He is best known for his hypothesis about the respective roles of the brain’s two hemispheres and how they work together. This is not a recasting of Roger Sperry’s split-brain theory or the System 1 and System 2 modes of thought introduced by psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his New York Times bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Jon Evans How do the left and right hemispheres do things differently?
Iain McGilchrist If you want a very simple, single point, it’s that the left hemisphere produces a representation of reality, whereas the right hemisphere actually puts us in touch with the presence of reality. We’re so used to representation that we can’t see how very different it is. Almost everything that we live in now is a representation, a projection on a screen in two dimensions; living in a city which represents certain things but nature is absent from it. So it’s like the difference between a diagram, a theory, a map, and the actual territory of the real world — or the terrain as I prefer to say — in which we live. And the map is very much simpler than the terrain. And that’s not a criticism, because we need simplicity for a map to work. If it had too much information in it, it wouldn’t work. But it’s vital not to mistake the map for the real world.
Source: The divided brain, attention and how we see the world: Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Jon Evans (host of YouTube channel Uncensored CMO and Chief Customer Officer at System1 Group1) and Orlando Wood (Chief Innovation Officer at System1 Group) | Running time 48:35t
1. This conversation demonstrates that the company name is not a reflection of the System 1 and System 2 modes of thinking presented in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
In his book Tales of Power, Carlos Castaneda’s teacher don Juan Matus explains the difference between the tonal (first attention — correlates with mundane world) and the nagual (second attention — correlates with primal world), making pretty much the same distinctions that Iain McGilchrist makes in the quoted passage. You can read more here: What Newcreators call mundane world and primal world, don Juan Matus calls the tonal and the nagual.
How McGilchrist’s left and right correlates with the Newcreator’s left and right
McGilchrist’s understanding of the role of the brain’s right hemisphere correlates with primal world (the nagual, second attention), the seat of creative imagination where we foresee possibilities for enriching the world with value, meaning and joy.
His understanding of the role of the left hemisphere correlates with mundane world (the tonal, first attention), the place where synthetic imagination occurs, enabling us to do the practical work of turning embryonic ideas into robust concepts, bringing them to life and fully realising their value generation potential.
Image source: Newcreate overview, a set of 32 slides. You can download the slideshow as a PowerPoint or PDF file.
Read about the mundane and primal worldsRead about synthetic and creative forms of imagination
Videos
This list is a work in progress — extensive but not yet comprehensive.
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Mark Vernon
Running time 1:12:14
Balancing the Brain
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Satish Kumar, founder of Schumacher College at Dartington, Devon, UK
Running time 1:32:52
The Brain, the Sacred and the Soul
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Thomas Steininger of Evolve
Running time 2:17:35
Bringing the world into being
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with George Holliday
This Mind Of Ours | Episode 5
Runnning time 1:32:36
The Call to Repair
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Jack Jacobs
Beaconsfield Podcast
Running time 53:18
Can we make sense of the cosmos?
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Hilary Lawson
The Institute of Art and Ideas
Running time 17:36
The Civil Discourse (Season 4)
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Paula Marantz Cohen
Running time 26:45
The Coincidence of Opposites | Part 1: Main Lecture
Speaker: Iain McGilchrist | Introduced by Richard Gault
The Beshara Trust
Running time 1:4:5
Comment on the dictum, “It’s not necessary to solve problems, only to understand them.”
A clip from the live Q&A with Iain McGilchrist and members of Channel McGilchrist
Running time 14:19
Iain McGilchrist makes the distinction between solvable problems and predicaments.
The Divided Brain
RSA | Animated video
Running time 11:47
View the entire lecture | Live action
Running time 32:11
The Divided Brain
A documentary inspired by The Master and his Emissary, featuring Dr. Iain McGilchrist, actor John Cleese, neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, pioneering neuroscientist Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, neuroscientist Jurg Kesselring, Aboriginal elder and scientist Dr. Leroy Little Bear, and neuroscientist Onur Güntürkün.
Running time 1:15:0
Rent or buy video | Rent £4.99 | Buy £9.99
The divided brain, attention and how we see the world
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Jon Evans (host of YouTube channel Uncensored CMO and Chief Customer Officer at System1 Group) and Orlando Wood (Chief Innovation Officer at System1 Group)
Running time 48:35
00:00 Intro
01:09 Iain McGilchrist’s background
06:05 Hasn’t the myth of the right and left brain been debunked?
12:48 The changes in society based on right brained dominance
16:36 Are we seeing a left to right brained shift in society today?
22:10 How are the big discoveries made?
24:39 How understanding attention could change the world
26:34 How the left and right brains do things differently
29:19 Is attention crested by us or the world around us?
31:18 Can we train ourselves to be more right-brained?
35:13 AI asks Iain a question
37:13 How did Orlando Wood connect with Iain McGilchrist?
45:02 Orlando’s most profound piece of Iain’s work
Divided Brain, Divided World
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Rebel Wisdom co-founder David Fuller
Excerpted from Certainty and Flow
Running time 4:10
The Divided Brain and Perceiving the Sacred
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Elizabeth Oldfield, The Sacred.
Running time 1:22:39
Hemispheric Asymmetry and the Approach to the Divine
Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion
Running time 46:18
Ian McGilchrist in conversation with Ash Ranpura
dotMD Conference
Running time 50:43
Is Love the Source and Sustenance of Everything in the Universe?
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with D C Schindler
The Meaning Code
Running time 1:20:02
Mark Solms, Anil Seth, Iain McGilchrist, and Donald Hoffman
New Consciousness Paradigms | The Weekend University
Running time 32:13
The Master and his Emissary
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Charles Eisenstein
Running time 1:28:05
The Matter with Things
Excerpted from Iain McGilchrist’s lecture, Recovering our humanity
Running time: 6:04
The Matter With Things
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Rebel Wisdom co-founder David Fuller
Running time 1:30:17
The Matter with Things
Q&A with Iain McGilchrist
The Faraday Institute for Science & Religion
Running time 1:18:23
The Matter with Things: Peterson and McGilchrist
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Jordan Peterson
Running time 1:54:56
Navigating beyond materialism
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Freddy Drabble
Chasing Consciousness #15
Running time 1:45:32
PART 1
00:00 In communication with the world itself
06:30 Taking the implicit apart and out of context: disembodying it
12:00 John Cutting: noticing consequences of right hemisphere damage
14:40 The differences between the hemispheres shown in many studies
27:00 The Left Brain Interpreter: Denial and invention by the right hemisphere
29:15 Scientism: the belief that science can explain everything
30:48 Imagination and intuition in scientific discovery
31:45 You can’t measure some things like love and consciousness
33:10 Reason suggests there are immaterial things
34:30 Science refutes what it can’t explain rather than respecting the yet unexplained
36:30 The right hand grasps and the left hand explores
37:40 We only know about matter because of consciousness
42:00 Navigating beyond materialism
PART 2
55:00 Implications of the Observer Effect and Quantum Entanglement
57:30 The world changes depending on your attention
58:00 Panpsychism on the up in Anglo-American Analytic philosophy: Galen Strawson and Christian De Quincy etc.
01:03:45 Some things are trans-rational like music and love
01:06:45 Like the phases of water, neither consciousness or matter is primary
01:12:00 Could a computer have big picture left hemisphere reason?
01:14:00 Cells have intelligent novel reactions to the environment, genes store the map
01:19:00 Iain’s new book “The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions and the unmaking of the world
01:22:00 Why the drop in happiness despite a rise in standard of living?
01:25:45 The 3 scientifically proved secrets to health and happiness: Social connection, connection to nature, a sense of the sacred
01:29:00 Gene Twenge: problems assessing happiness
01:30:00 Unpacking the sacred: The tao that can be named cannot be the tao
01:36:00 Making the effort: learning to swim by jumping into the water
01:41:45 Science and the sacred are compatible
Neuroscience to master your attention
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Mahon McCann
Running time 1:02:20
0:00 intro
0:29 Functioning of the Two Cerebral Hemispheres
1:10 Attention in Perception and Understanding
1:45 The Influence of Context on Perception
3:11 Attention on Future Perception and Behavior
5:35 Hemispheric Differences & Culture
13:39 The Role of Attention in Understanding Reality
15:52 Values in Perception and Attention
34:00 The Illusion of Materialistic Satisfaction
37:51 The Role of Dopamine and Addiction in Our Lives
47:29 The Threat of Technology and AI on Human Relationships
50:17 The Importance of Humanities in Education
On the nature of reality: the limits of materialism
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury
Running time 30:55
Philosophy of our Time
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Hilary Lawson
Running time 17:27
Right – Left Brain Worldviews and the Kabbalah
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Hyman Schipper, Jewish General Hospital, McGill University
Running time 1:14:39
The role of consciousness in nature | Consciousness, Life and the Cosmos
Essentia Foundation‘s Natalia Vorontsova interviews Iain McGilchrist about The Matter with Things and the role of consciousness in nature
Running time 46:46
Turning the Tide | Symposia, Episode 1
Sebastian Morello, senior editor at The European Conservative, travels to Scotland’s Isle of Skye to meet Iain McGilchrist
Running time 2:17:33
Understanding The Matter with Things — Dialogues
Episode 5: Chapter 5 — Apprehension
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Alex Gómez-Marín
Running time 1:00:53
We are living in a deluded world
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with UnHerd executive editor Freddie Sayers
Running time 1:13:38
View edited transcript on UnHerd website
We Need to Act
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Rebel Wisdom co-founder David Fuller
Running time 41:47
Wisdom, Nature and the Brain
Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Nate Hagens
The Great Simplification #85
Running time 1:53:13
Books
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
“The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World is a 2009 book written by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist that deals with the specialist hemispheric functioning of the brain. The differing world views of the right and left brain (the “Master” and “Emissary” in the title, respectively) have, according to the author, shaped Western culture since the time of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, and the growing conflict between these views has implications for the way the modern world is changing In part, McGilchrist’s book, which is the product of twenty years of research, reviews the evidence of previous related research and theories, and based on this and cultural evidence, the author arrives at his own conclusions.” Wikipedia
View the Amazon UK page for this book
“In The Matter With Things, Iain McGilchrist tackles the big questions: Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? What happens if we neglect the sacred and divine? He argues that we have become enslaved to an account of things dominated by a partial view dominated by the brain’s left hemisphere, one that blinds us to an awe-inspiring reality that is all around us, had we but eyes to see it. He suggests that in order to understand ourselves and the world we need science and intuition, reason and imagination, not just one or two. When we do, we tap into an understanding that is both profound and beautiful, in line with the deepest traditions of human wisdom. Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a former Clinical Director of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. With a gift for synthesising neuroscience, culture and philosophy, his thought has provided essential frames for making sense of the times we live in and proved particularly influential on Rebel Wisdom over the years.” David Fuller, co-founder of Rebel Wisdom (now closed)
View the Amazon UK page for this book
Continue reading
External websites
Channel McGilchrist | Free to view videos
Iain McGilchrist’s YouTube channel
Left-brain thinking will destroy civilisation | Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Freddie Sayers, Executive Editor of UnHerd, on UnHerd website
Left Brain & Right Brain: 20 Brain Hemisphere Differences from “The Master and His Emissary” on Sloww.co website
This website
How Newcreators use mind, body and spirit to create the new and enrich the world
What Newcreators call mundane world and primal world, Don Juan Matus calls the tonal and the nagual (the tonal corresponds with the left hemisphere and the nagual corresponds with the right)
Two forms of imagination: creative and synthetic
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