" The idea of morphogenetic fields has been widely adopted in developmental biology. But the nature of these fields has remained obscure. Some biologists think of them as useful turns of phrase but in reality consisting of no more than "complex spatio-temporal patterns of physico-chemical interaction not yet fully understood." Others think of these fields as governed by morphogenetic field equations that exist in a Platonic realm of eternal mathematical forms. Thus the morphogentic field equations for the dinosaurs, for example, always existed, even before the Big Bang. The equations were not affected by the evolution of the dinosaurs or by their extinction. The morphogenetic field equations for all past, present, and future species, and indeed for all possible species (many of which may never actually exist), somehow dwell eternally in a transcendant mathematical realm. These mathematical truths are beyond time; they cannot evolve and are not affected by anything that actually happens in the physical world. They are like ideal designs for all possible organisms in the mind of a mathematical God. "

― Rupert Sheldrake , The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God