This is the first I have heard of Patrick (William) Ophuls, "Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail". Thank you for mentioning it. I have it ordered. I am a long time student of Dr. McGilchrist and am at peace now with the clear, lucid insight that global civilization is collapsing at an ever increasing rate. Hard to see the timing but the magnitude of damage to the web of life on planet Earth and the subsequent human suffering is impossible to comprehend. The best we can do is lay the groundwork for a new world to come which has at its foundation, the most lucid, potent, wisdom of humankind, derived from eons of repeated rise and decline, and exemplified by teachers like Ian McGilchrist. For all those who have "awakened", try to connect with the "others" and feed the countercurrent of love, relationship, wisdom and amplification of that which is alive and connected with all life in the Universe; within us and between us. Good luck in these trying times....
@@theconciliatorsguild I have subscribed to your You Tube channel and noticed that interview which I found to be one of the most lucid, potent and enlightening interviews pertaining to the fate of mankind. What is really interesting is the examination of the conditioned structures in one's psyche that arose from being brought up in a collapsing, global civilization and to then modulate and balance awareness and attention to discover the natural endowment of an awakened state. In other words, utilizing the psychological determinants of the metacrisis to be the ultimate teacher of wisdom... I hope to stay in touch and contribute to your "Work". Thank you and all the best!
I love your reply. ♥️ ‘Immoderate Greatness’ is a brief book with an unforgettable message. He’s also fascinating to listen to. Several of his interviews are on TH-cam. An especially good one can be found on Nate Hagens’ ‘Great Simplification’ podcast.
To whose or what standard is that statement really justified? I’d say we possess and are capable of a far more intricate level of useful intelligence than any other living species on earth. To say we fall short of anything approximating a god-like intelligence of all things is quite absurd and an unreasonable standard to hold human beings. After all we are still animals…
Based on my study of Dr McGilchrist's book The Master and His Emissary I think it is not out of the ballpark to suggest the experience of an Awakening such as described by Eckhart Tolle may represent the restoration of the proper balance and harmonization of the two hemispheres.
I think what you meant to say is; "If the world has more people like Ian…the world would be a boring place" All he says is that human is a self distracting animal. No sh*t Sherlock!
A brilliant and insightful talk from Iain - as always. I've been following McGilchrist for a while now and have read all his books, and for the first time, I found myself disagreeing with him on a fundamental (and very important) point. @37:17 he suggests our desire towards bureaucracy is driven by hubris, a desire to be like the Gods. From my experience, I see that's not the case at all. It seems to me that our drive towards bureaucracy, our drive towards control, power - and to prioritise our lower values, are not out of a desire for power, but rather to avoid suffering/anxiety. We create complex systems to avoid accountability and responsibility, we follow our self-destructive path not because we want to but because we don’t know how to integrate suffering/anxiety/chaos. We no longer value vulnerability, wisdom, and we tend to see suffering as something to be avoided at all costs. When we explore indigenous and ancient cultures they almost universally practiced initiation rites, where the young had to learn - usually in a sacred space - that suffering was necessary. Only then could they pass into adulthood. In our culture we do the opposite, where almost all marketing messages promise to take away suffering (we just need to buy the latest upgrade, goods or services) and the technocratic paradigm where technology will make our lives easier. The result is that we live in culture that can no longer transcend to our higher stages of self. That’s the deep underlying problem here. The left hemisphere does not know what to do with suffering - so it exports it elsewhere, while the right hemisphere knows how to integrate and transcend it. That’s why wisdom literature and traditions always deal with the collision of opposites between love and suffering (see Christianity as a perfect example of this). I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on this. I cover this thinking in a lot more detail on my master storytelling training programme - ministory.co.uk/toolkit/
Interesting observations! On the whole, what I understood as his explanation for bureaucracy is the excessive need for control and the delusional belief that if only we could devise the perfect procedure/process, all would be well. The dominant worldview of the left hemisphere is based upon imposing our will through control and manipulation rather than trying to understand and harmonize with our environment (and ourselves). Ultimately this excessive need for control is based on fear. It is interesting to note that wisdom traditions invariably work predominantly within the 'right hemisphere' mode: e.g. acceptance/allowance vs rigid control, compassion vs. judgement/condemnation etc. All those traits usually associated with the 'ego' or 'false self' are those of the left hemisphere mode.
All attempts to avoid suffering/anxiety are a quest for power, for control, surely that is obvious. Bureaucracy is control; stemming from arrogance, which is ultimately fear. To those of a bureaucratic disposition, their order is the only form of worthy order and therefore an end to chaos, to ignorance, to suffering, to anxiety. That sense of order is so easily upset, and imbalance soon sees the facade crumble. It's a bit like those who put on an accent to hide their past, they'll imitate what is thought of as polite or posh. When things begin to get a bit stressful, their original accent will break through. Same with those who put on an act of being good, their nastiness breaks through, usually in a passive aggressive manner, calls for brutal punishments, etc.
The hubris of those in power is everywhere: we are told that a man can put on a dress and become a woman, and if we don't agree, we're transphobic. We are forced to wear pronoun badges against our will. We''re told that mass immigration is good and if it changes our way of life and we don't want that, we're racists and we're ignored. We're forced to accept medical treatments without evidence, and undergo lockdowns and wear face masks that have no basis in science. Small businesses have to account to bureaucrats for who they hire as employees, with extensive DEI reports. Even commenting on knife crime in one's street can lead to being charged with a hate crime, with the police visiting to 'check our thinking'. The list goes on with governement interference in every aspect of our cultural and economic life.
Listening to Ian McGilchrist is always interesting and enlightening. His story about the pernicious procedures to obtain payment reminded me of the frustration of having to complete an online admissions form prior to surgery, which asked for underlying conditions. The problem was that the system, after numerous attempts, would not accept my underlying condition, so in the end, I had to give up and leave it off. Technology increasingly prevents us from thinking outside the box. Life does not fit into tidy little boxes.
I am reading Gad Saad's The parasitic mind and was pleasantly surprised to see two distinct scholars talking about parasites concept in human mind here as well. The master and his emissary is next in my reading list. Thanks for the great conversation 🤍
Yes! And that trauma, that complex PTSD, is the transmission of right brain atrophy that has occurred over thousands of years of domestication of the human species. I call it domestication syndrome.
Thank you, Dr. Iian McGilchrist and John Bell, another illuminating discussion. I appreciate Dr. Iian McGilchrist's books and all those he speaks with in various fields of fields and backgrounds of education 🙏❤️🌎🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵.
Having lived for some years with a man who was dominated entirely by the left-brain hemisphere, and who rose to a powerful position in society, and having been smashed by his way of dominating into the mental home for some weeks - I can vouch for every word and concept of this video. Every single thing Mr. McGilchrist says about the left-brain hemisphere was my own experience of my then partner, and the left hemisphere on its own is indeed an attack on life itself. This goes against everyone but against women in particular as we are biologically programmed to bring forth life and uphold and nurture it.
Left brain isn't supposed to attack life, it is just that we are easier to be controlled by symbols and definitions of words. We must work on toward understanding the symbols that are often used against us in subtle ways because there are evil priests who want us to fight in wars so that they could turn our blood to gold
Infinite regress comes to mind, in regards to how the left-hemisphere both regards the world and operates within it, at least in the most general sense(s). Fascinating talk. Thank you both!
I might be reaching, but, Frank Stella's new sculptures (paintings) are shown at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. Frank was a linear minimalist, now? This came to mind when listening between 49:30 and 56:28.
Great conversation. Thanks both. Is the Machine mind an emergent property of a mass of people thinking/behaving/being the same way, like a murmuration of starlings, which appears like a single organism but is composed of individual birds following simple rules and animated by a desire to survive? The Machine then becomes, like the murmuration, a kind of entity with a mind of it's own that individuals within it are subservient to? Something like that :-)
Ekhart Tolle scares me but I really like McGilcrist and find his idea fascinating after reading The Master and His Emissary because it confirmed the way I was learning to look at the world and try and understand what went wrong. I started with Plato and Aristotle, went through the typical path, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Nietszche, and then I found Kant which I haven't been able to stop reading and studying ever since, that and I also read lots of jurisprudence. The thing about Kant is that he divides the world into fact and right consistently throughout his work, fact is understanding, right is reason. Together with judgment they form the Trinity. Lawyers of the enlightenment do the same thing, but our attorneys think in terms only of rules - Kohlbergs stages 3 & 4 or moral development. Christians think in terms of stage 5 & 6. We are being reduced to better serve our kings. In short, we are going to hell.
As one who knows not yet how to pray - I observe that the unique connection of prayer with the Divine is the first consideration for blessed commission of beneficent thoughts into their representation in effective actions..
Real philosophers were never supposed to take money or positions of power. They were consulted to help where conflicts of interest came up, between people or cities. The govts, were made up of hundreds of people and it revolved and was refreshed constantly. Switzerland has a two year window for whoever is voted in, a very fast turnaround in Governance. People generally seemed to be very aware of themselves and their motivations. What we have never been told about ancient greek and other societies was the degree of substance ingestion, of various kinds to induce experiences. They had channellers, oracles, death cults, being reborn, NDE's, women were often force into the role, this lasted in places like Sciliy?, were a girl would be made into the family oracle, able to commune with ancestors. My point is, we see all these great things about ancient times but fail to realize just how weird it actually was. They had there magicians, Uri Gellers etc. They were very much like us and there is nothing new under the sun, it is an endless, tedious loop. If someone could please hack the operating system and change the options, I would be very grateful.
This discussion in essence the Eastern philosophies of the Bhadavad Gita, Upanishads, the Buddhist Heart and Diamond sutras, and the Dao De Jing of Laozi Daoism. Different vocabularies, but same understandings.
Tried to register as a supplier for Microsoft - it took 3 months to-ing and fro-ing and in the end, even the MS ppl did not really understand how to service this huge bureaucratic beast! Felt positively dystopian. A means becoming the ends is a sure sign of a diabolical order.
When he mentions competition evolution theory, mutual aid by Kropotkin is the contemporary antithesis to that darwinianism, just thought I'd mention When he mentions schematics I always put that in philosophy of physics terms, the reason British Empiricism beat German Idealism is that Empiricism demands that if reality contradicts theory then theory is wrong, ideological thinking tends to think reality is wrong when reality contradicts theory
Such high quality content. Thank you. Please pay a little more attention to your visual quality - lighting and focus is fundamental in video production. Not difficult to achieve. Thank you.
@@richardhall5489 The poster stated, "...need for money." In an idealized communist world, "the need for money" is done away with. Visit the U.N. ...nearly all the member nations are Marxist. Marxism and communism are synonymous.
If we are focused on money then perhaps the right brain isn't functioning. If this is the case then we cannot distinguish mates from predators and predators from mates.
So you choose not to know anything in depth? You're on TH-cam, so you're on the right path to become one of those fools who think watching 100 vids on a variety of subjects beats having an actual college degree.
@@KL0098Generalists understand connections between things. They have knowledge. While specialized people are more about understanding some topic that is materially / practically more relevant in the moment. Generalist has an adaptive mind Specialist has a rigid yet excited mind But generalist wins because he can see what is the real purpose of life while specialist can only see purpose within his field
@@TacticalWill-sc2ff You're just parroting the points of McGilchrist. You probably never gave this matter any thought until now. You also speak in very abstract terms. Who are those "generalists" who have "knowledge"? When and what do they "win"? Can you even refer me to a few cases when "specialists" and generalists" dueled?
Atheism cannot see its hubris, and how it rejects the non-dominant non-verbal hemisphere's wisdom. The dominant hemisphere believes the wisdom of what cannot be put into words, it's silence, as worthless.
It’s called “corporatocracy”, a method of control, that sometimes takes over grassroots organisations that have been built up on the idealism of small groups or communities of committed and idealistic individuals. Corporatocracy, takes over and lays claim to those same ideals and pays lip service to them, whilst exercising complete contractual control over each individual within the organisation. Except a corporation can never be a vehicle for spiritual and social values, because ideals and values have to be ensouled by the human being or human community. Corporatocracy, isn’t human, it’s a systemised method of control, it’s worse than capitalism ever was, yet it can be useful for solely utilitarian purposes. Corporatocracy is the antithesis of true community, (Scott Peck, a Different Drum) and a free spiritual life of the individual and the community
Hard to see how you separate capitalism and corporatism. When capitalism is based on the company and specifically through a pirate root, and thus a piratic capitalism.
37:10 There's a noticeable logical leap from a critique of too much bureaucracy (which most agree with) to inferring from our reliance on bureaucracy that we have a problem with "hubris". Whether McGilchrist likes it or not, all societies above the family/tribe level will develop bureaucracy, which is simply another name for administration or management. This is borne out by historians and anthropologists. McGilchrist is nearly suggesting that modern society is a sort of corruption of our pristine, natural state, though he doesn't have the courage like Rousseau to command us to behave like noble savages. Also, his claim that civilizations collapse because they "overreach" themselves by excessive bureaucracy that constrains creativity is a baseless claim. Ancient Athens lost its freedom to Sparta because of bad military strategies. The Aztec empire was doing fine until a mysterious plague ravaged it; as bad timing had it, that happened just before the Spaniards arrived, who found them weakened and easy to subjugate. (A current theory is that the plague was a disease brought by the Spaniards, which makes it more ironic). The causes for the fall of Rome are so many and so conflicting historians don't even agree on them: overreliance on slaves, political turmoil, barbarian invasions, depopulation, have all been suggested as causes, yet no historian's certain. McGilcghrist is just trying to pretend that he's discovered the solution to avoid civilizational collapse, as if each civilization weren't a different case in need of being studied on its own.
Patrick, that was undoubtedly one of the best interviews ive seen McGilchrist do....well done sir! You were a fecund influence, not a parasite at all. That bit needs more digging into. Cheers Good Sir
“In a nutshell “ brings to mind a pun … or perhaps a fractal understanding. No doubt right and left hemisphere’s operate in the manner described herein.
trade, money, and competition over artificially scarce resources is what is keeping humanity down. as long as the goal is profit, the system will be cruel...
Oh my goodness. So much in this has given voice to some of my own private amateur analysis and reflection. The 'hermetically sealed left brain' and the push back that inevitably come from the real world, and how nature as Iain says, really hits home. This reflects one of the fundamental arguments that I have personally used, being part of the gender critical movement, to debate the insanity of young people wishing to believe that they can literally be the opposite sex. The belief that if they take puberty blockers, go on to hormones, and surgery if enacted upon will result in that physical body and it's actual sex being itself despite this belief. The actual nature of the body makes itself known The body hurts, the body plays out the destructive effects of cross sex hormones, vaginal atrophy, loss of sexual function, early onset menopause weeping scar tissue, bone density decline infertility etc - these are the things that often bring the fantasy, the magical thinker, who I would say is very left brain dominated, aided and abetted by a very left brain 'woke' culture cheering them on - back to the fullness of reality. There is a saying that I like - reality is very patient. No matter what map your left brain has plotted out , if it is very off kilter, faulty the reality you walk in will just do it's thing until you notice it and re-align with it!
Thank you so much, John Bell and Iain McG for a very well-researched, thoughtful, well-presented, and fruitful conversation. Top marks! Regarding parasitic action: there's Colin Wilson's "The Mind Parasites", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (etc), and the Native American "wetiko" mind virus.
Belief based, mentally constructed as a concept. He saw a lot of things correctly, but eventually came up with unsubstantiated narratives, based on the old imagery of personification.
@@annelbeab8124 of course this is more a question of esoteric belief but as you said, he was spot-on on a lot of issues. I personally am not sure if there are spiritual beings but I wouldn't totally discard it.
I had no bounderies growing up,no structure,now i get why i am the way i am and how i seem to have to work way harder than others to just be in this world. I wonder if ian can help with screeching high pitched tinnitus in my right ear,he seems to know so much about our brains,thought maybe he could explain it to me,no one else has been able to as they do not make sense to me.🥺💕
Neal Hallinan you tube understands the body in an incredible way. I am very interested in consciousness studies but have never, ever heard anything as profoundly useful to being embodied, as this work. There was an original person who broke the running a mile in however many seconds, record and then gradually, many people could do it, someone broke the mold of what is possible. If the conservative left brain feels it is being pushed to accept unnecessary and dangerous to children ideas that lead to permanent bodily change, it may well revolt against that section of the social organism, that they feel is threatening their offspring. This will, at the fundamental level, create an uncrossable bridge, a moral wall, an enormous resentment and anger, a roused beast of righteous violence. There weren't many ways left to rouse such a beast, we had reached a point of letting people be their version of reality, we kind of stayed in our lanes quite well, until the children started to be targeted with weird interference in their reproductive ability. If someone wanted to rouse the beast, they used the only thing left to poke at. perhaps we are witnessing a somewhat controlled demolition, I mean, even the late departed Baron Jacob Rothchild is on video saying Neo Liberalism was so successful, with so little opposition, that there was nothing left to acquire, it had nowhere to go as a system and no one knew where to go from the glutted top. AI facilitated blockchain, digital, backed by real world assets is the next best thing. The end of the dollar reserve currency, etc, and population reduction, which was happening anyway but obviously not fast enough for some.
interesting about the population reduction thing and which societies and countries seem to be hit with it first, not the most painfully overpopulated? why not? something else involved, of course, in the endless contexts of everything
its not left hemisphere and right hemisphere, unless im mistaken. but ive watched other scientists say its more like two different networks, but they arent divided by left and right precisely
In the first 1:30 he set up the entire current American situation. And it extends to almost all American people as we have lost our freedoms and everything we do is controlled by a bureaucracy from playing music in a street to how many people we can bring to our households.
Daniel Schmactenberger's ideas- that technology and scale are the meta problem behind most problems- may provide an interesting perspective from which to examine the forces that derange our ability to assign value.
We might end up with smart city enclaves and those living in the wild. I would like people to start deciding whether they want to live in AI controlled cities or whether we can come up with viable alternatives that don't require us to go back to the stone age. What does it look like to op out of smart cities, how do we organize ourselves. Can we find out who to even talk to about this.
Hubris marks the personal nullification of an unspoken agreement we've had with existence since we perceived it. The choice is there - choose to view your lifespan as the lifespan of the world or choose to view your life as a stepping stone or a footnote in a text chronicling a story you'd like to read and the story you'd want your biological or memetic relations and descendants to inherit and take part in.
Goddess spirituality, based in the ancient wisdom that “All Is One,” has all the answers brilliant men talking to each other dance around in these conversations … but never think to ask to speak with the Wisewomen, who are sitting quietly in the corner, waiting for you to invite us to the table.
34:00 is it me or is he exculpating Silicon Valley by saying they're just puppets to higher powers? What are those higher powers? How does he know they're puppets? Also, his anecdote about the bureaucracy of getting paid for his lecture: I don't know anyone, literally don't know anyone who likes bureaucracy or wants more of it or is satisfied with the amount we currently have. So the preponderancy of bureaucracy in our daily lives can't be the collective result of a sharp rise of Left-brained thinking, because otherwise the majority would LOVE bureaucracy. Indeed, I fail to see how such people as McGilchrist would be capable of breaking out of the spell. Does he think himself more enlighteed? Does he think other people fail to see bureaucracy's a pain in the ass? Bureaucracy has reached the levels it has because of the decisions of a small selection of rulers, to the detriment of the will of the people they rule. If that's the case, we don't need mumbo-jumbo about brain hemispheres; what we need is political activism, more direct democracy, more accountability from our rulers, politicians who listen to their electors. But this requires a collective response, which is the opposite of McGilchrist's change-yourself-before-you-change-the-world spiel.
That's quite the offhand dismissal of the precept: individual agency . Should we do away with its cousin freedom also ? Collectivists always have the immediate answers though,eh .?
While witnessing the dehumanizing devolution of society, and contemplating it's inevitable collapse, how to we find the strength and fortitude to go on? My concern is that I see no one in my area who cares to even read a book, much less to educate themselves in these matters. I am seen as an eccentric intellectual who studies odd things like philosophy and quantum physics. They do not seem to catch on to the fact that continuing to create more levels of complication is essentially insane.
Absolutely on point once again. May the Mused awaken to the dance of the call of spiritual arms of a change of heart. Let’s bring forth joy and ordinary extraordinary miracles of a change of the collective mind. O’ those who are of the Light Angels of Light spiral down to the soul man and turn his feet right. - NS
Doesn't it seem like this reality is a doomed repeat of cycles. You're just lucky if you get born in here when things are going through a period of wellness. Nihilistic I know..
I absolutely agree with you that Economics andcits population over reaching, has driven so many great nation to their fall into civil wars from disenfranchised citizens who feel let down. You cannot blame them look at the difference between bilionaires abd peoole living in 10 by 12 houses having to kine up for food. Now tell me, does that sound familiar from past history? ❤
near real-time modeling, or, our reconstruction of reality through sensor fusion in a form that can be interpolated, extrapolated, played backward and forward, altered, extended, contracted.. it is the sophistication, accuracy, and speed of update of the model that describes "paying attention". an awareness of the model's existence is self-awaremenss, or theory of self. introspection is ones own inclusion in the global model. like pointing a camera at the tv screen it feeds. from McGilcrists' description of left and right lobes, dual lobe awareness is an sensor fusion innovation of detail integration feeding the near real time model. a better understanding of the models' formation and how it is observed could tell us allot about "the hard problem".
We must break the "spell" of change. Everything must be "changed," reformed. Everything must be "new." Newly changed. Everything must be made "communist."
Hubris was developed following the agricultural revolution. Great Britain was particularly adept at hubris, and Europe in general. "Primitive" culture seemed far less effected by its pull. Economy types drive hubris in varying degrees. Power structures are built on it. Wanting power is not a biological urge. It is learned behavior.
Well it's hard not to be hubristic when you see remarkable people in small nations practically conquer the world and make the previously thought literally impossible just common casual things, like electricity, the myriad of modern electronic appliances, the internet, wireless remote controls, aeroplanes, space travel, splitting the atom, nuclear energy, even cloud seeding and weather control. It would seem that in the physical realm almost literally anything is possible and we can control it. And even in the metaphysical realm, it seems increasingly likely that soon immortal consciousness will not only be made real but human. The talk about hubris is interesting. Yes it's a Greek philosophical concept, so why leave out the story of Prometheus? Why was Prometheus punished so harshly, because he made it so that humanity does in fact possess the fire of the gods.
@@Alfred5555 It would seem we've mistaken cleverness for wisdom. For all the "impossible" conveniences we've created, we've lost equal shares in cooperation and a basic grasp of reality. The Internet has created social isolation. Splitting the atom has brought mass slaughter. I'm sure those in the Bikini Islands wouldn't consider nuclear technology as a great leap forward. Every convenience has come with a verifiable price. The automobile transformed our use of time and paved the way (no pun intended) for the rise of the military industrial complex and catastrophic climate change. Whatever advantage these conveniences have lent, they have come at the price of long-term vision. Patience. Reason. We think now almost exclusively in the short-term. Short-term thinking has never, in the history of mankind, turned out well.
@@paulwheeler6609 It's a strange sort of wisdom that only ever seems to conclude with the stone age. It takes great wisdom to achieve these things in the first place. You mean Bikini Atoll? The place were all the inhabitants were relocated before any testing? Here's some wisdom, it's very hard to be long-term about things, when you quite literally only just discovered and mastered them. Motor cars and electricity, as a civilisation and society we have only had common use of them for just about 100 years. The other things much less still. It's convenient to say we're only thinking short-term the day after the incredible discoveries. Here's some wisdom from a famously farsighted nation. Do you know what Mao of China said when he was asked if he thought the French Revolution was ultimately a mistake? He said some 200 years later, it's too soon to say. For all the supposed prices you subscribe to these discoveries, as if those counter-weight concepts didn't always exist at every level however primitive through all time. How come no one chooses to live without them, or leave societies that love them and live with and by them? Or are you in fact making the argument, that practically every society in the world besides a small handful, sat down and just magically foresaw all these great possibilities and discoveries, and decided not to achieve or progress towards them, because of some sort of great enlightenment?
@@Alfred5555 The small handful were acknowledging the world in a very different way. A way that we can hardly imagine. As for the Bikini culture that we decimated with radiation poisoning for generations, no I don't think they would consider it a triumph of ingenuity. Honestly, I'm only acknowledging the missteps of "cleverness" and the lack of elder wisdom that our culture has seen fit to ignore. Economic hubris has undeniably driven much of that. Sense of community has been the loss.
@@paulwheeler6609 Well it seems to be a way the whole world can imagine, since we all are overwhelmed and overjoyed with these discoveries and use them daily. Again, all the people of Bikini Atoll were safely and amicably relocated before any testing. In fact, originally it was thought that the people could return after testing was completed, but we discovered the dangers of radiation thanks to such testing and thankfully those people didn't return into the danger. However there are a very few people who do now live there. Again, how is it a misstep? The possible mistakes can't be known until the discovery is made. Like I asked, are you actually arguing that somehow some wise people just magically knew the future and could give better safety advise than was already generally taken when using these new technologies (for example in England, at the first working nuclear power plant, the designer risked his job and reputation in arguments to insist on special filters on venting chimneys, because others on the project didn't think it necessary. After while in operation the plant went into meltdown and had to use it's emergency venting, thanks to the special filters any sort of dangerous fallout or crisis was completely averted. Not because some special wiseman said to just not build the power plant.). And if the answer is always to prevent discovery then you equally have to face the fact of the reality of the price society pays for doing so. Lest we forget stone age or even medieval societies weren't very peaceful or hospitable places to live. A sense of lost community is certainly common in technologically advanced cultures, but who says that's due to the technology? I highly doubt anyone would endorse the general concepts of a sense of community of the 1800s pre-civil rights era? Or the even earlier sectarianism of the medieval era? Or the imperialism of ancient Rome? Where do we draw the arbitrary line, based on arbitrary supposed causes? Are you aware of the interesting ancient Assyrian text some 4800 years old, wherein a person of that time laments the degeneration and failings of his society, that social bonds have failed, children don't respect elders, everyone wants to write a book, etc, and his prediction that the world of man was ultimately coming to a soon end? That was nearly 5000 years ago when the most advanced thing in existence was a small bronze axe, fishing rods hadn't even been invented yet. These complaints aren't really new, more so they're not even particularly valid, they've been made consistently for 5000 years at least just according to recorded literature. I think the reality is, with every new generation born, the human race begins anew, just usually with taller shoulders to stand on. Actual human change through evolution is remarkably slow, we're literally just the exact same people from those past wiser generations that you refer too. All the thoughts and ideas are as new as they are old, just the circumstances have changed somewhat, theories, ideas, wisdoms have been tried tested. And particularly the luddite theory has been roundly rejected.
This is the first I have heard of Patrick (William) Ophuls, "Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail". Thank you for mentioning it. I have it ordered. I am a long time student of Dr. McGilchrist and am at peace now with the clear, lucid insight that global civilization is collapsing at an ever increasing rate. Hard to see the timing but the magnitude of damage to the web of life on planet Earth and the subsequent human suffering is impossible to comprehend. The best we can do is lay the groundwork for a new world to come which has at its foundation, the most lucid, potent, wisdom of humankind, derived from eons of repeated rise and decline, and exemplified by teachers like Ian McGilchrist. For all those who have "awakened", try to connect with the "others" and feed the countercurrent of love, relationship, wisdom and amplification of that which is alive and connected with all life in the Universe; within us and between us. Good luck in these trying times....
We will be the "Neanderthals".
Thanks Joseph. You might have seen it already, but we have an interview wth Ophuls on this channel if that interests.
Please interview Rupert Sheldrake. He is brilliant.
@@theconciliatorsguild I have subscribed to your You Tube channel and noticed that interview which I found to be one of the most lucid, potent and enlightening interviews pertaining to the fate of mankind. What is really interesting is the examination of the conditioned structures in one's psyche that arose from being brought up in a collapsing, global civilization and to then modulate and balance awareness and attention to discover the natural endowment of an awakened state. In other words, utilizing the psychological determinants of the metacrisis to be the ultimate teacher of wisdom... I hope to stay in touch and contribute to your "Work". Thank you and all the best!
I love your reply. ♥️
‘Immoderate Greatness’ is a brief book with an unforgettable message. He’s also fascinating to listen to. Several of his interviews are on TH-cam. An especially good one can be found on Nate Hagens’ ‘Great Simplification’ podcast.
Let's admit it - in reality as a species, we fall far short of the intelligent species we like to think we are.
Understatement
To whose or what standard is that statement really justified? I’d say we possess and are capable of a far more intricate level of useful intelligence than any other living species on earth. To say we fall short of anything approximating a god-like intelligence of all things is quite absurd and an unreasonable standard to hold human beings. After all we are still animals…
@@OnyxStudios720p I think you overlooked our propensity for venality, greed, duplicity, dishonesty, and self-pity.
You thought we were intelligent?
The 3 great poisons of humanity is greed, hatred and delusion.
Based on my study of Dr McGilchrist's book The Master and His Emissary I think it is not out of the ballpark to suggest the experience of an Awakening such as described by Eckhart Tolle may represent the restoration of the proper balance and harmonization of the two hemispheres.
If the world has more people like Ian…the world would be a better place
🏵
@@tingtingshiney1477 what does that symbol mean?
@@Boulos-cb2un a gift of a flower , for your thought of the world being a better place if we had more Ian's.
@@tingtingshiney1477 Thank you…
I think what you meant to say is; "If the world has more people like Ian…the world would be a boring place" All he says is that human is a self distracting animal. No sh*t Sherlock!
I can honestly say that this is one of the most insightful discussions I have had the pleasure of listening to.
A brilliant and insightful talk from Iain - as always. I've been following McGilchrist for a while now and have read all his books, and for the first time, I found myself disagreeing with him on a fundamental (and very important) point. @37:17 he suggests our desire towards bureaucracy is driven by hubris, a desire to be like the Gods. From my experience, I see that's not the case at all. It seems to me that our drive towards bureaucracy, our drive towards control, power - and to prioritise our lower values, are not out of a desire for power, but rather to avoid suffering/anxiety. We create complex systems to avoid accountability and responsibility, we follow our self-destructive path not because we want to but because we don’t know how to integrate suffering/anxiety/chaos. We no longer value vulnerability, wisdom, and we tend to see suffering as something to be avoided at all costs. When we explore indigenous and ancient cultures they almost universally practiced initiation rites, where the young had to learn - usually in a sacred space - that suffering was necessary. Only then could they pass into adulthood. In our culture we do the opposite, where almost all marketing messages promise to take away suffering (we just need to buy the latest upgrade, goods or services) and the technocratic paradigm where technology will make our lives easier. The result is that we live in culture that can no longer transcend to our higher stages of self. That’s the deep underlying problem here. The left hemisphere does not know what to do with suffering - so it exports it elsewhere, while the right hemisphere knows how to integrate and transcend it. That’s why wisdom literature and traditions always deal with the collision of opposites between love and suffering (see Christianity as a perfect example of this).
I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on this.
I cover this thinking in a lot more detail on my master storytelling training programme - ministory.co.uk/toolkit/
Interesting observations! On the whole, what I understood as his explanation for bureaucracy is the excessive need for control and the delusional belief that if only we could devise the perfect procedure/process, all would be well. The dominant worldview of the left hemisphere is based upon imposing our will through control and manipulation rather than trying to understand and harmonize with our environment (and ourselves). Ultimately this excessive need for control is based on fear. It is interesting to note that wisdom traditions invariably work predominantly within the 'right hemisphere' mode: e.g. acceptance/allowance vs rigid control, compassion vs. judgement/condemnation etc. All those traits usually associated with the 'ego' or 'false self' are those of the left hemisphere mode.
All attempts to avoid suffering/anxiety are a quest for power, for control, surely that is obvious. Bureaucracy is control; stemming from arrogance, which is ultimately fear. To those of a bureaucratic disposition, their order is the only form of worthy order and therefore an end to chaos, to ignorance, to suffering, to anxiety. That sense of order is so easily upset, and imbalance soon sees the facade crumble. It's a bit like those who put on an accent to hide their past, they'll imitate what is thought of as polite or posh. When things begin to get a bit stressful, their original accent will break through. Same with those who put on an act of being good, their nastiness breaks through, usually in a passive aggressive manner, calls for brutal punishments, etc.
The hubris of those in power is everywhere: we are told that a man can put on a dress and become a woman, and if we don't agree, we're transphobic. We are forced to wear pronoun badges against our will. We''re told that mass immigration is good and if it changes our way of life and we don't want that, we're racists and we're ignored. We're forced to accept medical treatments without evidence, and undergo lockdowns and wear face masks that have no basis in science. Small businesses have to account to bureaucrats for who they hire as employees, with extensive DEI reports. Even commenting on knife crime in one's street can lead to being charged with a hate crime, with the police visiting to 'check our thinking'. The list goes on with governement interference in every aspect of our cultural and economic life.
Oppenheimer , self proclaimed destroyer of world avoiding suffering ? He didn't get another nights sleep once he had that realisation.
Good point. But not mutually exclusive. Bureaucracy as control - as fear of suffering/ nature/ chaos/ the unpredictable?
Listening to Ian McGilchrist is always interesting and enlightening.
His story about the pernicious procedures to obtain payment reminded me of the frustration of having to complete an online admissions form prior to surgery, which asked for underlying conditions. The problem was that the system, after numerous attempts, would not accept my underlying condition, so in the end, I had to give up and leave it off.
Technology increasingly prevents us from thinking outside the box.
Life does not fit into tidy little boxes.
Interesting & fitting choice, “window washer”…as in helping one self or others to see the things outside clearly.
I am reading Gad Saad's The parasitic mind and was pleasantly surprised to see two distinct scholars talking about parasites concept in human mind here as well. The master and his emissary is next in my reading list. Thanks for the great conversation 🤍
Generations of trauma prevent us from getting off the left-brained path
trauma deliberately caused by those who farm us...
Yes! And that trauma, that complex PTSD, is the transmission of right brain atrophy that has occurred over thousands of years of domestication of the human species. I call it domestication syndrome.
Excellent point.
Iain is such a bright light upon these times. I'm so grateful for his efforts! And to the guild.
read the thumbnail and listen to a couple words and I know, this is the place to be on a Saturday night 👍
Wonderful to listen to such English erudite communication.
"Attention is a moral act; it brings the world into being..."
“Context is everything “
-thank you Ian
Thank you, Dr. Iian McGilchrist and John Bell, another illuminating discussion. I appreciate Dr. Iian McGilchrist's books and all those he speaks with in various fields of fields and backgrounds of education
🙏❤️🌎🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵.
Having lived for some years with a man who was dominated entirely by the left-brain hemisphere, and who rose to a powerful position in society, and having been smashed by his way of dominating into the mental home for some weeks - I can vouch for every word and concept of this video. Every single thing Mr. McGilchrist says about the left-brain hemisphere was my own experience of my then partner, and the left hemisphere on its own is indeed an attack on life itself. This goes against everyone but against women in particular as we are biologically programmed to bring forth life and uphold and nurture it.
Left brain isn't supposed to attack life, it is just that we are easier to be controlled by symbols and definitions of words.
We must work on toward understanding the symbols that are often used against us in subtle ways because there are evil priests who want us to fight in wars so that they could turn our blood to gold
Infinite regress comes to mind, in regards to how the left-hemisphere both regards the world and operates within it, at least in the most general sense(s).
Fascinating talk. Thank you both!
This topic reaches me in a way where it starts to make sense how people are in this situation of communication limbo.
I might be reaching, but, Frank Stella's new sculptures (paintings) are shown at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. Frank was a linear minimalist, now? This came to mind when listening between 49:30 and 56:28.
Thank You for this brilliant and very interesting conversation...so true....and spot on...👏👏👏💐🙏
we don't have to do this. nothing against technology, but resist mandatory technology
It's not what you have, it's what you give.
It's not the life you live, it's the life you choose
Great conversation. Thanks both.
Is the Machine mind an emergent property of a mass of people thinking/behaving/being the same way, like a murmuration of starlings, which appears like a single organism but is composed of individual birds following simple rules and animated by a desire to survive? The Machine then becomes, like the murmuration, a kind of entity with a mind of it's own that individuals within it are subservient to? Something like that :-)
Seems like you get it. Another way of describing machine mind is the opposite of mindfulness.
52:37 how does this relate to cities? Can there be too much Efficiency via agglomeration i.e. can there be too much city???
Ekhart Tolle scares me but I really like McGilcrist and find his idea fascinating after reading The Master and His Emissary because it confirmed the way I was learning to look at the world and try and understand what went wrong. I started with Plato and Aristotle, went through the typical path, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Nietszche, and then I found Kant which I haven't been able to stop reading and studying ever since, that and I also read lots of jurisprudence. The thing about Kant is that he divides the world into fact and right consistently throughout his work, fact is understanding, right is reason. Together with judgment they form the Trinity. Lawyers of the enlightenment do the same thing, but our attorneys think in terms only of rules - Kohlbergs stages 3 & 4 or moral development. Christians think in terms of stage 5 & 6. We are being reduced to better serve our kings. In short, we are going to hell.
As one who knows not yet how to pray - I observe that the unique connection of prayer with the Divine is the first consideration for blessed commission of beneficent thoughts into their representation in effective actions..
Real philosophers were never supposed to take money or positions of power.
They were consulted to help where conflicts of interest came up, between people or cities.
The govts, were made up of hundreds of people and it revolved and was refreshed constantly.
Switzerland has a two year window for whoever is voted in, a very fast turnaround in Governance.
People generally seemed to be very aware of themselves and their motivations.
What we have never been told about ancient greek and other societies was the degree of substance ingestion, of various kinds to induce experiences. They had channellers, oracles, death cults, being reborn, NDE's, women were often force into the role, this lasted in places like Sciliy?, were a girl would be made into the family oracle, able to commune with ancestors.
My point is, we see all these great things about ancient times but fail to realize just how weird it actually was. They had there magicians, Uri Gellers etc. They were very much like us and there is nothing new under the sun, it is an endless, tedious loop.
If someone could please hack the operating system and change the options, I would be very grateful.
This discussion in essence the Eastern philosophies of the Bhadavad Gita, Upanishads, the Buddhist Heart and Diamond sutras, and the Dao De Jing of Laozi Daoism. Different vocabularies, but same understandings.
You summed it up for me in your intro. Brilliant.
Tried to register as a supplier for Microsoft - it took 3 months to-ing and fro-ing and in the end, even the MS ppl did not really understand how to service this huge bureaucratic beast! Felt positively dystopian. A means becoming the ends is a sure sign of a diabolical order.
So there's a huge difference between content creators and content conveyors. From here to the sky :)
I really enjoyed listening to this, thank you.
Marvellous discussion. Thank you
When he mentions competition evolution theory, mutual aid by Kropotkin is the contemporary antithesis to that darwinianism, just thought I'd mention
When he mentions schematics I always put that in philosophy of physics terms, the reason British Empiricism beat German Idealism is that Empiricism demands that if reality contradicts theory then theory is wrong, ideological thinking tends to think reality is wrong when reality contradicts theory
1:10 Civilisations decay very well explained
Such high quality content. Thank you. Please pay a little more attention to your visual quality - lighting and focus is fundamental in video production. Not difficult to achieve. Thank you.
So if im scanning for threats while focused on money, i might not realize my need for money in the first place is the threat 👀
What makes anyone a communist?
@@allen5455I don't understand what you are asking. Could you explain your question. Why did you mention communism?
@@richardhall5489 The poster stated, "...need for money." In an idealized communist world, "the need for money" is done away with. Visit the U.N. ...nearly all the member nations are Marxist. Marxism and communism are synonymous.
@@richardhall5489 The claim is that, the realisation that focus on money is the threat, is fundamentally communist, at least in the Marxist form.
If we are focused on money then perhaps the right brain isn't functioning. If this is the case then we cannot distinguish mates from predators and predators from mates.
I refuse to become a specialist! I take pride in being a generalist, because I see the broad picture from this perspective.
So you choose not to know anything in depth? You're on TH-cam, so you're on the right path to become one of those fools who think watching 100 vids on a variety of subjects beats having an actual college degree.
@@KL0098Generalists understand connections between things. They have knowledge.
While specialized people are more about understanding some topic that is materially / practically more relevant in the moment.
Generalist has an adaptive mind
Specialist has a rigid yet excited mind
But generalist wins because he can see what is the real purpose of life while specialist can only see purpose within his field
@@TacticalWill-sc2ff You're just parroting the points of McGilchrist. You probably never gave this matter any thought until now.
You also speak in very abstract terms. Who are those "generalists" who have "knowledge"? When and what do they "win"? Can you even refer me to a few cases when "specialists" and generalists" dueled?
@@KL0098 They don't duel because they are complementary
Righy and left brain are complementary they don't duel either
@@TacticalWill-sc2ff Okay, give me examples of when right-brained generalists grabbed the findings of left-brained specialists and improved on them.
'The less you know, the more you think you know'. That covers a lot of what's going on. 'Freedom comes as the outcome of self discipline.
The thing I like about McGilchrist is he doesn't leave any streaks when he cleans my world view. Paid in full, bruh.
Fascinating discussion, thank you. Ian, have you read Colin Wilson’s “The Mind Parasites?” Cheers, Jim
Atheism cannot see its hubris, and how it rejects the non-dominant non-verbal hemisphere's wisdom. The dominant hemisphere believes the wisdom of what cannot be put into words, it's silence, as worthless.
From the Introduction, Seems like he agrees with Paulo Fieri about the bureaucratic sclerosis?
Thank you for the wisdom. Delightful interview!
It’s called “corporatocracy”, a method of control, that sometimes takes over grassroots organisations that have been built up on the idealism of small groups or communities of committed and idealistic individuals. Corporatocracy, takes over and lays claim to those same ideals and pays lip service to them, whilst exercising complete contractual control over each individual within the organisation. Except a corporation can never be a vehicle for spiritual and social values, because ideals and values have to be ensouled by the human being or human community. Corporatocracy, isn’t human, it’s a systemised method of control, it’s worse than capitalism ever was, yet it can be useful for solely utilitarian purposes.
Corporatocracy is the antithesis of true community, (Scott Peck, a Different Drum) and a free spiritual life of the individual and the community
Ie. Modern Christian churches, especially in the US se. The facade is cooperation and goodwill, the reality being prescriptive social control.
Hard to see how you separate capitalism and corporatism. When capitalism is based on the company and specifically through a pirate root, and thus a piratic capitalism.
beware the modern caring culturers, beware volunteerism absolutely, a particularly pernicious method of the corps.
@@Okradokra I often said that the way the megachurch people talk is like corporate motivational slogans, then sprinkle in God and Jesus.
"It's the desire to be like the gods"
Hmmm, something familiar there, something similar said about a Fall in a certain Garden...
Outstanding ❤
37:10 There's a noticeable logical leap from a critique of too much bureaucracy (which most agree with) to inferring from our reliance on bureaucracy that we have a problem with "hubris". Whether McGilchrist likes it or not, all societies above the family/tribe level will develop bureaucracy, which is simply another name for administration or management. This is borne out by historians and anthropologists. McGilchrist is nearly suggesting that modern society is a sort of corruption of our pristine, natural state, though he doesn't have the courage like Rousseau to command us to behave like noble savages.
Also, his claim that civilizations collapse because they "overreach" themselves by excessive bureaucracy that constrains creativity is a baseless claim. Ancient Athens lost its freedom to Sparta because of bad military strategies. The Aztec empire was doing fine until a mysterious plague ravaged it; as bad timing had it, that happened just before the Spaniards arrived, who found them weakened and easy to subjugate. (A current theory is that the plague was a disease brought by the Spaniards, which makes it more ironic). The causes for the fall of Rome are so many and so conflicting historians don't even agree on them: overreliance on slaves, political turmoil, barbarian invasions, depopulation, have all been suggested as causes, yet no historian's certain. McGilcghrist is just trying to pretend that he's discovered the solution to avoid civilizational collapse, as if each civilization weren't a different case in need of being studied on its own.
Gad Saad has a book called The Parasitic Mind which talks about how parasitic thoughts are placed in the minds of many in the populous.
Patrick, that was undoubtedly one of the best interviews ive seen McGilchrist do....well done sir! You were a fecund influence, not a parasite at all. That bit needs more digging into. Cheers Good Sir
Thank you both, that did me the world of good. sending love!
29:17 The Abolition of Man
Great stuff!
“In a nutshell “ brings to mind a pun … or perhaps a fractal understanding.
No doubt right and left hemisphere’s operate in the manner described herein.
Thank you 🙏🏻
Thank you both so much!
trade, money, and competition over artificially scarce resources is what is keeping humanity down. as long as the goal is profit, the system will be cruel...
Excellent especially the last 40 minutes
Oh my goodness. So much in this has given voice to some of my own private amateur analysis and reflection. The 'hermetically sealed left brain' and the push back that inevitably come from the real world, and how nature as Iain says, really hits home. This reflects one of the fundamental arguments that I have personally used, being part of the gender critical movement, to debate the insanity of young people wishing to believe that they can literally be the opposite sex. The belief that if they take puberty blockers, go on to hormones, and surgery if enacted upon will result in that physical body and it's actual sex being itself despite this belief. The actual nature of the body makes itself known The body hurts, the body plays out the destructive effects of cross sex hormones, vaginal atrophy, loss of sexual function, early onset menopause weeping scar tissue, bone density decline infertility etc - these are the things that often bring the fantasy, the magical thinker, who I would say is very left brain dominated, aided and abetted by a very left brain 'woke' culture cheering them on - back to the fullness of reality. There is a saying that I like - reality is very patient.
No matter what map your left brain has plotted out , if it is very off kilter, faulty the reality you walk in will just do it's thing until you notice it and re-align with it!
Thank you so much, John Bell and Iain McG for a very well-researched, thoughtful, well-presented, and fruitful conversation. Top marks!
Regarding parasitic action: there's Colin Wilson's "The Mind Parasites", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (etc), and the Native American "wetiko" mind virus.
The Based Camp channel calls it "Urban monoculture" and has similar conclusions.
Humanity is a complete mockery of how a so called intelligent species should act.
30:52 Rudolf Steiner identified this force as Ahriman
Belief based, mentally constructed as a concept. He saw a lot of things correctly, but eventually came up with unsubstantiated narratives, based on the old imagery of personification.
@@annelbeab8124 of course this is more a question of esoteric belief but as you said, he was spot-on on a lot of issues. I personally am not sure if there are spiritual beings but I wouldn't totally discard it.
Fascinating, thank you.
Thank you, Iain, for this talk. I appreciate the thought about "Endarkenment" and that the Reformation was dominated by the left hemisphere.
Yep, many have been saying that for decades. The Luddites made a very strong case.
Attention is a moral act
This conversation omits the phenomenon of plasticity of brain function in the corpus colosseum. Phineas Gage story comes to mind.
Makibgc Music connects doesn't it?
I had no bounderies growing up,no structure,now i get why i am the way i am and how i seem to have to work way harder than others to just be in this world.
I wonder if ian can help with screeching high pitched tinnitus in my right ear,he seems to know so much about our brains,thought maybe he could explain it to me,no one else has been able to as they do not make sense to me.🥺💕
Neal Hallinan you tube understands the body in an incredible way.
I am very interested in consciousness studies but have never,
ever heard anything as profoundly useful to being embodied, as this work.
There was an original person who broke the running a mile in however many seconds, record
and then gradually, many people could do it, someone broke the mold of what is possible.
If the conservative left brain feels it is being pushed to accept unnecessary and dangerous to children ideas that lead to permanent bodily change, it may well revolt against that section of the social organism, that they feel is threatening their offspring. This will, at the fundamental level, create an uncrossable bridge, a moral wall, an enormous resentment and anger, a roused beast of righteous violence. There weren't many ways left to rouse such a beast, we had reached a point of letting people be their version of reality, we kind of stayed in our lanes quite well, until the children started to be targeted with weird interference in their reproductive ability. If someone wanted to rouse the beast,
they used the only thing left to poke at. perhaps we are witnessing a somewhat controlled demolition, I mean, even the late departed Baron Jacob Rothchild is on video saying Neo Liberalism was so successful, with so little opposition, that there was nothing left to acquire, it had nowhere to go as a system and no one knew where to go from the glutted top.
AI facilitated blockchain, digital, backed by real world assets is the next best thing.
The end of the dollar reserve currency, etc, and population reduction, which was happening anyway but obviously not fast enough for some.
interesting about the population reduction thing and which societies and countries seem to be hit with it first, not the most painfully overpopulated? why not? something else involved, of course, in the endless contexts of everything
Please say the book by Patrick again, I could not get his last name or the fall title from the conversation. Thank you.
'Immoderate Greatness' by William ('Patrick') Ophuls. We have an interview with him on our channel, if it interests.
its not left hemisphere and right hemisphere, unless im mistaken. but ive watched other scientists say its more like two different networks, but they arent divided by left and right precisely
In the first 1:30 he set up the entire current American situation. And it extends to almost all American people as we have lost our freedoms and everything we do is controlled by a bureaucracy from playing music in a street to how many people we can bring to our households.
Well I can tell you that STEM subjects do teach you how to think and so do the humanities. They both teach you how to think and feel more effectively.
STEM without ethics accelerates destruction of the fragile remains of Nature
Daniel Schmactenberger's ideas- that technology and scale are the meta problem behind most problems- may provide an interesting perspective from which to examine the forces that derange our ability to assign value.
We might end up with smart city enclaves and those living in the wild.
I would like people to start deciding whether they want to live in AI controlled cities or whether we can come up with viable alternatives that don't require us to go back to the stone age.
What does it look like to op out of smart cities, how do we organize ourselves.
Can we find out who to even talk to about this.
Your grandparents? Any survivors of the famous sixties?
Does this division recall 2 u
the Brave New World?
Why have a guest if you are going to go on and on
Hubris marks the personal nullification of an unspoken agreement we've had with existence since we perceived it.
The choice is there - choose to view your lifespan as the lifespan of the world or choose to view your life as a stepping stone or a footnote in a text chronicling a story you'd like to read and the story you'd want your biological or memetic relations and descendants to inherit and take part in.
Collaboration = Ideas compete, people cooperate to help the best ideas to emerge.
Prem Rawat: the story of the two wolves.
Fan-effing-tastic, that was.
No. I am not a civilization, society or culture. These can all collapse and I don't.
If society collapses, you will soon follow.
Are you sure about that?
I would be very happy to see a conversation with Ken Wilber. Can be a very fruitful conversation.
Goddess spirituality, based in the ancient wisdom that “All Is One,” has all the answers brilliant men talking to each other dance around in these conversations … but never think to ask to speak with the Wisewomen, who are sitting quietly in the corner, waiting for you to invite us to the table.
All Is Mind, The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding…
Great interview. Thanks!
Interesting, thanks.
34:00 is it me or is he exculpating Silicon Valley by saying they're just puppets to higher powers? What are those higher powers? How does he know they're puppets?
Also, his anecdote about the bureaucracy of getting paid for his lecture: I don't know anyone, literally don't know anyone who likes bureaucracy or wants more of it or is satisfied with the amount we currently have. So the preponderancy of bureaucracy in our daily lives can't be the collective result of a sharp rise of Left-brained thinking, because otherwise the majority would LOVE bureaucracy. Indeed, I fail to see how such people as McGilchrist would be capable of breaking out of the spell. Does he think himself more enlighteed? Does he think other people fail to see bureaucracy's a pain in the ass? Bureaucracy has reached the levels it has because of the decisions of a small selection of rulers, to the detriment of the will of the people they rule.
If that's the case, we don't need mumbo-jumbo about brain hemispheres; what we need is political activism, more direct democracy, more accountability from our rulers, politicians who listen to their electors. But this requires a collective response, which is the opposite of McGilchrist's change-yourself-before-you-change-the-world spiel.
That's quite the offhand dismissal of the precept: individual agency .
Should we do away with its cousin freedom also ?
Collectivists always have the immediate answers though,eh .?
While witnessing the dehumanizing devolution of society, and contemplating it's inevitable collapse, how to we find the strength and fortitude to go on? My concern is that I see no one in my area who cares to even read a book, much less to educate themselves in these matters. I am seen as an eccentric intellectual who studies odd things like philosophy and quantum physics. They do not seem to catch on to the fact that continuing to create more levels of complication is essentially insane.
Scale of Consciousness frequency.
Context is everything
Absolutely on point once again. May the Mused awaken to the dance of the call of spiritual arms of a change of heart. Let’s bring forth joy and ordinary extraordinary miracles of a change of the collective mind. O’ those who are of the Light Angels of Light spiral down to the soul man and turn his feet right. - NS
Doesn't it seem like this reality is a doomed repeat of cycles. You're just lucky if you get born in here when things are going through a period of wellness. Nihilistic I know..
I absolutely agree with you that Economics andcits population over reaching, has driven so many great nation to their fall into civil wars from disenfranchised citizens who feel let down. You cannot blame them look at the difference between bilionaires abd peoole living in 10 by 12 houses having to kine up for food. Now tell me, does that sound familiar from past history? ❤
We are forever subject to the perpetual creation process of all things. In this state we are always humble to the greater will of the creator.
near real-time modeling, or, our reconstruction of reality through sensor fusion in a form that can be interpolated, extrapolated, played backward and forward, altered, extended, contracted.. it is the sophistication, accuracy, and speed of update of the model that describes "paying attention". an awareness of the model's existence is self-awaremenss, or theory of self. introspection is ones own inclusion in the global model. like pointing a camera at the tv screen it feeds. from McGilcrists' description of left and right lobes, dual lobe awareness is an sensor fusion innovation of detail integration feeding the near real time model. a better understanding of the models' formation and how it is observed could tell us allot about "the hard problem".
Count me in on all of it!
Excellent ...
We must break the "spell" of change. Everything must be "changed," reformed. Everything must be "new." Newly changed. Everything must be made "communist."
Change is all there is and there is nothing new under the sun
Hubris was developed following the agricultural revolution. Great Britain was particularly adept at hubris, and Europe in general. "Primitive" culture seemed far less effected by its pull. Economy types drive hubris in varying degrees. Power structures are built on it. Wanting power is not a biological urge. It is learned behavior.
Well it's hard not to be hubristic when you see remarkable people in small nations practically conquer the world and make the previously thought literally impossible just common casual things, like electricity, the myriad of modern electronic appliances, the internet, wireless remote controls, aeroplanes, space travel, splitting the atom, nuclear energy, even cloud seeding and weather control. It would seem that in the physical realm almost literally anything is possible and we can control it. And even in the metaphysical realm, it seems increasingly likely that soon immortal consciousness will not only be made real but human.
The talk about hubris is interesting. Yes it's a Greek philosophical concept, so why leave out the story of Prometheus? Why was Prometheus punished so harshly, because he made it so that humanity does in fact possess the fire of the gods.
@@Alfred5555 It would seem we've mistaken cleverness for wisdom. For all the "impossible" conveniences we've created, we've lost equal shares in cooperation and a basic grasp of reality. The Internet has created social isolation. Splitting the atom has brought mass slaughter. I'm sure those in the Bikini Islands wouldn't consider nuclear technology as a great leap forward. Every convenience has come with a verifiable price. The automobile transformed our use of time and paved the way (no pun intended) for the rise of the military industrial complex and catastrophic climate change. Whatever advantage these conveniences have lent, they have come at the price of long-term vision. Patience. Reason. We think now almost exclusively in the short-term. Short-term thinking has never, in the history of mankind, turned out well.
@@paulwheeler6609 It's a strange sort of wisdom that only ever seems to conclude with the stone age. It takes great wisdom to achieve these things in the first place.
You mean Bikini Atoll? The place were all the inhabitants were relocated before any testing?
Here's some wisdom, it's very hard to be long-term about things, when you quite literally only just discovered and mastered them. Motor cars and electricity, as a civilisation and society we have only had common use of them for just about 100 years. The other things much less still. It's convenient to say we're only thinking short-term the day after the incredible discoveries. Here's some wisdom from a famously farsighted nation. Do you know what Mao of China said when he was asked if he thought the French Revolution was ultimately a mistake? He said some 200 years later, it's too soon to say.
For all the supposed prices you subscribe to these discoveries, as if those counter-weight concepts didn't always exist at every level however primitive through all time. How come no one chooses to live without them, or leave societies that love them and live with and by them?
Or are you in fact making the argument, that practically every society in the world besides a small handful, sat down and just magically foresaw all these great possibilities and discoveries, and decided not to achieve or progress towards them, because of some sort of great enlightenment?
@@Alfred5555 The small handful were acknowledging the world in a very different way. A way that we can hardly imagine. As for the Bikini culture that we decimated with radiation poisoning for generations, no I don't think they would consider it a triumph of ingenuity. Honestly, I'm only acknowledging the missteps of "cleverness" and the lack of elder wisdom that our culture has seen fit to ignore. Economic hubris has undeniably driven much of that. Sense of community has been the loss.
@@paulwheeler6609 Well it seems to be a way the whole world can imagine, since we all are overwhelmed and overjoyed with these discoveries and use them daily.
Again, all the people of Bikini Atoll were safely and amicably relocated before any testing. In fact, originally it was thought that the people could return after testing was completed, but we discovered the dangers of radiation thanks to such testing and thankfully those people didn't return into the danger. However there are a very few people who do now live there.
Again, how is it a misstep? The possible mistakes can't be known until the discovery is made. Like I asked, are you actually arguing that somehow some wise people just magically knew the future and could give better safety advise than was already generally taken when using these new technologies (for example in England, at the first working nuclear power plant, the designer risked his job and reputation in arguments to insist on special filters on venting chimneys, because others on the project didn't think it necessary. After while in operation the plant went into meltdown and had to use it's emergency venting, thanks to the special filters any sort of dangerous fallout or crisis was completely averted. Not because some special wiseman said to just not build the power plant.). And if the answer is always to prevent discovery then you equally have to face the fact of the reality of the price society pays for doing so. Lest we forget stone age or even medieval societies weren't very peaceful or hospitable places to live.
A sense of lost community is certainly common in technologically advanced cultures, but who says that's due to the technology? I highly doubt anyone would endorse the general concepts of a sense of community of the 1800s pre-civil rights era? Or the even earlier sectarianism of the medieval era? Or the imperialism of ancient Rome? Where do we draw the arbitrary line, based on arbitrary supposed causes?
Are you aware of the interesting ancient Assyrian text some 4800 years old, wherein a person of that time laments the degeneration and failings of his society, that social bonds have failed, children don't respect elders, everyone wants to write a book, etc, and his prediction that the world of man was ultimately coming to a soon end? That was nearly 5000 years ago when the most advanced thing in existence was a small bronze axe, fishing rods hadn't even been invented yet. These complaints aren't really new, more so they're not even particularly valid, they've been made consistently for 5000 years at least just according to recorded literature.
I think the reality is, with every new generation born, the human race begins anew, just usually with taller shoulders to stand on. Actual human change through evolution is remarkably slow, we're literally just the exact same people from those past wiser generations that you refer too. All the thoughts and ideas are as new as they are old, just the circumstances have changed somewhat, theories, ideas, wisdoms have been tried tested. And particularly the luddite theory has been roundly rejected.