Morphogenetic Fields Reimagined — Repairing Sheldrake through Relational Ontology: 4 Resonance without Transmission: Reflexive Alignment as the Principle of Recurrence

1. The problem of Sheldrakean resonance

Sheldrake’s morphic resonance imagines form recurring across time because past forms influence present ones.

Yet, in a relational ontology, there is no “past” sending signals. There is only relational potential, continuously actualised.

The recurrence of form — the repetition of limb structures, leaf patterns, or behavioural habits — is not due to transmitted memory but to reflexive alignment: the system aligning its present construal with its own relational topology.

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2. Reflexive alignment defined

Reflexive alignment is the principle by which a system maintains coherence without external instruction:

• Local alignment: each cellular or structural event aligns with the constraints of its immediate relational context.

• Nested alignment: these local actualisations fit coherently within the larger topology of the system (tissue, organ, organism).

• Cross-generational alignment: similar topologies recur because the potential remains structured across instances.

Thus, “resonance” is not causal influence; it is the self-consistency of actualisation across scales and iterations.

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3. Memory without storage

Traditional explanations of biological memory rely on storage and transmission. Reflexive alignment replaces this with structural persistence:

• The field does not “store” form.

• The recurrence of form is a consequence of potential being shaped and stabilised by prior actualisations.

• Each instantiation is a new cut through the field, producing familiar patterns because the topology of potential persists, not because information is sent from past to present.

Form is remembered not by particles or molecules but by coherent possibility.

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4. Morphogenesis and recurrence

In embryogenesis:

• Each cell differentiates in alignment with local and systemic constraints.

• Tissues and organs emerge as nested patterns of actualisation.

• Across generations, the same morphogenetic forms appear not by inherited instruction alone, but because the relational topology that constrains possible forms remains stable.

Evolution, in this framework, is the refinement of potential: recurrent patterns become more robust, not through “memory” in the classical sense, but through stabilised reflexive alignment.

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5. Practical implications

• No need for mysterious nonlocal influences.

• Continuity of form emerges from relational coherence.

• Morphogenetic “laws” are patterns of potential, not imposed directives.

• Development is semiotic: a system interpreting and actualising its own possibilities.

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6. Summary table: Sheldrake vs Relational Reframe

Sheldrake	Relational Reframe
Morphic resonance	Reflexive alignment of construals
Past influencing present	Topology of potential maintained across instantiations
Memory of nature	Structural persistence, no storage
Recurrence of form	Re-actualisation of system topology

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In the next post, “Memory as Alignment: How the World Learns to Construe Itself,” we will generalise these insights beyond embryogenesis, showing how reflexive alignment underpins development, evolution, and even social or symbolic systems.