I’m finally getting around to reading Rupert Sheldrake’s 1999 book, “Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home” and I’m pleased to find that it’s well worth the time invested. As simply a collection of anecedotal tales of animals that were glad to see their owners, the book wouldn’t be worth much, except perhaps to dog owners. However, I’m finding that there’s a fair amount of data that was much more rigorously collected, including synchronized videos, random timing unknown in advance to the owners, and so forth. I should have known that a research scientist like Sheldrake would know how to do research properly.
I’m encouraged by the fact that mind seems to have non-local properties that aren’t confined to humans. This makes sense if we see the evolution of consciousness as the driving force (or a driving force) behind evolution itself. It’s also interesting that the connection between pets and owners tests stronger as the bond appears stronger. This replicates the experience found with people in which a strong emotional connection generally produces stronger results in mind experiments. Dean Radin, who wrote about this in “Entangled Minds,” proposes that the connection is a form of quantum entanglement.
In any event, these results are another blow to the strict materialist view of science, whose supporters generally choose to just ignore or ridicule these kinds of studies. The history of science is not on their side, I’m afraid. I’ll write more about this when I finish the book.
