Symposia | Ep. 1: Turning the Tide | Dr Iain McGilchrist
Вставка
- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- The European Conservative presents a new video series, "Symposia," which will explore the crisis of our civilisation and what rebuilding that civilisation might look like. In the first episode, Sebastian Morello, our senior editor, travels to Scotland’s Isle of Skye to meet psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist.
An unfortunate temptation for intellectual conservatism is that of only ever reacting against those forces of so-called ‘progress’ which aim to repudiate the civilisation that conservatives cherish. The imperative is not only to defend our civilisation but offer a positive case for the humane and meaning-driven future we want to build. In this series, Sebastian meets great thinkers of the day and-as the name of the series suggests-sits down, with good wine and good food, to converse with them in pursuit of the truth, in the context of fellowship and camaraderie. This first episode, over the course of several days, explores many topics among which are neuroscientific findings, spirituality, and the future of Western Civilisation.
CHAPTERS
00:00
00:04 Introduction
04:00 Meeting Sebastian Morello
05:38 Developing a critical view
07:48 The importance of music
12:00 What were the obvious questions
14:28 Asymmetry in schizophrenia
21:59 Superstition
23:19 Tyranny
26:55 Awakening
28:44 Conservatism
30:58 Localisation
32:47 Hierarchy of Values
38:36 Adoration and Thanksgiving
40:27 Catherine of Siena
41:45 Beauty, Goodness, Truth
43:30 Abstracting
44:11 Spiritual practice
44:47 hemispheric balance
47:07 right hemisphere vs left hemisphere
51:13 Window Dressing
54:02 Defending our tradition
57:51 Michael Oakeshott
🌐 FIND The EuroCon website: europeanconservative.com/
👍 LIKE The EuroCon on Facebook: / theeurocon
✅ FOLLOW The EuroCon on Twitter: / euroconofficial
👉 FOLLOW The EuroCon on GETTR: gettr.com/user/eurocon
For the first discussion of this series, you couldn’t have chosen a better guest than Iain McGilchrist, quite possibly the most important philosopher of the past 500 years
The past 500 years?
I would say that offering up a yardstick we can perhaps get a perspective on just how important McGilchrist is. I don’t think he sits in easy comparison with modern philosophers, as they lack Ian’s range, yet those of formers times perhaps attended more broadly to the world as Ian does I offer this as a tentative reframing of the original comment.
@@peterweston1356 I was going to say ''Jason Reza Jorjani'' but the past 500 years also includes Nietzsche and Heidegger, so there's a few philosophers who are at least his equal.
Of course we won’t know Iains true impact until a hundred years later, long after we’re all gone. But the hemisphere hypothesis is so powerful, so groundbreaking and so all-encompassing that it will change every single discipline and field.
@@WeAreOnePiano I would love to hear him have a discussion with Jason Reza Jorjani
That was a feast for all the senses. I started watching it around 10 am and when they started drinking wine I wished it was evening and I had some to drink too, with them. It made me want to come back to Isle of Skye too, to show it to my children.
You are soooo lucky that you could visit Iain McGilchrist and see his house and property. His garden is huge and Baroque. I had this feeling that he would live in a home like that. Last night I was watching a conversation with him and I thought he lives in an old castle. This is very much like an old castle.
Cinematic and captivating invitation to Talisker on the Isle of Skye - so terrific you choose not to just sit at a computer screen having a face look back.
I felt I was part of the invite to be part of the day.
Next - totally appreciate you’ve read Iain’s masterful works giving more deeply into how the conversation unfolded - one of the very best showing Iain McGilchrist’s brilliant intellectual mind
😍Thank you ‼️
I got so hungry watching this video.
Have been to Skye and Talisker....in the mid 1990s
@@tomgreene1843 that’s very cool - it looks so splendid - haha I did Google earth when
Iain was visited by Alex Gomez-Marin after they had finished the great series of Understanding the Matter with Things Dialogues (highly recommend 😊)
@@tomgreene1843 I pass his door every few days and he still doesnt answer my emails.. most frustrating as we work in such very similar perspectives. How's that for a not very joined up world. it is so strange our modern connectivity/non connectivity isnt it :/
Brilliant film, inviting the viewer to move into their right hemisphere, with music, and nature, and walking, and vistas, and a lovely sense of being a ghost presence at a dinner table conversation. Taking place over many hours, and not clickable or instantly gratifiable, so invoking the muses and gods. Great to escape the Zoom box, with talking heads in front of bookcases.
Well-said! 👍
Yes yes yes - I is thoughts floated through my mind as well, but you expressed this so beautifully.
Don't forget the ubiquitous 'guitar on the wall' along with bookcases in the background of all most every podcast ((:
I rewatch this often for the calming effect it has on me.
This is perhaps the best McGilchrist interview for those that have spent time thinking about Iain’s worldview.
I've just found him
@@lalaholland5929 well, if you like what you heard, his books are well worth reading.
I love that this interview doesn't treat Iain's location as irrelevant to his work, but rather is an integral part of it. It's nice to see the serenity of Iain's work mirrored by the serenity of his home. I think more youtube interviews should ditch the zoom call approach and hosts ought to travel to their subjects homes. "By their fruit shall you know them" Matt 7:16
Excellent work, Sebastian. A really wonderful introduction to McGilchrist, even for those who haven't read him (yet). And it is a pleasure to see philosophy done in situ rather than by talking heads in zoom boxes.
The feeling I have watching you walk through the woods with Iain McGilchrist with a coffee is very much like jealousy.
Just when I thought I couldn’t be more amazed by the brilliance of the mind of this exceptional man after having read The matter with things, I stumbled upon this wonderful movie giving us a glimpse of his world. Amazing interview and really well produced!
We also have beautiful peacocks in Split (town on the Adriatic sea) 😊 It is an enormous pleasure listening to Mr Gilchrist ❤ Thank you so much
This video is just amazing. I had to come back and watch again after a while and comment because Iain McGilchrist (and this video in particular) was hugely influential for me and is one of the ways through which I rediscovered my faith in God.
Can Dr. McGilchrist please be my benign feudal overlord? I feel like he would do a marvelous job haha I’d totally be a peasant laborer if I could live on his beautiful property!
Absolutely outstanding. Hope to see more of these!
Absolutely stunning. Brilliant conversation in an Earthly Paradise. THANK YOU!
This was an absolute pleasure to watch. Thank you for making this happen. Well done!
What I really love about this video is that you guys come to the point right at the start, starting with "deep insights" about the world rather than the regular "hello how are you" etc. Great, thank you very much for your work and energy, highly appreciated.
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Iain's beautiful house and garden and the discussion too. I am all for joining in with THIS kind of change and motivation to get back to the BEAUTY of Nature and the Humanities!!! Back to the Greek it is then! Thank you to Dr McGilchrist. I shall perhaps ask for his THE MATTER WITH THINGS as my birthday present this year.
My knowledge of philosophy is full of gaps and imagination and instinct.... I pursued wisdom however all my life out of love that felt like necessity. In spite of my lack of knowledge, this thinking and musing together, surrounded by the peculiarities, the warmth and human comforts of Iain's home with the beauty of nature all around and music that speaks the language of the soul, just enchanted me. An enchantment- that is familiar from my childhood (I am 70 now) - that drained out of my life through the years while I desparately tried to hold on to bits of it resulting in a version of me who was angry and bitter with sarcasm until my Christian faith miraculously returned and steadied me. Thank you, there is much to savour and to integrate from this - in due time!! This was a real treasure.....
What alovely spot, says my right hemisphere.
What a perfect gentleman and spectacular home!
Wonderfully charming! Very reminiscent of Hesse's The Glass Bead Game. It feels as though the preservation and continuation of Western culture absolutely requires an escape from the city---a recalibration of sorts with Nature.
Excellent conversation Groves of the Celtic tradition came to mind, I hunted growing up, personally always thought if you want to eat meat you should take responsibility for its slaughter, individually or as a community. I'm a Celtic cross breed living in Iberia/ Catalunya, interesting times excellent topic. Thanks to all for the share...
Thanks to the producers of this movie. This is the sort of conversation I would love to have with people. In my experience most people get uncomfortable when talking about deep issues. They turn the conversation back to the weather or something else benign. As a side note on the feeling of place, I feel a sense of home when looking at the landscapes. I am an Australian descendant from English stock three generations ago and have only visited the UK once briefly . Yet there is this sense of belonging there I do not get visiting other countries. Strange.
Thank you for this wonderful conversation. Iain’s home is beautiful isn’t it ?
28:43 "Little fly, thy summer's play, my thoughtless hand has brushed away..."
What a wonderful piece of work. Brilliant. Reminds me of conversations I had with a now deceased friend who lived on Orcas Island in the Northwest of America. I miss the fellowship.
Thank you for putting together a deeply enjoyable philosophical discussion of depth and relevance.
Beautifully filmed. Please could you provide a list of the music in the video?
I was going to post this precise comment
I really enjoy watching these discussions with Dr. Iian McGilchrist again.
This one was one of favorites getting to see his enchanting home and landscapes with touching sounds of music.
The library is magnificent.
With the deepest appreciation and reverence for your books and lectures and to all who have discussions with you.
My choice for bringing in the New Year 2024 for this weekend is listening to as many I can again. Your books have lifted our world up with many insights for generations to come.
Many blessings for 2024 to everyone.
🙏❤️🌎🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵
What an opportunity to experience, Dr. Iain McGilchrist's home with art, library, music playing ,with his landscapes, gardens, green trees , the cuckoo bird singing and (I adore peacocks) with their colors with dots.
Enjoying dinner with red wine and discussing who am I? Philosophers has been working it out in the space of time they lived and philosophy grows with all as time moves forward, as it is not stagnant. All the great writers, a long list. The importance of histories.What is intelligence? lol Poltical science of our great leaders of power and greed over centuries and sciences , mathematics and theology with a taste of the cosmos of a spiritual consciousness. What is thought? What is love? What is the ego"I"? Can it be measured? What is time and space? What about the movement of psychological measurement? The western world got measurement from the Greek scholars.
What a delicious conversation over dinner with wise gentlemen speaking.
I certainly agree we are all walking with madness with all societies being affected now by the Western World of the divided brain. ( Thank you Dr. McGilchrist)
As far hunting , my grandpa and other family did, but the with the right manner. As for myself, I never liked killing anything, but that was my choice. I loved planting gardens and spending time by the riverbanks and reading books and playing my piano. Milking cows and goats, raising honeybees, and gazing at the stars as a child.
Thank you all for speaking on these issues with new ideas . Other great philosophers are Krishnamurti and Alan Watts. I have journeyed with their colors for some years now. I have studied the great major religions at some length. There are truths in all. One may allow all faiths, or those who have none should have theirs as long it is inclusiveness and not divisions that breed hate. Even those who have been athiest have given much to societies, but one has to be open-minded and have a moral compass for that to be and to flourish. I have studied many faiths and find truths in all. The Good "Samaritan " is the story in the Bible and Rumi is one of my favorite poets as many others are.❤
In addition, being allowed listen to all of you about philosophy and our brains.
I listened to this one twice, and now I'm having my first cup of dawn of the morning with coffee and chocolate creame.
With the deepest appreciation and admiration for this opportunity to listen.
🙏❤️🌎🕊🎶
Very much resonate… well said!
@@gomackay
Thank you, sir.
The more love I feel the more everyone and everything feels and looks beautiful.
How could you not be at peace living in a place like that. You would get a different perspective from a single mother struggling to bring up with two kids living in a tiny bedsit in the centre of of a busy city.
If we could all live like Ian, the World would definitely be a better place.
So true - I don't know how people can live in small apartments along major roads with the horrible din of traffic and vehicles hurtling past at a horrendous speed day and night -yet so many have no choice. Better to be poor in a remote community than poor in a busy city.
Nobody would be poor if we didn't have psychopaths running human affairs.@@kaloarepo288
IKR? His smug pronouncements on life while he's all nice and secure with his wealth and privilege boiled my piss.
Envy will destroy you. Gratitude will save you Find out what you are, and why you are here.@@thadtuiol1717
what a stunning place
This is absolutely phenomenal
Thank you for two hours supremely well spent
This is wonderful. I have wondered for a long time about the need for a new flowering of consciousness on the planet. It is only recently (near the end of my seventh decade of life) that I've begun to immerse myself in understanding the roots of Western culture and realizing that it is in itself the wellspring for such an evolution. I am currently finishing The Matter With Things and this book has brought so much understanding and, yes, enlightenment.
The 3% need to be committed to spreading the change - more than just agreeing that it is the right thing to do.
Welcome to the world of middle class conservatism. Nothing will actually get done, but we'll have a jolly nice time over dinner talking about it.
Superb - there is hope still. As a young person pilgriming the desert of my once country, I am heartened by the fact that it’s not just much who feels this.
This so wonderful, thank you.
A Feast or was it a Famine?
Tour the Island of Skye, with a beach intermixed with a shady walk, peruse the richness of a philosopher’s home, with clipped hedges, ponds and wandering peacock. Linger on the rich art, the portraits, the leatherbound books, embellished with fragments of Baroque music. Repair for dinner with slow roasted lamb, a Chateau red, and finish with brandy and a new panoramic view. Do not observe that talk becomes a touch inebriated, for the talk was what you came to hear. The talk was peppered with source names, falling over one another to establish competing erudition. You will end on a road calling for the return of the spiritual, (since not everyone can ride to hounds) and mentioning Rumi. (but also Plotinus, Proclus and Porphyry- the final snifter) Cheers.
If we have endure overlords, I could live with people like Ian being part of that enlightened self interest polity.
@@TheDAT9 Having now watched another discussion between McGilchrist and Jordan Peterson my reaction to this stagy, competitive, 'not so much a conversation but a waiting for an opening' exchange was confirmed six-fold. The other was a refined penetration of ideas, and a genuine conversation that both led and followed a lead. But we have lived with these kinds of overlords forever, the academic Oxbridge, name-dropping 'regurgitating of assigned authority' 'That quote was not C.S. Lewis but Chesterton!' ( Morello cherry on top!) I don't believe McGilchrist is really like that, but he went along with it! On another level of moral aesthetics...the roving camera dwelling on affluence...undid any focus on the crisis of spiritual values. It was a BBC-like propaganda photo-shoot to cement the entitlement of those who already hold affluent influence. I'd rather take my overlords from the Canadian truckers who crossed a continent in deep winter! Such current indications were conspicuously not mentioned.
I could rip it to shreds from either a Right or Left perspective, but what's the point? I'll just say it was a great example of smug middle class privilege and delusion.
Canadian truckers don't have the intellect to run countries, that is why they are truckers. Salt of the Earth, yes, but Prime Ministers , no. @@philipparees2177
It's remarkable how " Spiritual " one becomes when living the sort of lifestyle which a tiny percentage of the population can only aspire to. A quite nauseating smug fest !
The way this episode was filmed is wonderful. The attention to detail of the scenery while listening to this inspiring conversation is a great combination.
Extraordinary piece. Best have seen of Dr McGhilchrist.
A beautiful exploration of such deeply important themes.
From a bigger picture perspective, civilisations come and go and humanity goes on.
I know it is received wisdom that there is 'a European civilisation' but, having lived in many countries in Western Eurasia I have never understood the need to cut ourselves off from our near neighbours
My question would be 'Who are these Europeans?"
I’d like to think that after Sebastian left, Iain went home, cracked a can of Carling and put Sky Sports on.
Wow! I can't wait to watch this. I can't say how many hours I've spent listening to and reading Iains work. And I've always gotten the sense of how much he is influenced by his surroundings. So what a treat to get a view of his corner of the world. I'll be intentionally watching this in one sitting.
Culture/civilization flows, spirals in its flow of coincidental opposites... just as there is a powerful world consuming current of collapse, there is a countercurrent, just as powerful... not in opposition to the collapse but flowing and building in a dance with the collapse. This video is a brilliant sharing of a conversation with one of the great teachers and amplifiers of the countercurrent on the planet. Thank you Sebastian and Ian for this amazing celebration of life amplified by a newfound awakening and balancing of human attention/awareness.
2:00:39 I quite liked this commentary on belief Iain briefly touches on. From growing up in a very barebones, left hemispheric church, the inward desire to experience something more peaceful and transcendent is very real. I've looked into Orthodoxy and Catholicism but the question of belief is something one can get stuck on for a while.
I felt like this for years. Don't underestimate what practising the faith does for one's belief! Grace is real. There are things one cannot perceive from the periphery.
This footage is incredible! Wow ❤
Refreshing, inspiring, uplifting! Thank you for bringing such conversation. I enjoy the movie very much!
Thank you very much for this.
What a fabulous conversation, made even better through the inclusion of the place, and the music as well. I have listened to many conversations with, and talks by, Iain McGilchrist, an this one stands out. Thank you.
If a group is abusive, then liberation from it is a benefit.
Awesome.
Love this so much. Thanks.
Iain McGilchrist really hit the current BBC programming on the head.
Fantastic ❤
Extraordinarily insightful comments regarding the meaning of the Trinity. The "My Dinner With Andrey" sort of film format works wonderfully here.
Love this format
This was a real pleasure to watch. Tremendous stuff.
I was spellbound by being invited into this lovely place, filled with profound conversation and friendship, woven through domestic settings, dinner conversations, and walks. You could have done a 'talking heads' type of presentation (left hemisphere ) but instead invited us to join in an intimacy seldom seen on the web. There is currently a country-folk singer in the US
whose songs have gone viral (Oliver Anthony). He has a wonderful line, "....living in a new world, with an old soul". Thank you for this meeting up with other old souls.
Thanks so much. I can’t say I understood every element of the different conversations that were presented but, all in all, I found the whole experience inspirational.
Excellent.
Quite wonderful series of interviews .
Such a good discussion, thank you.
Fascinating interview.
I do have sympathy with the conservative desire to maintain the best of our traditions and to value what is already good in society. But much of what was lost during the last two or three hundred years really did need to go and rather urgently: slavery, child labour, workhouses, hellfire religious compliance, oppression of women, intolerance towards homosexuals. And that's why it has been abruptly or else more systematically ditched and abandoned. This prolonged period of revolutionary changes has directly led us to our most cherished and modern notions of freedom and democracy; votes for women and healthcare for all. There is no reason to believe much of this would have happened at all without revolutionary pressures of different kinds.
Moreover, the trouble with conservatism is that seen in an historical perspective, invariably it has materially disadvantaged a very large sector of the population. This resulting material disadvantage and consequent social disempowerment was then the driving force behind these revolutions. Indeed, that is really Marx's central thesis and it isn't particularly hard to understand or even to acknowledge that he makes a very important point. His analysis is therefore no less historically rooted than a conservative viewpoint. Marx didn't invent revolutions, as many on the right seem erroneously to believe. He simply analysed the causes and looked forward with hope to a culminating future revolution that would settle the matter regarding economic disparities once and for all - being a person of his time, Marx wasn't especially invested in securing other kinds of rights.
What is happening now however is fundamentally different from past revolutions and in a crucial way. The current supposed revolutionary upwelling often called "left" or "leftist" is in fact only seldom a grassroots upwelling along Marxist lines (in the strict sense that he envisioned it). On the whole, it is actually co-opted pressure for an agenda that has been prefabricated by oligarchs in the interests of oligarchs who also happen to rub shoulers with our elected politicians at places like Davos and then sell their phoney visions as "progressive".
The new "left" has been massively hijacked in this way and arguably the "right" (i.e., truer conservatism) likewise. But the labels "left" and "right" certainly do still apply (or should), even if they are routinely attached in deliberately muddled ways. The "left" - i.e., the true left (the democratic socialism of Tony Benn, Michael Foot and Old Labour) - traditionally places its emphasis on achieving economic justice for all and this still offers a political vision that is not merely progressive in a real sense, but actually historically aligned with the revolutionary tradition that brought us the comforts of post-Enlightenment living that you are all very much enjoying by the looks of it. History shows us how we did and do still need revolutions from time to time - hopefully peaceful ones - my fear is that we are reaching a time when nobody remembers what truly revolutionary insight even looks like.
Well said. He should have invited you to dinner!
Good comment. As a Marxist and a communist, I find the complacent ignorance about Marxism (e.g. associating it with 'extremism', or assuming that socialists are 'against' what they call 'tradition') in these kinds of conversations pretty staggering. At some point, you gotta lay off the Scruton and engage in good faith dialogue with ideas you don't like. Then again, the refusal to countenance revolutionary ideas is not terribly surprising. After all, you don't want to disturb a pretty comfortable lifestyle by thinking too much about war, poverty and wage slavery.
I frequently joke about the falsehood of communism breaking families and sexual mores by asking how many sexual norms Mao removed.
Key to understanding why being in touch with reality is important.
The way forward for Conservativism is to give people an experience of the values. Music appreciation and great books courses. But also working with different groups in the local area. And panels of those espousing conservative values across cultures and religions. Using conversation to formulate policy (citizen juries and such).
Beyond naive.
They hate us.
Thanks guys. Regarding technology and the threat of societal collapse: we really are way out on a limb. Or perhaps it might be better likened to a house of cards? How many of us could make even something as mundane as a toothbrush or a toilet roll, let alone smelt iron.
Maybe you've seen the cartoon, with a scene that looks like a Stone Age cave and an adult male in a tattered business suit speaking to three children sitting around a camp fire. “Yes, the planet got destroyed,” he reminisces, “but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
@ericT7
Hmm....Maybe you could set us an example by giving up use of the Internet. ? You could use the time
saved to make a hunting spear or a toothbrush ?
What a beautiful setting and conversation - I'd love to visit and dialogue
Well, just over half way through; this is really good. Watching your symposium I have to wonder where it all went wrong (actually it all went wrong because I’ve spent most of my life wondering where it all went wrong 🤨🤷🏻♂)
Although I’ve always had an ability to get along well with people, this is paradoxically commensurate to a valued understanding of what ‘joins the isolated dots’ (probably what Michael Oakeshott was referring to when likening conservatism to conversation)... this sensitivity... sensibility, has perversely resulted in my being a loner (of course I don’t expect people to just accept what I say is true, you’d be entirely justified in being sceptical of my self appraisal)
The few friends that I have had, I’ve tended to see socially, on average, probably about every six to eight weeks... and not so unusually the better part of a year.
Ed Dowd, who has devoted much time to the analysis of ‘excess deaths’ re the vax, recently made a brutally honest statement about how, essentially, the radical denialism that pervades society leaves many of us with no choice but to cut ties and find people with a fidelity to reality and truth. About two and half years ago I did just that with two friends; we were having lunch, initially somewhat reminiscent of the symposium on this episode and they, both having taken the jab *and* after I’d sent an email link to Naomi Wolf voicing her concerns, about a week prior, decided to interrogate me about why I refused to take the vax; I didn’t mind the initial discussion, it was entirely to be expected, but it soon became apparent that this was something much worse than animated conversation... the sincere attempt to get to the truth had been jettisoned... I tried to change the subject by saying “let’s just see how things play out” but they just wouldn’t let it drop; and that’s Ed Dowd’s point... I cut ties, but I did it in a way so as to try and preserve the possibility for future conciliation when ‘the inevitable had played out’ but people are still resisting reality.
The one remaining friend, who I still occasionally socialise with, is in some ways even worse... this is what I mean by where did it all go wrong? The Orwellian state of society can hardly be exaggerated. Re this friend of mine, and particularly pertinent to this episode, in recent ‘discussions’ about things like election fraud in the US (he has TDS), vax harms, Ukraine etc he gets incredibly defensive and insists on the importance of Occam’s Razor... sound familiar? To quote Rob Dreher:
“The book is a powerful refutation of ‘nothing-buttery’-of the idea that reality is nothing but the sum total of its parts. It contends brilliantly that Occam’s Razor-the claim that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon is probably the best one-is a cognitive tool with which the modern world is slitting its throat.”
Will, not quite ‘the one remaining friend’, but the one that I socialise with most frequently I.e every six to eight weeks 🙄🤷🏻♂
Thanks for sharing that. It's very relatable.
@@ArtPhotographerLindsay you’re welcome
@kiljoy2354
Maybe they got tired of you banging on about your favourite conspiracy theories.
I expect you're an admirer of that other " great " thinker Graham Hancock...?
@@2msvalkyrie529 No, not particularly interested in Hancock or UFO’s...
There’s a host of symptoms/conditions almost exclusively associated with Right Hemisphere deficit due to damage after a stroke, say, and therefore relying predominantly on the Left Hemisphere.
A few examples:
Perseveration
“The left hemisphere deals with what it knows, and therefore prioritises the expected - its process is predictive. It positively prefers what it knows. This makes it more efficient in routine situations where things are predictable, but less efficient than the right wherever the initial assumptions have to be revised, or when there is a need to distinguish old information from new material that may be consistent with it.”
“The right hemisphere is, in other words, more capable of a frame shift; and not surprisingly the right frontal lobe is especially important for flexibility of thought, with damage in that area leading to perseveration, a pathological inability to respond flexibly to changing situations. For example, having found an approach that works for one problem, subjects seem to get stuck, and will inappropriately apply it to a second problem that requires a different approach - or even, having answered one question right, will give the same answer to the next and the next [Trudeau?]. It is the right frontal cortex that is responsible for inhibiting one's immediate response, and hence for flexibility and set-shifting; as well as the power of inhibiting immediate response to environmental stimuli.”
Asomatognosia
“it often follows right-hemisphere stroke. A lack of capacity to recognise parts of the embodied self is always associated with right-hemisphere damage, never with left-hemisphere damage. The phenomenon can be replicated by selectively anaesthetising the right hemisphere.”
Anosognosia
Speaking of both Goethe’s Faust and The Sorcerer‘s apprentice:
“...but in either story - that of Faust or of the [Sorcerer‘s] apprentice - there is a saving awareness that things have gone badly wrong. In the story I am to tell, the left hemisphere acts like a sorcerer's apprentice that is blithely unaware that he is about to drown, a Faust that has no insight into his errors and the destruction they have brought about. Let us remind ourselves of the neurological literature for a moment. Although the left hemisphere does not see and cannot understand what the right hemisphere understands, it is expert at pretending that it does, at finding quite plausible, but bogus, explanations [confabulation/Biden] for the evidence that does not fit its version of events. It will be remembered from the experiments of Deglin and Kinsbourne that the left hemisphere would rather believe authority, ‘what it says on this piece of paper’, than the evidence of its own senses. And remember how it is willing to deny a paralysed limb, even when it is confronted with indisputable evidence?”
Ramachandran:
In the most extreme cases, a patient will not only deny that the arm (or leg) is paralysed, but assert that the arm lying in the bed next to him, his own paralysed arm, doesn't belong to him! There's an unbridled willingness to accept absurd ideas. But when the damage is to the left hemisphere (and the sufferer is therefore depending on the right hemisphere), with paralysis on the body's right side, they almost never experience denial. Why not? They are as disabled and frustrated as people with right hemisphere damage, and presumably there is as much ‘need’ for psychological defence, but in fact they are not only aware of the paralysis, but constantly talk about it …It is the vehemence of the denial - not a mere indifference to paralysis - that cries out for an explanation.
The left hemisphere is not keen on taking responsibility. If the defect might reflect on the self, it does not like to accept it. But if something or someone else [i.e Trump/conservatives/white men, Jews] can be made to take responsibility - if it is a ‘victim’ of someone else's wrongdoing, in other words - it is prepared to do so. Ramachandran carried out an experiment in which a patient with denial of a left arm paralysis received an injection of harmless salt water that she was told would ‘paralyse’ her (in reality already paralysed) left arm. Once her left hemisphere had someone else to blame for it, it was prepared to accept the existence of the paralysis.
Ramachandran again: ‘The left hemisphere is a conformist, largely indifferent to discrepancies, whereas the right hemisphere is the opposite: highly sensitive to perturbation.’
Denial, a tendency to conformism, a willingness to disregard the evidence, a habit of ducking responsibility, a blindness to mere experience in the face of the overwhelming evidence of theory: these might sound ominously familiar to observers of contemporary Western life.”
Allegedly certain experts in the field have attributed ‘zombie’ characteristics to the Right hemisphere. Now, why would they do that? It’s almost as though they are following Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’- always accuse your enemies of what you yourself are - as if the RH represents conscience (which is anathema to those with the ‘Ring of Gyges’), and therefore needs to be discredited, if not outright demonised:
“The popular assumption, aided by the reflections of some respectable neuroscientists, is that the right hemisphere might be something like a zombie, or a sleepwalker...
...So-called ‘zombie’ states are characterised by dissociation, in which the conscious mind appears cut off from the body and from feeling. That in itself suggests a relative hypofunction of the right hemisphere. Dissociation is, furthermore, the fragmentation of what should be experienced as a whole - the mental separation of components of experience that would ordinarily be processed together, again suggesting a right-hemisphere problem. Core features of dissociation include amnesia for autobiographical information, identity disturbances, depersonalisation and derealisation (lack of the sense of the reality of the phenomenal world, which appears to be a two-dimensional projection). On first principles one would therefore expect this to be a right-hemisphere-deficit condition. And subjects with right-hemisphere damage do in fact report exactly this - a change in, and a foreignness of, the self, which is disconnected from the world, a loss of feeling of belonging in the world. At times they report having become insensible automata, puppets, or mere spectators, devoid of feelings and cut off from the surrounding world (one even reported that her head has been turned into a cone, but with the front part missing; other patients reported feeling themselves to be just a casing, or cover, their ‘I’ having been separated from them, located outside the body, somewhere nearby and to the left). Subjects almost invariably speak of ‘going to another space or place’. Given all this, it would be extraordinary if dissociation in ‘normal’ subjects did not involve a disconnection from the right hemisphere, and an interhemispheric imbalance in favour of the left. And this is just what the empirical evidence shows.”
I have to say this is a most remarkable conversation!
Remarkable mainly for the amount of vacuous drivel spouted in only
2 hours.!
Thanx for sharing and all best to all from Kanton Zürich..😍😏👏👏👏
1:02:06 anyone know the song here? Thank you for posting this video. Skye is a magical place.
Beautiful! Sigh. I wish we in America could have these kinds of conversations.
Quality taxidermy eagle. Beautiful work of art.
Death staring humanity in the face; intellectuals discuss the problem endlessly without perceiving the solution on the other side of the mirror. Life. Where is she found? Not behind a screen! She is one who you feared would cause your loss, kept at arms length, rejected. Courage. Sheer indulgence, having a feast, sharing ideas and food and great wine. Putting the world to right. Imitating Christ without His cross. Courage. She won't eat you up! Learn to trust the order in the plan God has written into the form of creation. Life is NOT restored or found without her.
I forgot to add to my last comment which is the last on here surprisingly as it was a while ago, that I lived in the UK for 50 years and have been in California for 12 years and someone close to me who is American doesn't get my British humor at all! It is hard to explain jokes all the time as if you don't get them, they kind've fall flat. This friend simply doesn't understand irony or play on words however often you say something witty, alas. I think much of this is to do with the food toxicity in this country. The food is no where near as good as it was in England. I do miss my English food! I continue to listen to Iain although he interviews people who use 'isms' a lot and I find that dries some conversations up a bit. I never went to University you see but I love intelligent people if they can speak in layman's terms.:) Thanks for listening.
👍👍Hi. thanks for this. 36:57 Alert awareness of the Shen mind from interior silence... no mind... not minding.
" Employing the mind as a mirror... it grasps nothing, it refuses nothing, it receives but does not keep...", Zhuangzi.
" the wild geese do not intend to cast their image, the water has no mind to retain their reflection."
"The lack of spontaneity" that resonated, McGilchrist is 100% correct.....
A benign feudalism would be where people get to choose what they wish to pursue (they'd mostly stay in this), and they are guaranteed enough resources to pursue it fruitfully. The people choosing it (most usually through trying out options I would guess) is the way we could ensure it was benign.
Beurocracy, regulation, and ideological coercion confine us in an ever-shrinking box. When considering the nature of individual freedom we should be aware that these things are the antithesis of it.
Indeed. I think about how in the USA, many conservatives claim that the wild west of individualism makes great things happen, and yet also demand everyone marry and pump out babies.
An incredible insight into how our modern world has or is trying to take away our inner most peace in ourselves So this episode awakens us to return to simpler older ideals that were initially created from such civilisations as the Greeks to our Precious Indigenous cultures 🕊🌳🌊🌏❤️
Fantastic!!! Does anyone know the name of the music that plays in the introduction?
19:47 This helps me to understand my own brain better. I have a severe case of Asperger's. I know it's not really autism in the traditional sense. But it is some interaction type of anomaly. I don't want to label it disorder or dysfunction because it's as you most likely know yourself, an ability, maybe a skill of thinking out of the box. But of course the flip side of it is that I am not doing well with colloquialisms and sarcasm and socialization. I'm often misunderstood which is a pity. Some misunderstand me and then hate me. I often cry.
Wonderful discussion
🐐channel!
There is good in just conversation.
Incredible. Truly inspiring work here, gentlemen. Thank you kindly.
Does anyone happen to know the title of the piece of music at the very end of the video at 2:16:18? It brought a tear to my eye.
An interesting talk, thank you all.
In so much we agree & some not, I was surprised to hear the adolescence analogy raised, & I think this helps me express our greatest divergence.
I have been saying for years, humanity has entered its adolescence stage, like you signalled, starting with Copernicus, I though go on to suggest that accepting (following Nicolaus's train of thought) that humanity is not at the centre of the universal maths, humanity now needs to continue forward, no longer living under the wing & protection of a deity. To a world we accept responsibility for the wellbeing of the planet & the life upon it.
Clearly this leaves me in confusion with your desire to turn the tide, when I would be able to accept the need to redirect the tide.
note:- I view myself as New Conservative & a Universal Humanist.
If desired I am able to explain a new trinity of actors in life, in which other than there being three, are not deistic, unless like me you believe the universe & god to be interchangeable terms.
Onwards & Forwards, in to the light.
I think Iain may have misinterpreted Hoffman’s comments about time. Unfortunately Hoffman is his own worst enemy. His headline is space time is doomed. In fact what he really proposes is that space time is not fundamental. That there exists something behind spacetime. He also points out that if he cannot recover spacetime mathematically from this more fundamental model then he will have failed. As such I think Hoffman is more a disciple of Bohr’s view as expressed here by Iain, that he is an adversary.
I case here in part to say this. 😊
This is such a great discussion in which Iain’s idea of flow is so beautifully embodied. Who is the third gentleman who 1:12:06 talks about punishing book recently and who does not mention the title of the book?
What’s up with the window at 36:59? Did they have to edit out some of the reflections?
I often joke about how I was born with a brain lacking a God circuit.
I don't see myself as owing so much to society. It ripped me out of nonexistence without my permission.
I know a number of people in my community who attend a philosophy group every week and discuss Eastern philosophy - because they believe the West has little or nothing to offer except rationality. What has gone wrong to make people turn away from their own culture, where spirituality is on our very doorstep, to a culture that we hardly understand and don't really resonate with, and if Carl Jung had anything to say about it, is quite dangerous and certainly not allowing us to become more conscious of our own archetypes? We have definitely got to 'turn the tide' in the West.
Great conversation. The background music is distracting though.
No it isn't
A dialogue, a conversation which nourishes the mind to hear and deal with the reality and the magnitude of the issues of our current and coming condition of decline.
I must have missed that part. All I heard was the same old tosh he's been peddling to the gullible and hard of thinking for years !
I seem to remember one theory for the fall of the Greek empire was rabies. The sought for priapist being in infectious manifestation. For the Romans, it was syphilis.
I heard the Romans got a major case of lead poisoning from all those pipes and drinking vessels.
Fascinating discussion. Please, please, who is singing The Deer’s Cry at 1:48?
Sorry, no answer, same question!!! There are lots of versions online, but not as uplifting as this one! The voice reminds me of Emma Kirkby but she does not seem to have performed this piece....
I wonder if you've read Our Immoral Soul By Rabbi Nilton Bonder, Sebastian (or Dr. McGilchrist). It speaks to this ongoing flow, good vs. right, among other things.
cool