the electric universe cosmology, a view that Eric Dollard somewhat adheres to (not sure how closely). I think I linked you to some of Dollard's videos before, Ed.

I'm not qualified to say how robust the electric universe theory is, but it's interesting reading nonetheless. There's lots of poo-pooing that cosmology from official scientific circles, which makes me think there's something to it. It's much more easily understandable to laymen, which might be why the Einstein-based industry we have now eyes it suspiciously: if there's the universe's mechanisms aren't as arcane as we once thought, they'd be out of a job. On the other hand, electric universe cosmology would gain popular support regardless because it is more easily understandable, which doesn't necessarily speak to its robustness as a predictive model.

The two theories aren't necessarily incompatible, either. The EU theory takes into account gravity, but it's much less emphasized from the classical Einsteinian model. That classical model, too, has plenty of gaps in terms of large scale predictions. Astrophysicists talk about "dark matter" and "dark energy" to jump that gap, when the EU theory already offers an explanation. Just, I don't know, go explore that and incorporate it into Einstein? There's no reason other than self-interest or ego to not do that.

Another catch is that the EU model leaves it open to consider the universe as a living thing, where the classical model considers physical laws to be more constant. That's probably the biggest impediment.