Rupert Sheldrake has hypothesized a field of morphic ("pattern-related") resonance in which patterns of knowledge, structure or behavior of a certain kind of thing (whether a salt crystal or a human mind) become increasingly embedded as a "habit," an ingrained pattern of information which influences and is accessible to other members of that category of thing. In commenting on the rat experiments, Sheldrake said: "If rats are taught a new trick in Manchester, then rats of the same breed all over the world should show a tendency to learn the same trick more rapidly, even in the absence of any known type of physical connection or communication. The greater the number of rats that learn it, the easier it should become for their successors."
Morphogenetic Fields And Beyond
There is mounting evidence that as more and more people learn or do something it becomes easier for others to learn or do it. In one experiment, British biologist Rupert Sheldrake took three short, similar Japanese rhymes -- one a meaningless jumble of disconnected Japanese words, the second a newly-composed verse and the third a traditional rhyme known by millions of Japanese. Neither Sheldrake nor the English schoolchildren he got to memorize these verses knew which was which, nor did they know any Japanese. The most easily-learned rhyme turned out to be the one well-known to Japanese.
A morphogenetic field (or morphic field), according to biologist Rupert Sheldrake, is a hypothetical biological (and potentially social) equivalent to an electromagnetic field that operates to shape the exact form of a living thing, as part of its epigenetics, and may also shape its behaviour and coordination with other beings. These fields are occasionally used in fiction; for instance the theory is valid on Terry Pratchett's Discworld.