Hummingbird Smiles

Some biologists are at work on a hypothesis known as “field theory.”  The science is, at best, elusive and perhaps wrong; but the effort brings up something we speculated about recently, the probability that much of reality is unknown to us because of our limited sensory abilities.

This biological field theory is distantly analogous to the quantum mechanics idea of “action at a distance.”  In the dancing world of subatomic particles, physicists have proven that electrons have “spin”. Separate two electrons with the same spin and place them so far apart that nothing traveling at the Universe’s speed limit of 186,000 miles every second (the speed of light) could possibly cover the distance between the two; then, change the spin on one of the electrons and the other instantaneously changes its spin. One electron, placed at the outer edge of the universe — billions of light years away — would instantaneously change its spin when the spin of its mate on earth changes.  Nobody knows how that is possible.

In the more mundane macro world, the one we live in, biologists have studied African Grey parrots which seem to be able to tell the researcher what playing card the parrot’s owner selects even though the owner is in a different room.  At least one Border Collie in Germany is able to go into a room and select the dog toy the owner, who is out of sight, is silently thinking about.

These biologists have looked at the relatively common phenomenon of pets which seem to react when their owners, who are away, form the intent to go home.  And these studies are not simply based on the pets’ knowledge of the routine of the humans.  Pets often know the schedule of their humans and wait at the door when the normal schedule of returning home from work is followed.  In some studies the humans were called at random times by the scientists and told to come home.  Some pets, even though the timing was completely wrong, went to the door and waited.  Biological fields may also explain the sense that some people get when someone else is staring at the back of their head.

One explanation for this phenomenon is a kind of field theory.  If it is real, and it is too early to say one way or the other, it joins the spinning electrons in the pantheon of things nobody can explain. But it may be that living beings emit some kind of force field that is detectable at a distance by other sentient beings.

That might explain the direct, visceral connection that hummingbirds have with that portion of the human brain that makes us smile.

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Rupert Sheldrake is one of the leading proponents of the theory which he calls morphic fields.  He believes morphic fields operate and resonate at the cellular level and may be inheritable.  For a brief introduction, here is Dr. Sheldrake.  He also has a web site which seems to be up-to-date.