field: A region of physical influence. Fields interrelate and interconnect matter and energy within their realm of influence. Fields are not a form of matter; rather, matter is energy bound within fields. In current physics, several kinds of fundamental field are recognized: the gravitational and electromagnetic fields and the matter fields of quantum physics. The hypothesis of formative causation broadens the concept of physical fields to include morphic fields as well as the known fields of physics.
 
form: The shape, configuration, or structure of something as distinguished from its material. In the Platonic tradition, the term Form is used to translate the Greek term eides and is interchangeable with the term Idea. Particular things we experience in the world participate in their eternal Forms, which transcend space and time. By contrast, in the Aristotelian tradition, the forms of things are immanent in the things themselves. From the nominalist point of view, forms have no objective reality independent of our own minds.
 
formative causation, hypothesis of: The hypothesis that organisms or morphic units (q.v.) at all levels of complexity are organized by morphic fields, which are themselves influenced and stabilized by morphic resonance (q.v.) from all previous similar morphic units.
 
genetic program: A program is a plan of intended proceedings, as in a concert or computer program. The concept of the genetic program implies that organisms inherit plans of intended proceedings; these plans are assumed to be carried in the genes. The genetic program is the principal metaphor through which conceptions of purposive activity and of formative causes are introduced into modern biology.
 
holon: A whole that can also be part of a larger whole. Holons are organized in multi-levelled nested hierarchies or holarchies. This term, due to Arthur Koestler, is equivalent in meaning to morphic unit (q.v.).
 
information: To inform literally means to put into form or shape. information is now generally taken to be the source of form or order in the world; information is informative and plays the role of a formative cause, as for example in the concept of "genetic information."
 
information theory: A branch of cybernetics (q.v.) that attempts to define the amount of information required to control a process of given complexity. Information in this narrow technical sense is measured in bits. A bit is the amount of information required to specify one of two alternatives, for example to distinguish between 1 and 0 in the binary notation used in computers.
 
memory: The capacity for remembering, recalling, recollecting, or recognizing. From the mechanistic point of view, animal and human memory depend on material memory traces within the nervous system. From the point of view of the hypothesis of formative causation, memory in its various forms, both conscious and unconscious, is due to morphic resonance.
 
mind: In Cartesian dualism, the conscious thinking mind is distinct from the material body; the mind is non-material. Materialists derive the mind from the physical activity of the brain. Depth psychologists point out that the conscious mind is associated with a much broader or deeper mental system, the unconscious mind. In the view of Jung, the unconscious mind is not merely individual but collective. On the hypothesis of formative causation, mental activity, conscious and unconscious, takes place within and through mental fields, which like other kinds of morphic fields contain a kind of in-built memory.
 
morphic field: A field within and around a morphic unit which organizes its characteristic structure and pattern of activity. Morphic fields underlie the form and behaviour of holons or morphic units at all levels of complexity. The term morphic field includes morphogenetic, behavioural, social, cultural, and mental fields. Morphic fields are shaped and stabilized by morphic resonance from previous similar morphic units, which were under the influence of fields of the same kind. They consequently contain a kind of cumulative memory and tend to become increasingly habitual.
 
morphic resonance: The influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar structures of activity organized by morphic fields. Through morphic resonance, formative causal influences pass through or across both space and time, and these influences are assumed not to fall off with distance in space or time, but they come only from the past. The greater the degree of similarity, the greater the influence of morphic resonance. in general, morphic units closely resemble themselves in the past and are subject to self-resonance from their own past states.
 
morphic unit: A unit of form or organization, such as an atom, molecule, crystal, cell, plant, animal, pattern of instinctive behaviour, social group, element of culture, ecosystem, planet, planetary system, or galaxy. Morphic units are organized in nested hierarchies of units within units: a crystal, for example, contains molecules, which contain atoms, which contain electrons and nuclei, which contain nuclear particles, which contain quarks.
 
morphogenesis: The coming into being of form.
 
morphogenetic fields: Fields that play a causal role in morphogenesis. This term, first proposed in the 1920s, is now widely used by developmental biologists, but the nature of morphogenetic fields has remained obscure. On the hypothesis of formative causation, they are regarded as morphic fields stabilized by morphic resonance.
 
Platonism: The philosophical tradition that, following Plato, postulates the existence of an autonomous realm of Ideas or Forms or essences existing outside space and time and independently of manifestations of them in the phenomenal world.
 
Pythagoreanism: The belief that the universe is somehow essentially mathematical. its fundamental mathematical reality transcends space and time.  Closely akin to Platonism.
 

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