After listening to several interviews, the profundity of what you were saying was starting to seep in. I ordered The Matter with Things, but couldn't wait to dig in, so I started reading The Master and His Emissary. I'm just a hundred pages in, but saying 'wow' feels like an understatement. It's not an easy read, yet I can't put it down. Learning about hemispheric epistemology seems to me to be of fundamental importance, and as I've heard you say - this is actual progress in philosophy. I can't wait to continue reading both of your works, and I'll try to become adept at communicating this work to others with the same nuance as you display in your book. I really hope you continue with this series - it would be a great companion to the book. And thank you so much, Iain, for the work you've put into writing this. I hope your generosity will be repaid tenfold, and I hope and trust your work will become classic pillars of the future civilization.
This really is a terrific dialogue. Alex Gomez-Marin brings so much passion and joy to the process of engaging with Iain McGilchrist's very important work. Beautiful!
Tried to get one the moment I caught the title here. Still not available. Love the content, for sure. Bought the Master and His Emissary straight off...
Please do more of these interviews! They are very helpful! So many people are unaware of the depths and causes of these problems (reductionism). I bought the two-volume book and predict it will be recognized as classic once enough people accept the challenge to face all the inconvenient truths it represents. In fact, I’ve come to see that all truth is inconvenient to someone.
@@aspencrest yes, much more aware of the big picture. Less likely to jump to conclusions without hearing both sides. More time devoted to music (even if just in the background). Trying to be a better listener, less distracted, more focused on the person in front of me. Lots more.
I’ve been more or less praying for a series like this to start, Dr. McGilChrist. I’m 700 pages into the iBooks version (1/4) the way done. I really hope you continue this.
Nice!! I recently finished reading The Master and his Emissary and have just started The Matter with Things. I'm so glad to have found this series in my feed today!! A little proof the algorithms aren't all bad. Ha!! I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the conversations.
Just started reading the book and really enjoying. My god what a feat making books out of this very complicated material, I really have to applaud you for the effort alone. I love some of the arguments you made in the first few pages about limit cases, that really put left/right brain in perspective and then some more.
I am currently reading the 2 volumes and it is wonderful to have these youtube dialogues as a serious companion on my journey. There are truly the most important questions of our time
Excellent beginning! I've packed my bags with the Master and his Emissary and am happy to begin a new journey with you in this series. Thank you both. 🙏
Thank you Iain, plodding my way through your book and appreciate your guidance in these talks. You are changing my thinking and understanding about consciousness and matter.
I am about halfway through ‘The Matter With Things’ and am in awe of the depth of Iain McGilchrist’s exploration and his ability to present his views so clearly. This discussion added to my appreciation. My view is that McGilchrist’s views come very close to those of Bernardo Kastrup (scientific idealism) and Rupert Spira (non-duality) and was rather disappointed that the discussion appeared to reject these out of hand, apparently confusing them with solipsism. I would love to see a discussion between McGilchrist, Kastrup and Spira. To me, an amalgam of the views of these three great thinkers would add even more depth to each.
@@stephenlowy2818 Thanks Stephen. I didn’t know that McGilchrist was involved with Essentia. I view his hemisphere hypothesis as a metaphor. There is an interesting discussion between Spira and Kastrup (a Spira podcast) where they seem to be in almost total agreement.
@@stephenlowy2818 Yes, I found the discussion very helpful in clarifying their views. It may be asking too much for McGilchrist to develop his views in that direction, but perhaps Spira and Kastrup will find his material of interest. I would still love to hear the three in conversation.
@@stephenlowy2818 Nicely expressed. But would be interested in how the discussion would play out. Kastrup is outspokenly consciousness-trumps-all but I would be interested to see how McGilchrist responds to this thinking. I would imagine, like the good scientist that he is, he would be open to such an idea. I haven't read the book. Surely he deals with idealism in it somewhere.
This book is teaching me more about myself and the world as I perceive it than I ever thought possible. A true insight showing how one can better be themselves and accept both hemispheres suggestions without discrimination against the other. In short a true work of art, science and philosophy combined and an extremely intuitive reading format that anyone can grasp. Well done Iain Mcgilchrist 👍
I'm an engeneer un architecture with a big interest in psicolgy, physics, ancient and occidental philosophy so this series of talks about this very intereting work is just a delight for me! Thank you both for it and looking forward for more. Greetings from Mexico!
Thank you , Alex Gomez-Marin and Dr. Iain McGilchrist for these conversations with the three extradinary books Dr. McGilchrist has written. I have all of them. With the deepest appreciation and respect for a dedication of more inquiry of how brain functions. I have today found pt.1, The Introduction." These dialogues have immense importance for our society today.
This is an extraordinary piece of work. I am making my way through it and each page is brimming with insights. Congratulations Ian, a wonderful contribution to human unfolding! If only people became as devoted to this book as they have become devoted to other 'books'.
Hi, that was heartwarming. I recently came across your work, site etc. And must say that am in agreement with your findings and really appreciate how you articulate them. Am not so good with the word, using my art to reflect the beauty and the sacred. Shine on brother! Wendy Mor
This is a deep, profoundly new way of looking and seeing. I think and experience that what we see in new ways, always was there. A matter of consciousness. And not 'just a matter of'. It seems to me a paradigm that something in me has been awaiting for a a long time...
Such a fine choice of interlocutors, Dr. McGilchrist, and I thank you for your work, which I have invoked in involved conversations with trusted interlocutors of my own within the last twenty-four hours. The Master and His Emissary had quite astonishing implications for me as it took its place on a queue of books largely created for me by Jordan Peterson. Your conversations with him have also been invaluable to me. I'm old and don't favor e-publications. I hope the paper book might possibly become more affordable in due course. Good luck in all you do.
Please make more of these, such a relieve to have Mr McGilchrist in this insane world. I wished for more elaboration around the question is reality an illusion or not and why old scriptures are claiming it. Thank you very much 🙏🏼
First of all this information presented in this manner is phenomenal and sorely needed right now , and can be transformative if your open minded . This is my first episode and strangely enough ( or not ) I made an argument on a music forum that mirrors Dr. McGilchrist’s plane malfunctioning analogy . A joke about drummers playing while the guitarist tunes turned into an argument where one individual stated “Imagine having to tune your instrument by ear “ because now they have advanced sight based and more accurate tuners . Someone else replied “Imagine not being able to tune your instrument by ear “ , because I surmise that he’s an actual musician . My argument was definitely for the latter but also to use both and most definitely knowing how to tune by ear because it’s an auditory forum and it will help you tremendously . My reason wasn’t that it worked fine back in my day , which it did . It was that you can tune even string to the exact note with the tuner but you can’t stop say your good ti go , and not actually use your ears . There are a bunch of factors that the tuner doesn’t take into consideration , such as if the very common issue of your guitars intonation being slightly off , or a bad string , or the guitar has an anomaly then it will sound off . If you use only one method it has to be to your ear . Use tuner for one string as a reference note because perfect pitch is super rare . Then tune the other strings to that string . Following with the other instruments tuning the E by ear to each other ect . If you do this you will all be together in harmony and it doesn’t matter if your a nanometer off the true pitch which no one would even notice . As opposed to everyone tuning separately and most likely being out of sync with each other and trusting the machine and data as opposed to their own ears . I figure this would go without saying even by non musicians . Unfortunately that’s not the case .
Having just finished MWT, this dialogue is an invaluable re-iteration and summary. Thanks so much, the message couldn't be more urgent as we teeter towards self destruction via several left brain existential threats. The chilling warning from He Grasps the Sky with Both Hands, in the Iriquois myth that begins and concludes Vol 2, about not intervening a third time in human affairs, seems incredibly apt in 2022.
So glad I found this it confirms so much for me . I’ve heard that trauma sufferers express ‘ magical thinking ‘ but perhaps it is more a liberation of left brain functions due to the necessity to prioritise sensation and surrender. My left brain suffered something a few years ago from severe repeated trauma and I was almost entirely unable to move through the work and complete tasks but the compensation for me was amazing . I actually can’t describe it fully now that I am starting to balance out again but I could physically see wave particles . Not just that but I could feel the energy moving through me in the same manner as the energy outside me moved . Like we were part of an ocean . Colours also became more vibrant and I became aware of the subtle bodies of nature around me , people etc. I learned to move through the world based on heightened senses for a long time and it was almost as if those senses merged together a thought might be heard as an inner sound . A sound might be seen etc . Just profound and changed my life but also a big shock to my belief systems. I had a kundalini awakening around the same time so I’m pretty sure it was to correct this imbalance
This sounds similar in some ways to the experience of Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroanatomist who had a left-hemisphere stroke in her 30"s. She wrote about it in her book "My Stroke of Insight." Beautiful, moving story.
@imperfekt7905 I watched the talk and cried because it sounded so much like my own experience . I do believe now I had a stroke. But what was the most fascinating thing to me was the Pathways in the brain that we never use or use very little due to our conditioning. This extreme situation showed me the power of the mind and the self healing Adaptation of the body . Its just I credible.
Dear Iain, dear Alex, what you have done is extraordinary. I have watched all your interviews. Obviously, I immediately bought Iain's books and read some of Alex's articles. We are on the same wavelength. Now I think it would also be useful for you to read at least one of my books, my most recent one, in which I highlight the analogies between Iain's epistemology and Kant's epistemology: Marcel Chelba - Open letter to Iain McGilchrist / I. On Iain McGilchrist's Implicit Physiological Confirmation of Kantian Stereoperspectival Epistemology I'd be delighted to have an exchange of letters with you.
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter. - Max Planck."
Thank you for this. I'm currently reading about the Silva method, which is a right-brain focused self-help methodology. Watching this encourages me to get deeper into it, to maximize the potential of 'me noggin'.
This video, and McGilchrists work altogether, should have millions and millions of views!! Unfortunately true wisdom seems not easylie to be discovered from the majority of people. Watch! Ponder! Learn!
Thank you for making this available. I would have found reading The Matter With Things a little daunting without this commentary. I look forward to future talks.
Wonderful analysis of how data is processed. What I think is missing is the application of Will to manipulate the data to create a new reality. In bound data also passes thru personal preferences and filters and finally a decision is made internally. What is not clear at what point free will is applied and how it alters one's consciousness
Going that path, being not afraid or scared. New horizons. New spaces. New visions. New vistas. New perspectives. That have been there all the time, from the first beginning. With us. We are now beginning to see anew.
Thanks so much for posting this. It so nice to hear the sacred and science in the same sentence, all wonderfully articulated. Very interested in the evolution of this discussion. Irrespective of ones own personal views on these matters one can hear the voice of reason here, and its vitally important that this message goes out before we burn our planet to cinders (whilst all the while proclaiming we can still fix it) !
Is there a conflict between revaluing the right hemisphere and having that revaluation in several long books. Reading is largely a left-brain activity. Those of us stronger on the right are sometimes described as 'dyslexic' because our left brain is not so good at reading. Having videos like this is a godsend.
Dear Iain, would be really nice if you put this one audio too. I enjoyed your first book a lot and there are many people around who have time and interested but unable to read. Please make an effort.
The insights in this discussion should give us great hope. A wonderful, powerful, and world-altering phenomenon becomes possible through hemispheric differences: relationship. Perhaps the “who are we?”-that meaning we seek in life-is actually modeled for us in our minds, physically & metaphysically. Our marvelous brains are that connection of poetry & prose that Forster saw as an exaltation of both, where “human love will be seen at its height.” Humanity still has a lot of reaching to do. But having a starting point is a good part of the “good fight” we face. We should never underestimate the life-giving power of relationship; it is the very essence life!
Using the route map analogy, reductionism helps us decide whether to turn left or right at each particular junction, but the holistic knowledge we are heading north, and the sun needs to generally be behind us on the journey, enables us to assess whether that knowledge is actually taking us in the general direction we intend. Reductionist science has fed into every aspect of our culture, our economies, our politics, our religions and our social organisation, yet we live in an holistic and connected universe in an ever more evolving and complex process. It usually turns out to be this and that, not this or that when we look closely enough, depending on our field of focus.
I would love to see Iain talk with Christopher Wallis, one of the leading teachers and translators of Shaiva Tantra, which has so many parallels/crossovers with his ideas about consciousness. :)
I’m currently working through the first volume of TMWT and found this discussion very helpful and engaging, look forward to more! The Master and His Emissary took me more than six months to get through but it’s had more impact on the way I understand the world than anything I’ve read since discovering Konrad Lorenz’s Behind the Mirror as an undergrad 40 years ago. And off topic, but as a fellow music lover I wonder if Dr. McGilchrist would be willing to share his favorite recording of the G-Minor Quintet? :)
Thanks, Keith. I'm afraid that, since I found the Amadeus' recording in my teens (on Deutsche Grammophon), I have stopped looking further. No recording could be better - only different.
@@akm97 Modern recorded music adds a dimension to your discussion of how music “exists.” There is, for example, a single instance of “Strawberry Fields Forever” which is ideal, unique, and reproducible, in a way that the G-minor Quintet is not. There are “covers” (i.e. interpretations by other artists), but they are manifestly not the same. Recordings, per se, are concrete re-presentations - the world of the left hemisphere made real.
I wouldn't say that McGilchrist is "in the middle" between idealism and reality-out-there. Rather, he is suggesting a complete rejection of the objective-subjective poles, substituting a double-vector of experiencer/experienced in the word "encounter." Is it cognate with Heidegger's term "Ereignis"?
I'm towards the end of the first volume, and it seems inevitable to me that these ideas will give many Kuhnian apoplexy, but we live in the darkest and most dangerous of ages, the Doomsday clock at 100 seconds to midnight, and this work is a cathedral architected out of music that if we can enter (or become prepositions in relation to) the center might hold, and the world might have a chance. The work is an magisterial angel to wrestle while the four horsemen ride hard around us. How wonderful to have a duet like this to illuminate and adumbrate it for us, as if erudite gibbons were singing at twilight, or a theremin and guitar were playing Villa-Lobos. (And to not have to beat my head against the wall alone trying to fathom what "entailment" means in philosophy would be great too!) from Rumi's "The New Rule" The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere Nothing else to do. Here's the new rule: Break the wineglass, and fall toward the glassblower's breath.
Dr. Mcgilchrist are you at all familiar with Jungian protégé Erich Neumann? If so what are your thoughts on his work, especially the Great Mother and Great Father which bear striking resemblance to the character of the right and left hemispheres?
This is exciting thought provocation. Bravo to the highest number 💡😀 and secondly, that explains why my pilot friend at times drives me out of my mind with his observations
The on;y truth is an impersonal sense of I am ( I exist or I am alive) everything else is a concept that can be accepted or rejected. Sri Ramesh Balsekar. After listening to this I can now see that a concept cam cause confusion in an individual as the left hemisphere can accept whilst the right hemisphere rejects a concept i.e confusion is therefore the inability of the two hemispheres agreeing ( integrating ) on what is being perceived as a coherent or integrated single experience.
I started watching this the day after I cleared some books off my bookshelf. As I was attending to what Iain was saying I had a sudden worry that I may have put a book on Alfred Whiteheads post-modern philosophy out for collecting… I hadnt, but felt a sudden relevance, even though I really dont understand Whiteheads philosophy… So, like that?
47 mins in its eerily similar to Nassim Taleb’s thinking. Focusing on survival, tail risk, look at reality rather than relying on the map or some platonic categorical abstraction.
I have a friend that is doing a PhD re consciousness and psychosis and I mentioned Ian but she said she could not cite him and so does not want to read him, as he would not be acceptable in an analytic philosophy approach.
With all due respect to Dr McGilchrist, who clearly has a brilliant mind, all this (38:00) has been throughly understood for at least a couple of thousand of years. What he speaks of is known as “condition-dependent origination” in the philosophy of Buddhism. For instance, the visible object, the sensitive material of the physical base of the eye and eye-consciousness (seeing) arise in mutual dependence. Without one, the others do not arise. Conditioned by the arising of this sense contact, arises perception, delineating and naming the object. What we might regard as a solid ‘conventional reality’ turns out, after proper investigation, to be entirely conceptual, an ephemeral, dream-like fabrication made out of ultimately real - but entirely fleeting components. The ‘higher’ teaching of Buddhism is amazing, well worth checking out, imho.
wow, I've come to the conclusion our reality is very dependant on our brain's structure and function, and one cannot assume the world exists independant of our 'sensory' systems. these videos seem that they will address and build on this! cool.
Maybe a strange question, I like to know who the painter is of the painting in the background and also covers your books, i am a fan of abstract landscapes.
Wonderful, Iain, as usual. Thank you very much for posting this crisp clarification. A question. You say (at ca: 24:14) "the fact that we're not aware of that is because evolution has taken care to hid it [the difference between the phenomenology of the left and the right hemispheres] form us." Do you mean to imply that evolution has done that with intention? If not, I will appreciate a clarification. Thank you in advance.
I would love an Audiobook version of The Matter With Things. I'm extremely audio-attuned, been listening to audiobooks for 25 years, especially with a competent reader it helps me to get the flow of a book and get into it's gestalt (I know Marshal McLuhan babbled about this, hot vs. cold methods of communication etc., but personally I think McLuhan was a buffoonish sophist whose only valid ideas came from that absolutely underrated genius Harold Innis who seemed to presage a lot of stuff Dr. McGilchrist has uncovered...no Emissarian he!)......Anyways tangent aside, the only way I was able to get through Master and his Emissary was through the excellent audiobook version that I got on Audible. There is something to be said with sitting on a park bench on a sunny day outside with a good audiobook with a good narrator; Master And His Emissary's narrator was just fine. He didn't "take me out of the movie" as they say in film criticism circles and that immersivety was just exactly as it should be. I know it would be a monster of an audiobook size-wise, but I would just be on cloud nine if I had the opportunity to listen to an audio version of this book. It would be something I could leisurely pace myself through over the course of this Spring or Summer or whenever it could potentially come out.
Me too! Sadly can't get the audiobook here in South Korea for some reason. Probably due to some or other rights of publishers. I am sure The Matter of things will be "audibooked" soon.
*The Hard Problem, so called,* vis-à-vis the status of consciousness, is only hard because the “problem”, from the point of view of the scientific community calling it that, is in trying to prove it doesn’t exist. Well, obviously, if you’re trying to prove that something doesn’t exist and you can’t do it, you have two options: (1) You can explain it away as being not merely _A_ hard problem; but _THE_ hard problem - a problem so hard that it’s actually insoluble. Or (2) You can conclude that consciousness is really real and there isn’t a problem to solve.
Lovely conversation! Do I need to read “The master and his emissary” before “The matter with things”? Or is it irrelevant since they are different books?
I'd say it would help in some respects. The evidence for the hemisphere hypothesis is set out well in TMAHE and also in the opening of THWT, but the first book also gives a quite exceptional reading of Western History in terms of the hypothesis which is in itself very stimulating
Iian is a treasure. The world is so much richer with this man sharing his experiences and perspectives. Such a wonderful teacher.
After listening to several interviews, the profundity of what you were saying was starting to seep in. I ordered The Matter with Things, but couldn't wait to dig in, so I started reading The Master and His Emissary. I'm just a hundred pages in, but saying 'wow' feels like an understatement. It's not an easy read, yet I can't put it down. Learning about hemispheric epistemology seems to me to be of fundamental importance, and as I've heard you say - this is actual progress in philosophy. I can't wait to continue reading both of your works, and I'll try to become adept at communicating this work to others with the same nuance as you display in your book. I really hope you continue with this series - it would be a great companion to the book. And thank you so much, Iain, for the work you've put into writing this. I hope your generosity will be repaid tenfold, and I hope and trust your work will become classic pillars of the future civilization.
This really is a terrific dialogue. Alex Gomez-Marin brings so much passion and joy to the process of engaging with Iain McGilchrist's very important work. Beautiful!
Yes -- Dialogue is the word. It gets us outside of our heads so we can walk around a so-called" thing," and gain some perspective.
Thank you for your work Iain, please make an audible version of the matter with things 🙏
Tried to get one the moment I caught the title here. Still not available. Love the content, for sure. Bought the Master and His Emissary straight off...
Please do more of these interviews! They are very helpful! So many people are unaware of the depths and causes of these problems (reductionism). I bought the two-volume book and predict it will be recognized as classic once enough people accept the challenge to face all the inconvenient truths it represents. In fact, I’ve come to see that all truth is inconvenient to someone.
After taking in the information offered in the books, are you living differently day to day?
@@aspencrest yes, much more aware of the big picture. Less likely to jump to conclusions without hearing both sides. More time devoted to music (even if just in the background). Trying to be a better listener, less distracted, more focused on the person in front of me.
Lots more.
People choose to believe what they want; most are not interested in Truth!
VERY well Said Sir 👍🏽! Brian, Barnes Village London
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I’ve been more or less praying for a series like this to start, Dr. McGilChrist. I’m 700 pages into the iBooks version (1/4) the way done. I really hope you continue this.
I am not a scientist but an artist and a mystic but I am thrilled by this exchange of views between these two remarkable beings.
Nice!! I recently finished reading The Master and his Emissary and have just started The Matter with Things. I'm so glad to have found this series in my feed today!! A little proof the algorithms aren't all bad. Ha!! I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the conversations.
yes, my algorithm feeds me good things too, this needs to be acknowledged more
Just started reading the book and really enjoying. My god what a feat making books out of this very complicated material, I really have to applaud you for the effort alone. I love some of the arguments you made in the first few pages about limit cases, that really put left/right brain in perspective and then some more.
I am currently reading the 2 volumes and it is wonderful to have these youtube dialogues as a serious companion on my journey. There are truly the most important questions of our time
Fascinating.
There is no chaos in the cosmos, only chaos in human eyes caused by our blindness.
Yes, yes, please both of you continue this journey and take me with you.
Excellent beginning! I've packed my bags with the Master and his Emissary and am happy to begin a new journey with you in this series. Thank you both. 🙏
Thank you Iain, plodding my way through your book and appreciate your guidance in these talks. You are changing my thinking and understanding about consciousness and matter.
Compliments on your dedication Dr. McGilchrist, you probably should make a podcast out of this series
Thanks, I suspect we will. Iain
I am about halfway through ‘The Matter With Things’ and am in awe of the depth of Iain McGilchrist’s exploration and his ability to present his views so clearly. This discussion added to my appreciation. My view is that McGilchrist’s views come very close to those of Bernardo Kastrup (scientific idealism) and Rupert Spira (non-duality) and was rather disappointed that the discussion appeared to reject these out of hand, apparently confusing them with solipsism. I would love to see a discussion between McGilchrist, Kastrup and Spira. To me, an amalgam of the views of these three great thinkers would add even more depth to each.
@@stephenlowy2818 Thanks Stephen. I didn’t know that McGilchrist was involved with Essentia. I view his hemisphere hypothesis as a metaphor. There is an interesting discussion between Spira and Kastrup (a Spira podcast) where they seem to be in almost total agreement.
@@stephenlowy2818 Yes, I found the discussion very helpful in clarifying their views. It may be asking too much for McGilchrist to develop his views in that direction, but perhaps Spira and Kastrup will find his material of interest. I would still love to hear the three in conversation.
@@stephenlowy2818 Nicely expressed. But would be interested in how the discussion would play out. Kastrup is outspokenly consciousness-trumps-all but I would be interested to see how McGilchrist responds to this thinking. I would imagine, like the good scientist that he is, he would be open to such an idea. I haven't read the book. Surely he deals with idealism in it somewhere.
I am in awe of the beautiful prowess of language, with which Iain describes experience. It is a pleasurable experience in itself. 😊
This book is teaching me more about myself and the world as I perceive it than I ever thought possible. A true insight showing how one can better be themselves and accept both hemispheres suggestions without discrimination against the other.
In short a true work of art, science and philosophy combined and an extremely intuitive reading format that anyone can grasp. Well done Iain Mcgilchrist 👍
Thank you Alex. Thank you Iain. Your life's work gives us a guide to understand ourselves in a meaningful way.
I'm an engeneer un architecture with a big interest in psicolgy, physics, ancient and occidental philosophy so this series of talks about this very intereting work is just a delight for me! Thank you both for it and looking forward for more. Greetings from Mexico!
Thank you , Alex Gomez-Marin and Dr. Iain McGilchrist for these conversations with the three extradinary books Dr. McGilchrist has written. I have all of them.
With the deepest appreciation and respect for a dedication of more inquiry of how brain functions.
I have today found pt.1, The Introduction." These dialogues have immense importance for our society today.
This is an extraordinary piece of work. I am making my way through it and each page is brimming with insights. Congratulations Ian, a wonderful contribution to human unfolding! If only people became as devoted to this book as they have become devoted to other 'books'.
Thank you so much for this. I look forward to the continuing dialogues.
Really enjoyed this conversation and look forward to discussions of parts 2 and 3.
Great conversation - really looking forward to more.
Hi, that was heartwarming.
I recently came across your work, site etc. And must say that am in agreement with your findings and really appreciate how you articulate them. Am not so good with the word, using my art to reflect the beauty and the sacred.
Shine on brother!
Wendy Mor
Great conversation. Please continue!!🙏🙏
This is a deep, profoundly new way of looking and seeing. I think and experience that what we see in new ways, always was there. A matter of consciousness. And not 'just a matter of'. It seems to me a paradigm that something in me has been awaiting for a a long time...
Thank you for this interview and I look forward to future conversations. Some of us may prefer to read this book back to front. Perhaps I will.
Excellent. I am very much looking forward to your next dialogue together.
Such a fine choice of interlocutors, Dr. McGilchrist, and I thank you for your work, which I have invoked in involved conversations with trusted interlocutors of my own within the last twenty-four hours. The Master and His Emissary had quite astonishing implications for me as it took its place on a queue of books largely created for me by Jordan Peterson. Your conversations with him have also been invaluable to me. I'm old and don't favor e-publications. I hope the paper book might possibly become more affordable in due course. Good luck in all you do.
fantastic work guys. privileged to be able to share in this, thank you so much.
Please make more of these, such a relieve to have Mr McGilchrist in this insane world. I wished for more elaboration around the question is reality an illusion or not and why old scriptures are claiming it. Thank you very much 🙏🏼
Such a wonderful compatibility of minds - resonates with positive & fruitful insights. Thank you.
Happy to see you publish again. ... And such a long time to spend with you too. I'm looking forward to this.
Thank you🙏
I will watch this in full later.
Found this in 2023! Incredible series not be missed!
Beautiful discussion
I read the book and it is mind blowing. It changed the way I look at the world, and it explains many things that I previously did not understand.
So true, there is such a joy in reading it.
First of all this information presented in this manner is phenomenal and sorely needed right now , and can be transformative if your open minded . This is my first episode and strangely enough ( or not ) I made an argument on a music forum that mirrors Dr. McGilchrist’s plane malfunctioning analogy . A joke about drummers playing while the guitarist tunes turned into an argument where one individual stated “Imagine having to tune your instrument by ear “ because now they have advanced sight based and more accurate tuners . Someone else replied “Imagine not being able to tune your instrument by ear “ , because I surmise that he’s an actual musician . My argument was definitely for the latter but also to use both and most definitely knowing how to tune by ear because it’s an auditory forum and it will help you tremendously . My reason wasn’t that it worked fine back in my day , which it did . It was that you can tune even string to the exact note with the tuner but you can’t stop say your good ti go , and not actually use your ears . There are a bunch of factors that the tuner doesn’t take into consideration , such as if the very common issue of your guitars intonation being slightly off , or a bad string , or the guitar has an anomaly then it will sound off . If you use only one method it has to be to your ear . Use tuner for one string as a reference note because perfect pitch is super rare . Then tune the other strings to that string . Following with the other instruments tuning the E by ear to each other ect . If you do this you will all be together in harmony and it doesn’t matter if your a nanometer off the true pitch which no one would even notice . As opposed to everyone tuning separately and most likely being out of sync with each other and trusting the machine and data as opposed to their own ears . I figure this would go without saying even by non musicians . Unfortunately that’s not the case .
Having just finished MWT, this dialogue is an invaluable re-iteration and summary. Thanks so much, the message couldn't be more urgent as we teeter towards self destruction via several left brain existential threats. The chilling warning from He Grasps the Sky with Both Hands, in the Iriquois myth that begins and concludes Vol 2, about not intervening a third time in human affairs, seems incredibly apt in 2022.
Thank you so much for doing this and sharing it with us.
Thank you so much for your work as always. This is a really helpful video.
So glad I found this it confirms so much for me . I’ve heard that trauma sufferers express ‘ magical thinking ‘ but perhaps it is more a liberation of left brain functions due to the necessity to prioritise sensation and surrender. My left brain suffered something a few years ago from severe repeated trauma and I was almost entirely unable to move through the work and complete tasks but the compensation for me was amazing . I actually can’t describe it fully now that I am starting to balance out again but I could physically see wave particles . Not just that but I could feel the energy moving through me in the same manner as the energy outside me moved . Like we were part of an ocean . Colours also became more vibrant and I became aware of the subtle bodies of nature around me , people etc. I learned to move through the world based on heightened senses for a long time and it was almost as if those senses merged together a thought might be heard as an inner sound . A sound might be seen etc . Just profound and changed my life but also a big shock to my belief systems. I had a kundalini awakening around the same time so I’m pretty sure it was to correct this imbalance
This sounds similar in some ways to the experience of Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroanatomist who had a left-hemisphere stroke in her 30"s. She wrote about it in her book "My Stroke of Insight." Beautiful, moving story.
@imperfekt7905 I watched the talk and cried because it sounded so much like my own experience . I do believe now I had a stroke. But what was the most fascinating thing to me was the Pathways in the brain that we never use or use very little due to our conditioning. This extreme situation showed me the power of the mind and the self healing Adaptation of the body . Its just I credible.
Thanks for doing this Ian.
Awesome talk! It just came up in my feed and i left it on because i was busy.
Dear Iain, dear Alex, what you have done is extraordinary. I have watched all your interviews. Obviously, I immediately bought Iain's books and read some of Alex's articles. We are on the same wavelength. Now I think it would also be useful for you to read at least one of my books, my most recent one, in which I highlight the analogies between Iain's epistemology and Kant's epistemology:
Marcel Chelba - Open letter to Iain McGilchrist / I. On Iain McGilchrist's Implicit Physiological Confirmation of Kantian Stereoperspectival Epistemology
I'd be delighted to have an exchange of letters with you.
This is the most important discussion happening right now. It underlies everything.
Really enjoyed this conversation.
You two give me hope for the whirled.
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter. - Max Planck."
"has lost everything but their reason" great quote from G.K. Chesterton
Thank you for this. I'm currently reading about the Silva method, which is a right-brain focused self-help methodology. Watching this encourages me to get deeper into it, to maximize the potential of 'me noggin'.
Be really really careful. The Silva stuff is defo a cult. Do some Googling.
If only we had UA-cam when Kant wrote. Admire you courage and unfortunately the need today to convince people to read your work.
Yes, that would have been a help. . . . Or perhaps not!
This video, and McGilchrists work altogether, should have millions and millions of views!!
Unfortunately true wisdom seems not easylie to be discovered from the majority of people.
Watch!
Ponder!
Learn!
Thank you for making this available. I would have found reading The Matter With Things a little daunting without this commentary. I look forward to future talks.
Wonderful analysis of how data is processed. What I think is missing is the application of Will to manipulate the data to create a new reality. In bound data also passes thru personal preferences and filters and finally a decision is made internally. What is not clear at what point free will is applied and how it alters one's consciousness
Yes thank you, finally in starting to read this chats, most interesting .
Going that path, being not afraid or scared. New horizons. New spaces. New visions. New vistas. New perspectives. That have been there all the time, from the first beginning. With us. We are now beginning to see anew.
Wow! Mind blowing stuff
This book will undoubtedly be central to both my contributions and to the project as a whole of saving Western civilization
Thanks so much for posting this. It so nice to hear the sacred and science in the same sentence, all wonderfully articulated. Very interested in the evolution of this discussion. Irrespective of ones own personal views on these matters one can hear the voice of reason here, and its vitally important that this message goes out before we burn our planet to cinders (whilst all the while proclaiming we can still fix it) !
Sat Nav example is gold. Mind = blown . 👌🙏👍
Is there a conflict between revaluing the right hemisphere and having that revaluation in several long books. Reading is largely a left-brain activity. Those of us stronger on the right are sometimes described as 'dyslexic' because our left brain is not so good at reading.
Having videos like this is a godsend.
Dear Iain, would be really nice if you put this one audio too. I enjoyed your first book a lot and there are many people around who have time and interested but unable to read. Please make an effort.
The insights in this discussion should give us great hope. A wonderful, powerful, and world-altering phenomenon becomes possible through hemispheric differences: relationship.
Perhaps the “who are we?”-that meaning we seek in life-is actually modeled for us in our minds, physically & metaphysically.
Our marvelous brains are that connection of poetry & prose that Forster saw as an exaltation of both, where “human love will be seen at its height.”
Humanity still has a lot of reaching to do. But having a starting point is a good part of the “good fight” we face. We should never underestimate the life-giving power of relationship; it is the very essence life!
Using the route map analogy, reductionism helps us decide whether to turn left or right at each particular junction, but the holistic knowledge we are heading north, and the sun needs to generally be behind us on the journey, enables us to assess whether that knowledge is actually taking us in the general direction we intend. Reductionist science has fed into every aspect of our culture, our economies, our politics, our religions and our social organisation, yet we live in an holistic and connected universe in an ever more evolving and complex process. It usually turns out to be this and that, not this or that when we look closely enough, depending on our field of focus.
Great idea. So glad to have these to accompany the books. Have you considered publishing as an audio podcast?
Wonderful!
Thank you! Wonderful! 🙏
I would love to see Iain talk with Christopher Wallis, one of the leading teachers and translators of Shaiva Tantra, which has so many parallels/crossovers with his ideas about consciousness. :)
Ive thought the same thing. Striking parallels.
I’m currently working through the first volume of TMWT and found this discussion very helpful and engaging, look forward to more! The Master and His Emissary took me more than six months to get through but it’s had more impact on the way I understand the world than anything I’ve read since discovering Konrad Lorenz’s Behind the Mirror as an undergrad 40 years ago. And off topic, but as a fellow music lover I wonder if Dr. McGilchrist would be willing to share his favorite recording of the G-Minor Quintet? :)
Thanks, Keith. I'm afraid that, since I found the Amadeus' recording in my teens (on Deutsche Grammophon), I have stopped looking further. No recording could be better - only different.
@@akm97 Modern recorded music adds a dimension to your discussion of how music “exists.” There is, for example, a single instance of “Strawberry Fields Forever” which is ideal, unique, and reproducible, in a way that the G-minor Quintet is not. There are “covers” (i.e. interpretations by other artists), but they are manifestly not the same. Recordings, per se, are concrete re-presentations - the world of the left hemisphere made real.
Great Job!
I wouldn't say that McGilchrist is "in the middle" between idealism and reality-out-there. Rather, he is suggesting a complete rejection of the objective-subjective poles, substituting a double-vector of experiencer/experienced in the word "encounter." Is it cognate with Heidegger's term "Ereignis"?
I'm towards the end of the first volume, and it seems inevitable to me that these ideas will give many Kuhnian apoplexy, but we live in the darkest and most dangerous of ages, the Doomsday clock at 100 seconds to midnight, and this work is a cathedral architected out of music that if we can enter (or become prepositions in relation to) the center might hold, and the world might have a chance. The work is an magisterial angel to wrestle while the four horsemen ride hard around us. How wonderful to have a duet like this to illuminate and adumbrate it for us, as if erudite gibbons were singing at twilight, or a theremin and guitar were playing Villa-Lobos. (And to not have to beat my head against the wall alone trying to fathom what "entailment" means in philosophy would be great too!)
from Rumi's "The New Rule"
The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere
Nothing else to do.
Here's the new rule: Break the wineglass,
and fall toward the glassblower's breath.
Wonderful.
Dr. Mcgilchrist are you at all familiar with Jungian protégé Erich Neumann? If so what are your thoughts on his work, especially the Great Mother and Great Father which bear striking resemblance to the character of the right and left hemispheres?
This is exciting thought provocation. Bravo to the highest number 💡😀 and secondly, that explains why my pilot friend at times drives me out of my mind with his observations
Will there be an audio version of this book coming?
I wish there was. I wanted to get the Master and his Emissary which does apparently exist but couldn't get it where I am in South Korea.
The on;y truth is an impersonal sense of I am ( I exist or I am alive) everything else is a concept that can be accepted or rejected. Sri Ramesh Balsekar. After listening to this I can now see that a concept cam cause confusion in an individual as the left hemisphere can accept whilst the right hemisphere rejects a concept i.e confusion is therefore the inability of the two hemispheres agreeing ( integrating ) on what is being perceived as a coherent or integrated single experience.
I started watching this the day after I cleared some books off my bookshelf. As I was attending to what Iain was saying I had a sudden worry that I may have put a book on Alfred Whiteheads post-modern philosophy out for collecting… I hadnt, but felt a sudden relevance, even though I really dont understand Whiteheads philosophy…
So, like that?
The Symposium welcomes this splendid new member to its eternal feast. ✍️🔨🎹
47 mins in its eerily similar to Nassim Taleb’s thinking. Focusing on survival, tail risk, look at reality rather than relying on the map or some platonic categorical abstraction.
I have a friend that is doing a PhD re consciousness and psychosis and I mentioned Ian but she said she could not cite him and so does not want to read him, as he would not be acceptable in an analytic philosophy approach.
With all due respect to Dr McGilchrist, who clearly has a brilliant mind, all this (38:00) has been throughly understood for at least a couple of thousand of years. What he speaks of is known as “condition-dependent origination” in the philosophy of Buddhism. For instance, the visible object, the sensitive material of the physical base of the eye and eye-consciousness (seeing) arise in mutual dependence. Without one, the others do not arise. Conditioned by the arising of this sense contact, arises perception, delineating and naming the object. What we might regard as a solid ‘conventional reality’ turns out, after proper investigation, to be entirely conceptual, an ephemeral, dream-like fabrication made out of ultimately real - but entirely fleeting components. The ‘higher’ teaching of Buddhism is amazing, well worth checking out, imho.
wow, I've come to the conclusion our reality is very dependant on our brain's structure and function, and one cannot assume the world exists independant of our 'sensory' systems. these videos seem that they will address and build on this! cool.
Maybe a strange question, I like to know who the painter is of the painting in the background and also covers your books, i am a fan of abstract landscapes.
Wonderful, Iain, as usual. Thank you very much for posting this crisp clarification. A question. You say (at ca: 24:14) "the fact that we're not aware of that is because evolution has taken care to hid it [the difference between the phenomenology of the left and the right hemispheres] form us." Do you mean to imply that evolution has done that with intention? If not, I will appreciate a clarification. Thank you in advance.
Brilliant.❤
Dr. M, have you spoken or written about your thoughts on Bergson? I'd be interested to hear/read your take on his theories.
You will find that when we get to chapter 22, the subject of which is time, I have much to say about Bergson. Iain
@@akm97 I will look forward to that. Thank you.
What hemisphere is the urge to say Thank You both ?
A session every chapter, then? 😉
I would love an Audiobook version of The Matter With Things. I'm extremely audio-attuned, been listening to audiobooks for 25 years, especially with a competent reader it helps me to get the flow of a book and get into it's gestalt (I know Marshal McLuhan babbled about this, hot vs. cold methods of communication etc., but personally I think McLuhan was a buffoonish sophist whose only valid ideas came from that absolutely underrated genius Harold Innis who seemed to presage a lot of stuff Dr. McGilchrist has uncovered...no Emissarian he!)......Anyways tangent aside, the only way I was able to get through Master and his Emissary was through the excellent audiobook version that I got on Audible. There is something to be said with sitting on a park bench on a sunny day outside with a good audiobook with a good narrator; Master And His Emissary's narrator was just fine. He didn't "take me out of the movie" as they say in film criticism circles and that immersivety was just exactly as it should be.
I know it would be a monster of an audiobook size-wise, but I would just be on cloud nine if I had the opportunity to listen to an audio version of this book. It would be something I could leisurely pace myself through over the course of this Spring or Summer or whenever it could potentially come out.
Me too! Sadly can't get the audiobook here in South Korea for some reason. Probably due to some or other rights of publishers.
I am sure The Matter of things will be "audibooked" soon.
I believe Audible has an audiobook version.
@@concertsinwinnipeg Ah I checked, still only Master and his Emissary, which I have. Hopefully relatively soon.
Like Jung who went forward in evolution before his time, so has this guy
What's the difference/similarities between what Iain Mcgilchrist postulates and what the Buddhists call "Dependant Arising"?
So good to see Colin Wilson’s ideas being more widely disseminated.
*The Hard Problem, so called,* vis-à-vis the status of consciousness, is only hard because the “problem”, from the point of view of the scientific community calling it that, is in trying to prove it doesn’t exist. Well, obviously, if you’re trying to prove that something doesn’t exist and you can’t do it, you have two options: (1) You can explain it away as being not merely _A_ hard problem; but _THE_ hard problem - a problem so hard that it’s actually insoluble. Or (2) You can conclude that consciousness is really real and there isn’t a problem to solve.
Lovely conversation! Do I need to read “The master and his emissary” before “The matter with things”? Or is it irrelevant since they are different books?
I'd say it would help in some respects. The evidence for the hemisphere hypothesis is set out well in TMAHE and also in the opening of THWT, but the first book also gives a quite exceptional reading of Western History in terms of the hypothesis which is in itself very stimulating
@@Eric-ot9wv hi eric! Thank you for your comment. I will keep it in mind when the time comes.
Que bien ... !