Echoes of the Future
Reframing Adaptive Common Variants through Predictive Evolution Theory, Morphic Resonance, and Dual Supersession
Predictive Evolution Theory sees evolution as an ongoing conversation between two layers of information. The first is genetic memory. This is the past, and it is stored in DNA. The second is the active field of morphic resonance, a la Rupert Sheldrake, et alia. This is the present, and is expressed as the ongoing signal of the environment. What I call “information reservoirs”.
Between them lies a rhythm. Genetics sets the framework. Morphic resonance tests and tunes it. And their alternation produces the future. New adaptive common variants that anticipate what’s coming next.
This back-and-forth process is what my friend Denis Pelletier calls dual supersession. Two complementary forces or functions rhythmically alternating, superseding with, and informing one another to create a new force or function.
When early humans interbred with Neanderthals, they inherited an archive of biological memory tuned to life in Ice Age Eurasia. Not just genes. Those Neanderthal alleles represented information that had already “learned” cold climates, sparse resources, and the need for heightened spatial and pattern recognition. This archive didn’t determine behaviour by itself. It simply expanded the range of what the genome could express when the right signals arrived.
As Homo sapiens “settled” in Europe, they entered an informational environment rich in seasonal cycles, light contrasts, and sensory challenges. These field patterns resonated with certain Neanderthal-derived traits, especially those involving local neural connectivity and intense perception.
The environment, in effect, “pinged” the genetic memory. This morphic resonance may not have rewritten DNA. It may have been biased in which potentials came to life. Epigenetic adjustments, feedback through behaviour, and successful adaptation reinforced those alignments. This allowed the field to sculpt expression from the genetic archive.
Over time, this alternation between memory and signal (one phase dominated by inherited pattern, the next by environmental resonance) gave rise to what we now see as common adaptive variants. The genome didn’t just remember the past. It learned to predict repeating conditions. Traits that improved problem-solving, focus, or sensory discrimination became embedded because they aligned with persistent informational rhythms in the environment. Not because they were random mutations.
Western European populations, being geographically close to the main zones of Neanderthal contact and having lived for millennia within similar field patterns, simply show the strongest signature of this process.
In this light, neurodivergent traits, especially those linked to autism, can be seen as adaptive echoes of ancient predictive alignments between memory and signal. The Neanderthal genome contributed the memory of certain perceptual strengths. The European environment supplied the signal that kept reactivating them.
Dual supersession turned that interplay into stable, heritable patterns. The result isn’t a defect in the genome. It is a creative outcome of predictive evolution. Naturally, human biology inherited the PET ability to anticipate and adapt through resonance.
Seen through PET, what we call “genetic adaptation” is not merely the slow accumulation of random mutations. It is a dynamic process of information exchange between stored memory and living signal. Common adaptive variants are records of successful conversations between the genome and its environment. Variants that are stabilized through countless rounds of dual supersession.
Morphic resonance ensures that these patterns do not fade but remain accessible whenever the present echoes the past. This means that the genetic patterns associated with traits like neurodivergence, creativity, and sensitivity aren’t accidents or errors. They are predictive structures shaped by Nature’s (mimicking the Universe’s) own learning process.
The challenge now is to view these variants differently. Not as static bits of inherited code. But as ongoing, resonant processes that reveal how life anticipates rather than merely reacts. To study them through PET is to see humanity as part of an evolving information system. In which every adaptation, ancient or new, is a dialogue between what has been remembered and what is now being signaled.
It’s time to move beyond the old Darwinian language of “mutation and selection” and begin reading our “genome” as an intelligent archive. One that listens, resonates, and learns.
References:
“Enrichment of a subset of Neanderthal polymorphisms in autistic probands and siblings,” by Rini Pauly et al
“Morphic Resonance and Morphic Fields - an Introduction,” by Rupert Sheldrake