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Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

13 

Article 

A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as  

One Side of the Poised Realm 
 

Stephen P. Smith
*  

 

Abstract 

The theory of morphic resonance is unified with warm-body quantum mechanics following the 

ontological basis that describes the poised realm that depicts a balancing act involving quantum 

coherence and decoherence. Morphic resonance more properly belongs to the side of quantum 

coherence, leaving the other side the place where classical mechanics applies. This equally turns 

time into something two-sided, leaving open the possibility that proto-emotion sources the 

middle-term that holds the sides together. 
 

Keywords: Holarchy, morphic resonance, poised realm, quantum mechanics, middle term, 

coherence, decoherence. 

 

 

1. Introduction 
 

Alfred North Whitehead
1
 permits duration to impact his process philosophy leading to a 

panpsychism that time has gotten into; in the sense of an impact that is timeless across the 

duration. Likewise, Henri Bergson
2
 lets duration impact his proposed vitalism that then comes 

with similar properties. Smith (2018) also hypothesized that time got into biological life, and 

proposed an epigenetic model that regulates DNA function based on a proto-emotional driver 

that comes from a timeless source. Time and proto-emotion were completely confounded 

according to Smith, and Smith pointed to the Vattay and Kauffman’s (2012) “poised realm” 

depiction of warm-body quantum mechanics as a possible supporting ontology. Left then out of 

consideration was Sheldrake’s (1995) morphic resonance having to do with remembering past 

context or forms in the present moment, that is remembering in a broad sense having to do with 

panpsychism, crystals, biological life, and including mind. 

 

The purpose of the present note is to attempt a unification of the three models, Smith’s time-

sensed vitalism, Sheldrake’s morphic resonance, and Vattay and Kauffman’s poised realm.  

 

The discussion will necessarily deal with the challenges that come from different semantics, not 

that the present attempt is completely successful. These challenges typify anything having to do 

with alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics. Note, for example, how quantum non-

locality can substitute for retrocausation, and how retrocausation can explain non-locality. It is to 

be proposed that Sheldake’s resonance that comes from the past is indistinguishable from 

quantum wave functions in the present moment, and that any distinction is only one of 

                                                
Correspondence: Stephen P. Smith, Ph.D., Independent Researcher.  E-mail: hucklebird@aol.com  
 

1 
In Process and Reality. 

2 In Creative Evolution. 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

14 

semantics. Nevertheless, the present paper maintains the belief that the future is undetermined, 

and that foretelling the future is overated as an exact science even as it is possible to forecast the 

future by using our powers of deduction, induction and intuition. There are no wave functions 

coming from the undetermined future, alternatively, what is known about the future is only 

context returning to the big bang in reverse time. Likewise, time travel into the past does not 

permit changing the past
3
, time travel into the past is only at best remembering the past. All of 

these subtleties fall under semantical meanings that sometimes can conflict, but the goal remains 

to avoid such conflicts in attempting a unification. This unification is equally a theory of time 

that comes as something two-sided and comes with a middle-term. 

 

Arthur Koestler (1982) made famous the concept of holon and holarcy, and these are 

reintroduced in Section 2 but by including a time-sense that looks forward and backward in time. 

The time-sensed Holarcy is a necessary building block for the unifying treatment of morphic 

reasonance that is presented in Section 3. The same unification is extended to the poised realm in 

Section 4. Concluding remarks are made in Section 5, including listing some open questions that 

can in principal be put to scientific testing. 

 

 

2. Holarchy and Time 
 

A set of holons, nested in other holons, are represented by Figure 1, and showing collectively the 

holarchy at one snap-shot in time (the present moment). 

 

 
 

                                                
3
Not withstanding the delayed choice experiment, and retrocausation. 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

15 

The static image of the holarchy carries two faces, however: one face looking forward in time 

(the white areas) and acts as a conduit for a forward flowing determinism; the other face looking 

to the past (black areas) representing context and form, frequencies and habits. Inside the white 

circles the black holons carry emotions that are found competing with each other, whereas in the 

black circles the white holons carry the emotion of cooperation with their neighbors. This 

division of labor is not intended to carry value judgments, however, such as cooperation is good 

and competition is bad making the black background heaven and the white background hell. 

These are just arbitrary distinctions that give the holarchy a time sense. 

 

A theory of evolution that has been sanitized to remove the slightest hint of emotion will project 

only the features of competition and cooperation. Christian de Duve (1995) sees biological 

evolution as a natural selection that operates only within preset limits, coincidentally hinting of 

the holarchy described above. In a similar vain, Morowitz (2002) sees broad-scale evolution as 

the operation of pruning rules that are each active in different levels of a natural hierarchy, again 

hinting of an underlying holarchy of a kind hinted at by Figure 1. Figure 1 represents a flat-land 

projection of the real thing that holds an emotional connection among holons, but otherwise the 

emotional connection becomes invisible
4
 when projected on a flat surface. 

 

The flow of determinism representing white areas of Figure 1 mirrors the second law of 

thermodynamics where collective organizations degrade into disorder and fragmentation. 

Therefore, the black regions represent pockets of the universe where the second law acts in 

reverse, where fragments unite into wholes forming order in the chaos, a possibility that agrees 

with Sidis (1925). However, the black areas represent context or form and tend to get ignored 

given the dominance of the white areas representing content.
5
 The black areas point to a return to 

a larger whole in reverse time, returning to the whole that constitutes the entire universe. The 

black areas are the CPT inversion
6
 of the white areas, making a two-sided time and removing any 

conflict with known physics. 

 

The reverse-time pull to unity (black areas), and the forward-time push to fragmentation (white) 

areas, act as strange attractors that leave reflections on the substrate of evolution. Proto-emotion 

is placed in the timeless middle-term that holds time’s sides together, and brings with it an 

evolution that is now emotive. Time is not a flow, rather time is a perpetual triad of past, present 

moment, and undetermined future. To prehend causation and emotion as described by 

Whitehead, is to get caught up in the flow of forward marching causation as a conduit, a flow 

that can show great passion and can be expressed as a deep deductive chain of thought that 

anticipates and plans ahead. To surrender emotion, or center emotion, is to fall into the 

surrounding context, and this practice can carry great compassion and expressive creativity and 

including inductive thinking by remembering past habits as form. Both deduction and induction 

are activities learned from past habits, but both are used for making a forecast of the 

undetermined future that is yet to unfold; therefore, deduction and induction as found as emotive 

                                                
4
In the same way rationalism may incorrectly eliminate emotion from reason. 

5
To observe anything requires the synthesis of content with context, a Trinitarian version of the 

holographic principle. 
6
CPT is acronym for charge-parity-time. The CPT inverse reality is composed of anti-particles that are 

mirror reflected and that evolve in reverse time, agreeing with all the action principles that make up 

unified field theory for the non-inverted state.  



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

16 

polarities in their primitive state are highly adaptive qualities of life. 

 

A simple nested holarchy is described as DNA nested in cells, cells nested in organs, organs 

nested in organisms, organisms nested in communities, communities nested in the biospheres, 

and the biospheres nested in the universe. A finer resolution is possible with improved science, 

but a better classification should be based on quantum entanglement and merge with 

biochemistry and the pattern of inheritance. Note that the holarchy as a snap-shot in time is not 

necessarily equivalent to an animal pedigree, or the tree of life (showing phylogeny), that are 

found in time. Figure 2 shows phylogeny as a tree. Trying to identify holons in time that shows 

phylogeny would have to account for first emerging phylum and branches that go extinct, and 

this confounds the apparent nesting as a snap-shot in time. Nevertheless, the pattern of 

inheritance represented by a tree also implies a holon nesting as a snap-shot in time, and this is 

completely missed in a holarchy based on a simple classification.  

 

 
 

Figure 2. Tree of life showing simplified phylogeny (ref: The Evidence of Evolution by Nicholas 

Hotton III, Smithsonian, 1968). 

 

 

 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

17 

3. Morphic Resonance 
 

Sheldrake (1995) describes morphic resonance as a memory that emerges from the past that 

connects to the present moment and becomes available. In effect, the past is found living in the 

present where forms and context are borrowed again, and reused. The human form, the apple tree 

from, the star fish form are all examples of general forms that are reused by life presently living.  

 

The ontological basis of morphic resonance can be described by a nested system of holons that is 

depicted by Figure 5.9 in Sheldrake (1995), that also looks closely like Figure 1. Figure 1 is 

different in that it shows dark areas and white areas that represent a time-sense. But both figures 

are intended to connect back to the past where the contextual nature of any particular holon first 

appeared. Note that a black area in Figure 1 indicates contextual information that is available in 

the present moment, assumed to be there even if it tracks back to the past as Sheldrake describes.  

 

An alternative formulation is to represent contextual information that first appeared in the past as 

stored in a holograph, or in the holographic universe (e.g., Talbot 1992). While this formulation 

has some utility, Figure 1 is general enough to represent the same storage while allowing for a 

different feature that is provided by the white areas that show a different side to the time polarity. 

 

Figure 1 breaks from Sheldrake’s formulation because it’s the black areas alone that are 

responsible for the morphic resonance that reappears in the present moment, leaving the white to 

carry a forward marching determinism. 

 

Because proto-emotion holds times sides together, holding black to white in Figure 1, it is 

understood that it’s the emotional connection to the past that makes it possible for memories to 

resonant in the present moment. In other words, emotions in the past go through a transfiguration 

and reappear in the present moment as memories. Remembering represents a form of time travel 

into the past, a process that can be facilitated by emotive centering. Sheldrake (2012, Chapter 8) 

also recognizes the importance of emotions that can conjure up memories, with sharper 

memories available when emotions in the present moment are well entangled with past emotions 

that connect directly to prior context. Figure 1 shows by example how emotions (between black 

and white) are entangled and all connect to the grounding emotion. This returns to the grand 

view of time, as two-sided with an emotive middle-term. 

 

 

4. The Poised Realm as Holon and Nested Holons 
 

Vattay and Kauffman (2012) describe a new model for warm-body quantum mechanics, that is 

able to maintain itself in a poised realm through a process of self-resonance, maintaining itself 

between quantum coherence and decoherence. Kauffman (2014) describes this model as a triad: 

Actuals; Possibles; and Mind. 

 

The region of Actuals is a world showing classical dynamics that is limited to a forward flow of 

determinism that is controlled by the 2
nd

 law of thermodynamics, a world of “Newtonian billiard 

balls” that bounce off of each other as Kauffman describes. The flow of determinism (or 

entailment) is well matched to Aristotle’s deductive logic where the principle of excluded middle 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

18 

is strictly enforced. When any quantum wave function collapses into decoherence it is the region 

of Actuals that gets enlarged and comes into being. When a wave function collapses, however, it 

is also re-established and the poised realm is thus maintained. The Actuals represent the white 

areas in Figure 1, or Figure 3 below. 

 

The region of Possibles is the world as a quantum wave function and is found in the state of 

coherence. The wave function is found in the present moment, and represent possible future 

states of an evolving system. But it is equally a by-product of the past given the Actuals that are 

found in the past. Therefore the Possibles equally signify the black areas in Figure 1 or Figure 3, 

representing Sheldrake’s morphic resonance. 

 

Kauffman’s mind implies a possible panpsychism that carries a “responsible freewill,” 

sandwiched between the Actuals and the Possibles. A responsible freewill is one that carries 

preferences, and therefore its necessarily emotive. This glue that connects the Actuals to the 

Possibles is described as the proto-emotion in the present context. 

 

A single poised system may be illustrated simply by Figure 3; the black area representing the 

Possibles and the white area the Actuals. Again the emotive middle-term connects black to white. 

Figure 3 may better describe one holon in isolation, but quantum systems don’t actually exist in 

isolation. Poised systems exits in the universe with other poised systems. The collective of 

poised systems returns to Figure 1 again that’s forced into a nesting, but now representing a 

grand poised system of its own showing time again with its two sides. 

 

 
 

Table 1 represents the poised realm as a particle/wave duality in the present moment that is set to 

forward time, but also showing itself polarized in forward time and backward time. In forward 

time (or the present moment) particles will push forward while quantum waves that represent 

context will pull to the past; therefore, contextualizing form is pulled into being from a memory 

found in the past. In backward time these qualities are hypothetically reversed, and its 

theoretically possible
7
 for holons to switch orientation when new nesting is added. 

                                                
7
This futuristic possibility is highly speculative, if not impossible. Sidis (1925) did postulate the existence 

of “pseudo-living organisms” that live in reverse time and are in theoretical reach by returning to Figure 1 

and turning white to black, and black to white. 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

19 

 

 

Table 1: Showing particle/wave duality as poised realm, showing time’s pulling and pushing actions. 

 Poised Realm Time’s Action 

Time Mode Particle Wave Particle Wave 

Forward A Resonance of A
-1 

Pushing forward Pulling backward 

Backward A
-1 

Resonance of A Pulling backward Pushing forward 

Note: A
-1
 represents CPT inversion of A. 

 

The prediction is that the pulling and the pushing relative to time (itself a type of quantum 

gravity) is being caused by the conduit that is holding the sides of time together, and is otherwise 

acting as an aether that is beyond law, the possible source of emotion. Table 1 describes the 

wave-function of particle A as the resonance of A
-1

, the echo
8
 that A makes when it returns 

through the aether form the other side of time. 

 

The appearance of novelty is not well described by morphic resonance alone. However, it can be 

described
9
 with the proposed unification: as an emotive search in the white area that leads to 

exhaustion; followed by an emotive surrender and release that returns to the black area; in the 

black area the solution is echoed back, a quantum search
10

 takes place that finds a preferred path 

among a supper-position, where the selected path holds the creative birth that was sought and 

resolves the crisis. The stipulation is that this dynamic follows a universal grammar, and is 

repeated on different levels of the holarchy.  

 

 

5. Conclusion 
 

Despite their variant origins that carry different semantics, morphic resonance (Sheldrake 1995), 

the poised realm describing warm-body quantum mechanics (Vattay and Kauffman 2012), and 

the polarizing emotion that’s confounded with time (Smith 2018), all permit unification under 

one ontology. This is remarkable, and provides some justification for each approach taken in 

isolation. However, there still may be another hypothetical ontology that is more correct that 

combines what’s right with each approach while avoiding that which is wrong. 

 

Inventing interesting ontology is a fine hobby, but what is really important is how this particular 

unification may point to testable science given the connection to emotion, and given the time 

sense that is implied. Sheldrake (2012) has already compiled evidence to support his theory of 

morphic resonance. There are new questions listed below that are open to scientific testing, and 

that come from the proposed unification. 

                                                
8
The echo is intended to provide future context as a possibility wave, be it gravity, quantum gravity, dark 

matter, dark energy, or the memory of form.  
9
Described phenomenally, and not an account that can be made into a blueprint if only because proto-

emotion is taken for granted.  
10

A quantum search involving the selection of a sought path among many held in a supper-position is a 

feature of advanced quantum computing that one day may be perfected. 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

20 

 

Are those proficient in deductive thinking really more passionate and driven? 

Are those proficient in inductive thinking really more compassionate and reflective? 

Do those that are measurably intuitive take pleasure in reading this paper, where others find 

only revulsion? 

Do organ transplants carry an emotional memory that gets passed to the recipients? 

When does emotional entanglement permit a transfer of memory from one party to the 

other? And does it matter if the memory was made before or after the entanglement? 

When we read a book are we entangling our emotion with the author’s? 

If the emotional attachment to the present moment is strengthened, is the short-term memory 

enhanced? 

How much information can be remembered from the past? And under what conditions and 

emotional preparation? 

 

Obviously, proto-emotion is not necessarily educated or even human-like. It is merely 

emotional
11

, and therefore an intellectual science will have an easier time being objective by 

studying subtle connections that are more emotional than intellectual. Nevertheless, it is clear 

that morphic resonance can confound our understanding of genes and epigenetics when a wider 

venue of causation should be considered. Dias and Ressler (2014) found that when a mouse is 

trained to become fearful of rose blossom odor, its offspring were more sensitive to that odor, 

even though the offspring never encountered the odor. Is this really an epigenetic effect showing 

transgenerational inheritance in mice? Or was it due to a morphic resonance across generations 

having to do with a reemerging emotion? Or is the answer yes to both of these questions, like the 

ontology predicts? Proto-emotion will have impacts on gene action, and on epigenetics, so 

hypothesized but also on the immune response, neuroplasticity, homeostasis, and as well on our 

experience of free choice. How are all these biological behaviors impacted by emotion? 

 

 

References 
 

Dias, B.G., and K.J. Ressler, 2014, Parental Olfactory Experience Influences Behavior and Neural 

Structure in Subsequent Generations, Nature Neuroscience, 17, 89-96. 

de Duve, C., 1995, Vital Dust: The Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth, Basic Books. 

Kauffman, S.A., 2014, Beyond the Stalemate: Conscious Mind-Body – Quantum Mechanics - Free Will - 

Possible Panpsychism - Possible Interpretation of Quantum Enigma, arXiv achieved, paper # 

1410.2127. 

Koestler, A.., 1982, The Ghost in the Machine, Last Century Media. 

Langan, C., 2017, An Introduction to Mathematical Metaphysics, Cosmos and History: The Journal of 

Natural and Social Philosophy, 13 (2), 313-330. 

Morowitz, H.I., 2002, The Emergence of Everything, Oxford University Press. 

Sheldrake, R., 1995, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature, Park Street 

Press. 

                                                
11

And faithful to a universal grammar, even Langan’s (2017) “cognitive-theoretic model of the universe”. 



DNA Decipher Journal | August 2019 | Volume 9 | Issue 1 | pp 13-21 

Smith, S. P.,  A Possible Holarchy Representing Morphic Resonance as One Side of the Poised Realm 

 

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 
Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

21 

Sheldrake, R., 2012, Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery, Deepak Chopra Books. 

Sidis, W.J., 1925, The Animate and the Inanimate, The Gorham Press.  

Smith, S.P., 2018, Time, Life & the Emotive Source, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 9 

(8), 707-721. 

Talbot, M., 1992, The Holographic Universe, First Harper Perennial. 

Vattay, G., S. Kauffman and S. Niiranen, 2012, Quantum Biology on the Edge of 

Quantum Chaos, arXiv achieved, paper# 1202.6433. 


