The Wisdom Of Intuition - Iain McGilchrist
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, author and a former Oxford literary scholar.
Modern society praises rationality as the pinnacle destination we should all aim for. Tradition and intuition are seen as a silly, inaccurate, hokey approach for which we have more precise solutions now. Iain has identified that neuroscience, philosophy, theology and psychology don't always agree with this though.
Expect to learn why the modern world is so obsessed with cognition, why deliberateness makes less sense the more experienced you are, what happens if someone loses one half of their brain, what horse racing experts and Isle of Man motorcyclists can teach us about intuition and much more...
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#intuition #personalgrowth #performance
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00:00 Intro
00:22 Common Threads in Iain’s Work
09:00 Society’s Lack of Intuition
13:43 Defining Wisdom
18:45 Cognition v Intuition
31:59 Left & Right Sides of the Brain
36:52 Functionality of Brain Sections
51:50 Optimism for the Future
58:54 Our Moral Obligations
1:01:27 Where to Find Iain
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Give it up for Iain. What a boss. Here's the timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:22 Common Threads in Iain’s Work
09:00 Society’s Lack of Intuition
13:43 Defining Wisdom
18:45 Cognition v Intuition
31:59 Left & Right Sides of the Brain
36:52 Functionality of Brain Sections
51:50 Optimism for the Future
58:54 Our Moral Obligations
1:01:27 Where to Find Iain
8:15 I think what he’s describing is a monotonic process. Mother Nature rejects monotonic processes but humans naïvely believe we can achieve them. We push the limits of concepts like freedom or equality miss understanding what we may be sacrificing. During the industrial revolution nothing was more important an invention that the steam train. The goal was to make the train go faster and faster. Problem was that the engines kept blowing up. The solution was the fly ball governor that essentially bleeds speed but keeps the speed constant and the train integrity sound. They pushed one value above all else and the whole thing went to shit. Progress is an illusion. You see novel things as additions but you don’t see they consequences. You have antibiotics, now you have super resilient strains. You have cancer treatments so people live longer, now those cancer sells that nature would select out of the gene pool by natural selection become more perennial and more people get cancer. The world and reality is a set of compromises. Progress does not exist.
Some of these comments prove the truth of McGilchrest's view that the quality of your life is dependent on the quality of your awareness. If you can't see the value in this man's insights then you are probably not paying attention to the things in life that bring fulfillment.
In Iraq I had an instinctive feeling without any direct evidence that someone was looking to kill me. I simply sat down and I got away unscathed, though it fucked my mind up.
@@garydaly It seems this is actually a thing. Anthony Peake reports of a number of people's experiences very similar to yours (one almost identical!) in his book The Daemon.
Rupert Sheldrakes body of work on what he dubbed "morphic resonance" might be an interesting topic delve deeper into the awareness beneath your specific experience. He highlights multiple scientific studies, to name one example, of repeated ability of subjects able to perceive the gaze of someone else on them from behind.
You are 100% correct in my view. However as you regard those with “low awareness” you encounter in your day to day life… also consider that there are some of us who are on the other end of that continuum.
For the roughly 10% of humans who skipped the “synaptic pruning” stage of neurological development, as adults we “enjoy” the “privilege” of having 50% more neurons than average (neurotypical) humans *all throughout our bodies.*
So… an overabundance of sensory neurons, motor neurons, proprioceptive neurons…
An overabundance of awareness.
This is why (from the 19th century to the mid 20th) so many people who would now be considered “Asperger’s” were diagnosed schizophrenic.
You are quite correct, in my opinion. Western civilisation is on a precipice of its destruction. It has long over extended itself by too much thinking and not nearly enough feeling. ❤❤❤❤
You‘re inviting all the right guests these days, Chris! Please keep going down this road. 😁
I read McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary" years ago, it was a game changer. Thanks for this interview- good stuff!
what were the essential take aways for you?
No you didnt
@@cx_n1 How McGilchrist dispels the left brain/right brain myth of the left hemisphere is rational and the right hemisphere is emotional. Whereas, McGilchrist clarifies how both hemispheres coordinate both rationality and emotion in different ways. And how in fact, the left hemisphere gives attention to detail and the right hemisphere gives attention to the bigger picture. I love McGilchrist's analogy of the bird feeding on the ground and at the same time looking out for predators. This is just one takeway. I've read "The Master and His Emissary" twice now and learn new things each time.
A game changer ?
Yes but the fight, should things come down to that is far from over and we are hampered by the tide...
Iain McGilchrist, Sir you’ are. so on point and a gift to the world! Wisdom literature!!! 🙏🏼💜😇🙏🏼
Chris is a good interviewer- never trips himself up by trying to be cleverer than he is: ie he is sincere in his style
Yes, he is an excellent discussion host. Vastly superior to many others.
So good to see and hear Iain McGilchrist again! Another fantastic interview; thanks Chris.
Thank you! ¡Gracias! Very interesting!
Sometimes I wonder if as a modern society we try to remember the importance of intuition by telling fantastic stories in which magic has been forgotten but the main character has it for some reason. His hero journey is learning to trust that magical, forgotten force that he can’t explain.
Also, McGilchrist’ voice is so calming for some reason.
I could listen to Iain forever.
What a brilliant man! Some of what he says reminds me of Alan Watts
What a brilliant man McGilchrist is! I always enjoy listening to him although it is sometimes challenges my thinking.
Thank you for inviting Ian. Love the podcast and the episode!
Excellent questions Chris. You did especially well as the interviewer today and we're able to expertly draw out the wisdom of Dr. M.
Just a thought that maybe Iain McGilchrist is almost like a quiet type of messiah for the modern age. Ie strangely the right man to carry a certain message.
His academic record is staggering - he is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch - and yet he is totally unassuming and kind.
He is now delivering to the world a truly important and ultimately spiritual message about what matters most in life when it's most needed to be heard. And he does so after decades of rigorous study at the most respected academic establishments on earth.
Which all in all makes him a very hard man to question. If only people would listen.
Thank you Iain 🙏
Thank you for your work, Dr McGilchrist.
Our world is in great need of your deep thinking and expression.
Maybe there is a reason you have felt so driven, because of this great need for the subtleties that you attend to and bring to our attention.
Brilliant men. What an inspiring and important conversation🤙👍
Chris, you’re a beast! Thank you for this. You been putting out quality like crazy! You’re such a good, balanced presence in the alternative media space. Mad respect! Maybe they don’t say that in England. Anyways, love your northern accent, it’s like a mix of Scottish and Canadian. Peace and love from Nevada, USA ✌️
Intuition being somewhat of "real life magic." That's an interesting way of looking at it. At times, when you don't trust your own intuition, things can go array. If you follow it, (the lessons that you have consciously and unconsciously learned from past experiences), then the situation seems to work towards your advantage; giving you the outcome you desire.
did you happen to mean awry?
Asking for both my curiosity and possibly your minor benefit. (:
@@reasonium7760 yes, I would bet they meant "awry" :)
I think it's "all you have inside you, telling you, what you can't/don't want to, see with your consiuos mind".
@@reasonium7760 "wrong" - I think, or "off the road" or something lke that..
It drives my fiancé mad when I say I just know about something, like a gut feeling ie intuition. He says ‘but where’s your proof/evidence?’ And I say ‘no need, I trust my inner knowing’. It’s got me through the past 4yrs without any unnecessary medical interventions, restriction of freedoms or living in fear, and gives me great self reliance and a deep feeling of connectedness with the world and the greater cosmos. No wonder it’s discouraged by tptb, academia, the corporate world, religion etc etc etc
We all need ppl who can talk and provide insight into whole brain living or rather wholesome living.
I don't read much but I appreciate this level of thought, using the reference of many to tap into another level of how the clock tics. Well done conversation 👏
Chris.... you are ahead of your time!
Wonderful interview, Chris!!! Thank you for your insightful follow up questions and for allowing a peacemaking visionary the time to give full ideas!
Mcgilchrist has Christ in his name FFS.
Great interview Chris and you seemed to flow well on this one, very intuitive subject for you. Iain is one of a few people who I've listened to deeply over the years, him & Peterson have probably been the biggest influences in the 12 years I've been watching TH-cam.
:D
U got me good 👍🔥😊
34:04 This section of the conversation about intuition reminded me of one of my favourite songs - Intuition by feist.
Which even speaks of maps like Mr McGilchrist: "A map is more unreal than where / you've been or how you feel"
45:00 when he’s talking about the necessity for a broad view and a focused view.. reminds me of the particle / wave duality in quantum physics.
Cool
Absolutely love this one
Listen to Iains lecture on the Ralston College podcast. This man's love for nature and people is beautiful
I love the variety of guests you have on here, Chris. As much as I often appreciate the psychologically useful life-hack content, discussions focusing on stuff like this is super interesting. Can’t wait to look in some of iain mcgilchrist’s books!
We are animals who are carrying unhealed trauma which some of us, or parts of many of us deliberately traumatise others with..literally building maimed and nonlife on foundations of pain and fear.
The unmet needs are split from abundance of healthy life and healthy ability to respond.
Responsibility and falling and walking to balance with all.
We need nature from which to relearn how to live with her...spirit, timeless, conscious, sacred and alive with all dimensions.
Superb interview. Loved the whole left/right brain bit. Slightly at odds with other things i read but maybe not, depending on my understanding.
Iain is so fascinating
Brilliant. Great job on this interview. Really great
Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke and Iain Mcgilchrist could start a religion. And I would join it.
No religion, An integrated teaching of different traditions, world views and culture would be better.
@@Vineeth..v But maybe it is a good starting point in finding something in place of religion.
Religion is supposed to do exactly what he is saying, unify our left and right brain...ie.the exoteric and esoteric. Religion becomes fundamentalist when it stops being intuitive, relying entirely on left brain understanding. When you read the sacred texts of these religions it's pretty obvious that the exoteric practice served the purpose of mystical understanding. Any religion that has maintained it's mysticism will unify the mind and expand the ability to use the right brain. Mystical Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, some sects of Islam, native traditions, Bahai, theosophy, anthroposophy, mystical Judaism (kabbalah), etc. are paths to the mystical marriage, which is right-left brain union.
Really, Jordan Peterson as a prophet, the local Amish patriarch is a far better role model with more wisdom and more life experience than 10x of him, on top of that, look at his family, his daughter, his drug addiction. What a wreck! The fact that anyone who gravitates towards fame / the limelight makes them the total opposite of a role model. That is the most basic understanding that people should possess. Ofcourse, they no longer dont.
@@eddie-ni5ox aren't you just a ray of sunshine.
Reminds me of a story I was 8 and my uncle loved to gamble so he took me and my sister to the racetrack and he told me to look at the horses and pick the winners and my first time out I picked the trifecta. Couldn't duplicate it again but I have seen beginners luck before we overthink things work like magic several times. My friend in a pool tournament once sunk the 8 ball in the first break. We couldn't believe it.
'I swear to you that to think too much is a disease. A real, actual disease' - Notes from Underground, F Dostoevsky
It's lovely to hear IMcG talk to a group of school children... struggling to use examples as basic as he can and not to stall and fall into abject boredom .... this really reveals the level of these interviews.... which is the problem IMcG is trying to clarify. Very amusing.
The most brilliant and important polymath of our era
Fucking Bravo! You pull these crisp episodes back to back to back to back to back, inspiring af, cheers mate!
Good question on "how would you define wisdom" - relating to society. I'd agree with saying that we are the least 'wise' society. I'd define it by saying we probably know ourselves less than anyone in history. We've had the carrot of 'success' dangled in front of us as it being what everyone wants when in the end, so many of those who end up with the money, the house, the car and all that end up lost...
Or through chasing this illusive 'success' we end up failing and being miserable or worse...compromising on things that we may have once held dear.
(quick e.g. but not going to make it political... Do you think Tony Blair at university ever thought he was going to end up causing as much death and misery as the bubonic plague?)
We are very disconnected with everything.
To Bojo food grows in the supermarket ... why grow it here when we can buy it from losers who grow it? (that kind of dipshit sentiment)
We admire some tosser on some shit reality show more than the local farmer.
We are unwise... and lost.
Incredibly beautiful and brilliantly
That confucian quote can be applied to music ie you master your scales which will eventually enable you to improvise freely later on down the road.
Amazing discussion. Dr McGikchrist's discussion with Dr Peterson is another amazing watch too.
This is probably a very left brained thing to say but the thing this podcast lacked is strategies/ideas on how to "feel" more and take more of a right brained approach.
Poetry might be a way in
Being in nature, meditation, exercise, breathing properly and consciously.
In addition to the other comments:
music
dancing
Being in nature: yes, particularly by water
Magic mushrooms (seriously)
Thanks all for taking the time to respond. Wishing you all the best in 2024.
Iain McGilchrist one of the most interesting people I've come across... He may not crack the nut, but I'm sure in the future they will say .. he was on the way to the truth of it!.
sweet loved this interview ✨
Excellent interview Chris. Leave the man space to speak.
Seek the divine, compassion, let go of greed.sounds awesome to me.
I'd like you to do an interview re war and the use of the two sides of the brain . Thx
Fantastic! 👏👏
Nice interview, I enjoy it!
The sheer eloquence of this man.
"Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution, and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared, often it is still there as strong as it ever was"
Donald Kingsbury
Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the bias towards the left hemisphere thinking was caused by the dominance of the literate print culture initiated by the Gutenberg printing press over five hundred years ago
I was thinking the enlightenment
Great chat
42:12 this question has plagued me for quite some time
I may be misremembering, but I believe there was some research done in the 1980s, possibly published in psychology today (but don’t quote me on that), in which patients who had suffered a left hemisphere stroke or injury, when watching a speech of Ronald Reagan, said that he didn’t make sense. In contrast, patients who had suffered a right hemisphere stroke or injury, watching the same speech, said he was lying.
"Wisdom primarily refers to a deep understanding of the connections in nature, life and society as well as the ability to identify the most coherent and sensible course of action when faced with problems and challenges."
Thank you
23:45 When he says this quote I can only thing of the counter-quote that is "Tradition is the corpse of wisdom." 😂
what a wonderdful talk, thank you
I've just started reading *"The Master and His Emissary"* - I was sceptical before picking up the book but it turns out that I find it quite absorbing and thought provoking.
Thank you both so much :) Since 1990s, I have considered myself a 'post-rationalist' :)
Combined awe and dread - the romantic concept of the sublime.
Thank you both. I too have hope, some of your words, and the spirit in which they are given move me almost to tears. I am inclined to a belief in Yeshua of the Jews and Jesus to the Gentiles.
Chris have you ever had an experience with magic mushrooms? I think we need to have more conversation about these 🍄and this🧠. Love your podcast mate newly found viewer keep up the amazing work! ~dylan of Canada~
Brilliant 👏 🙏👍🇦🇺
As an old Buddhist, to me……..Wisdom = Knowledge + Compassion
"Quite often the truth can only be expressed in a paradox." Brilliant. Is this the penultimate deep truth? ...Yes...and no.
McGilchrist cleaned clocks on this
Good balanced sense of knowing that we never will know 😊
The body is our armoury to hold safely contained and energetic life within the armoury
The armoury is amazing, to protect organs full of blood fluids and a beating heart,
The armoury will never be understood in segmented specialised divide.
There is a very short answer to everything. LOVE - that of the spirit that is wholly, absolutely, totally GO(O)D. But to explain LOVE is impossible it has to be felt, perceived by non-corporeal means.
Chris, please urge Iain to set up an interview between JBP and John Cleese. Iain is friends with Cleese.
Mostly thoughts create your feelings. Become "aware" of your thoughts and realize the reason for your feelings.
Very wise! in very short and non-professional language I would say, that we humans are created in the image of God and therefore as such with His amazing mystery of purpose and role in this Universe. The more like mechanical, grab-take it robots we become or we are made into, the less of that original purpose and mystery we carry within ourselves and also we can be manipulated by systems and politics they want themselves to become gods for our civilization.
I believe Iain McGilchrist is correct: in the ripe fullness of our egos, whilst we've gained tremendous volumes of knowledge in this information age, we have failed to increase our _wisdom_ in this process.
But with gentle talons, hope clings as I observe signs of a shift. In more than mere splinter groups and pockets, I notice people increasingly seek to incorporate a spiritual component in their lives. We see this with the rise in popularity of spheres and people, such as Sadhguru, astrology, meditation and other undogmatic forms of spiritual understanding.
Gentle talons: well played sir!
23:48 Donald tradotion e 8:23 the good and the bad by too much pursuing one or the other
Original technology is when we started "thinking" on our own ...
Eden story. Wisdom is remembering patterns so as not to repeat the error. Buckminster Fuller said it best it's very easy from human to ape rather ape to human
Deliberately living in the intuition mode of consciousness you have acsess to use your left and right brain simultaneously. From this viewpoint you experience that every creation has it’s own purpose and you know who are. As there no longer is a separation in consciousness, basically the search for answer to the spiritual questions is over. And you are Happy to be you.
What’s the practical application of Iain’s research? I’m really want to understand, but am struggling to figure out how this knowledge can help us in our day to day lives
My main take away personal take away was to practice a given domain relentlessly until the right brain can have a bigger impact and you can intuitively act. Also, it might be worthwhile pursuing things that are already somewhat intuitive to you. But many things are not intuitive without a lot of practice.
Thanks!
The negative aspect of our current culture is that it encourages you to view yourself as a machine and this is actually very seductive as as Iain’s book explains - it is left hemisphere brain capture which is pathological when not tempered by the better more human, more real capacities our right hemisphere permits us. Read his new book, really it will change your life.
Sublime.
Yes, feel before you think.
0:22 what an amazing question! and by hes awnser he never tought about.... hes just devoted to the sound i gess ...to play hes part in the game😉 -> Binary System & Mystic - Zero Or One [HQ Edit]
Oooooh LOVE that bit about tech becoming more complicted the more they add to it.
I used to be able to fix bits on our old Fiat Panda.... Now on the Tesla.. i just pray it works because if it breaks down... ... fucked if i know.
17:10 - I think once of the people he means are Dr Steve Peters who wrote The Chimp Paradox.
I heard a lot of Alan watts in this conversation
The story of horse racing has happened to me too. I had intuited the five horses but by the time I bet I heard a forecast of a journalist and stupidly followed his advice and I broke down when I saw my five horses winning the race. The intuition is a mystery but not from the brain, rather out of the brain, in the meta that gives the brain the breaking news. The brain is finally a mail box of the meta angel ( messenger). It's easier to receive intuition in putting the brain in alpha waves. Einstein was in alpha waves all the time.
While I agree with quite a lot of what McGilchrist has to say, I think that he doesn't emphasize enough the importance of the learning phase that needs to precede good intuition. Good intuition only comes after your mind has absorbed volumes of information and all sorts of small but relevant cues about the subject you are gaining an intuition about. Without that learning phase, which normally takes years if not decades, intuition is just fast but sloppy.
He does emphasise it, indeed says it’s crucial and what the left hemisphere is primarily for. It’s the much needed emissary. It just shouldn’t be the master, it shares its insights with the master and permits the master to make the wiser meta decision.
Poorly titled. Mcgilchrist would never say give up thinking. It's a balance.
52:16 Hopefully optimistic rather than hopefully pessimistic
Whenever I even heard Gilchrist's name, I think: Summary and Key - Sophia and Logos.
Midway through something that Dr McGilchrist said rang so true to me because I have said for some time that-- yes, it's very sad when a child is autistic but actually they do very well professionally in the world because this is a world made for autistic people people. Case in point, of course, would be the following: Bill Gates is considered autistic ; Elon musk is considered autistic. Those that excel in computers are autistic.
I remember noticing in the 80s that when I was at a cafe hearing young people talk --they sounded like a computer talking. There was such a rigidity to their manner of speech and they all spoke the same way. IT actually drove me crazy and I would try to move to a different part of the cafe so I wouldn't have to listen to the cadence of their speech. I have found that this has only accelerated as computers have actually taken over and become the new God.
I want to comment on something said during the optimism about the future section of the talk. I agree with Dr. McGilchrest that we must resist processes that we know aren’t working but I don’t think we can stop the push toward cyborg relationship with technology. It’s already happening. I believe that humanity will be rehumanized only after we experience the unintended or harmful consequences of this push toward AGI.
I'm curious about the statement where he says that the 2 hemispheres of the brain and things get out of balance... jumps to saying that civilisations start off as being quite well balanced and then go further and further out of balance privileging the left side of the brain... making it less intelligent.
I can totally see that to a certain point... I've came up with the term 'Human Entropy' ... which is basically what he said there. Things start out pretty organised but over time become more shambolic when people are involved... and that can be attributed to marriages, civilisations, systems.. even going so far as restaurants and businesses....
I wonder whether he's talking about the left side being more artistic though? Because since the research for that book (2009) i've read a book by a brain surgeon (forgot who now sorry) who has said that there is no real left/right in terms of artistic capabilities. So i'm pretty curious as to whether he arrived at that conclusion and whether it could be updated... or maybe i misunderstood the brain surgeon's book at the time. But that's something that came to light after 2009.
Interesting.
A bit hard to follow but very interesting! :)
‘Each of us has the capacity to express, to unfold another facet of the infinitely complex whole that is this cosmos.-the business of life is a moral act.’ (Paraphrasing Iain here 59:00).
He uses the word “attend” a lot, and says where we put our attention is a moral act. But is “attend” the right word, or should we use a word like “see”? when we look at the world, what do we see? Do we see what Iain thinks is important, namely, truth, beauty, and goodness. If not, Can we be trained to see them? And if so, how?
Pretty sure Andrew Huberman wrote off this whole left/right brain thing. I like hearing Iain speak though.
15:44
27:06
34:42 Einstein quote
Who did the painting behind Iain?
47:31 why do humans/societies tend to drift towards left brain ; explains the world we live in at present and what lies ahead potentially
49:38
This is a wonderful conversation. I disagree with Ian on many of his conclusions but massively respect his coherence, his rigour in his neuroscience and his kindness. But I just don’t buy this treatment of intuition as some sort of black box. When he says that we are not just robots and we shouldn’t just apply some basic arithmetic and instead apply some intuition, he seems to imply that intuition is in some way different than a calculation. Surely intuition is a calculation but one which is done subconsciously brining together a huge range of information both that from direct experience and that which is passed down through our genes (or the epigenetic expression thereof). Intuition isn’t magic or supernatural. It is still a calculation.
'Hopeful pessimist'
Going to tax this.
Be simple in diagrammatic language
2 opposites force wrestling until equilibrium
Equilibrium is battled by Yin Yang ☯️
Constact battle for balance
Is this true for left handed , left eye dominant people? , being that way myself I feel it does does, I have tried to describe my perception to others who are right handed left brain dominant and tried to describe it in terms of perception of the world and others ?
Some
Of the things said in the interview come to mind, being able to draw a connection between otherwise apparently unrelated things, lateral as opposed to linear . Would be fun to hear more about this. Being one who has always felt somewhat different to my right handed friends.