An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcasts feeds.
Isaac Newton is best known for his theory of gravity. And yet, the great scientist also insisted: “ye cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know.” In other words, notions like gravity, and force in general, are deeply mysterious phenomena.
In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask just what gravity might be. The conversation begins with a feature of gravity that is typically overlooked by physicists, namely that gravity has a speed which is far faster than the speed of light. They consider how gravity might be linked to the notion of levity, a link that can be renewed again.
Newton himself was inclined to regard gravity as the divine will in the cosmos and was also influenced by the belief in daemons, particularly the entity called Eros or love. These are go-betweens in the universe, in the case of Eros, attracting all things and securing the many as a whole. Panpsychism and final causes are other themes that arise.
Contemplating the mysteries of modern science, often hidden in plain sight, leads naturally to deeply meaningful considerations about the nature of the world in which we live.
The paper Rupert mentioned, The Speed of Gravity, can be found here – https://www.intalek.com/Index/Projects/Research/TheSpeedofGravity-WhattheExperimentsSay.htm
For more conversations between us see https://www.sheldrake.org/audios/sheldrake-vernon-dialogues https://www.markvernon.com/talks