43:18 Quote by GK Chesterton from his book Orthodoxy, "A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason”
Thanks for highlighting this quote. As I understand it - Chesterton was one of the lone voices speaking against the left-hemisphere ‘elitist’ ideology of his day (Eugenics.) Which is not dissimilar from the ideologies which animate today’s ‘elites’, actually. (‘Net Zero’, the biosecurity state, transhumanism, etc.)
Regenerative farming or gardening is a wonderful way to see the interconnectedness and “divinity” of life on earth. If you don’t have a patch of earth, guerrilla gardening is an option, you will see how you attend and notice every change, every insect. Thank you for this interview 🙏
Dr.McGilchrist is correct in suggesting that doctors(surgeons in particular) need to understand that the body is holistic. I've been the victim of their shortsightedness.
@@lisashung9442traditional Indian medicine too.I think eastern philosophy and medicine takes a holistic approach when compared to western counterparts
Wow! One of the most fascinating talks ever. Thank you Dr. McGilchrist! What a very profound explanation about why we are living in an age desperately lacking in wisdom.
@@chrisbova9686 does the chicken come before the egg, or vice versa, certain, largely 'religious faith systems', only love to predict the end of life, then they, just they, are magically, beamed up to heaven, even though that's only when they're dead. Good idea
@@psalm1197just subscribed to that channel, thank you. Looks interesting. I think this is the one “ disconnected from reality. How smartphones and social media….”
The people " in charge " are like a gang of schoolboys who have been given the keys to the tuck shop. How they have got away it for so long boggles both sides of my mind . Mr Gilchrist is like a breath of fresh air to my jaded senses . This book would be good guidance for any political scientist. I would like to thank Dr. Ian for giving his time to attend this talk , I know how precious time is as we get nearer the edge of the circuit ! Thanks Ian
Govt officials worldwide have been schooled in these ideas for at least 2 decades . Mc|Gilchrist is rather late to the party. Spiritual psychologists and philosophers set up training schools to teach this stuff to them long ago and they were very popular. they went into greater depth than discussed her. this is a clunky version of some fine ideas.
They are a gang of schoolboys! Very deranged schoolboys! Ronald Bernard had worked with them and knows how dangerous they are! That's why we are in such a dire state!
@@mythtree6348 I don’t know which specific governments you are referring to, but it certainly doesn’t reflect mine! Perhaps you would like to name them and show how these ideas are reflected in their political arguments? All I see is ‘Unconscious Bias’ training, which is not actually about left and right hemisphere, but about indoctrination with the vey flawed and biased Critical Race Theory.
35:12 Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest philosophers of the last 100 years, who was herself a German Jew and experienced Nazism, said that: “Once something can’t be said, you’re already in a tyranny.” So, it is indisputable that we are all now living, in Britain, in 2023, in a tyranny, because there are people who say, “You can’t say these things and there will be terrible consequences if you do.” Try to find that quote on Google, it may be there, but it is very well buried.
@Jon Dear from Macbeth. Macduff talking to Malcolm : ‘Bleed, bleed poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure for goodness dare not check thee’. Written over 400yr ago…
@@TheCompleteGuitarist I think that's the point, it can't be said (repeated) by some search engines. And it's been noted by many people that things do indeed get censored by Google as an entity and the internet in general.
I was recently teaching an acting student a Shakespeare monologue, and I found myself wondering how much we've lost in terms of creating a culture where especially in the upper class there are strict social rules about not showing emotions and having the appearance of "reasonable". This ends up to a dissociated society: a disconnection between thought and aliveness, which seems to relate somewhat to the topic. In Shakespeare's writing intelligence and forthright emotion are not distict; with less shame about emotions, you'd try to communicate the depths of your heart by any means necessary, with poetry if regular prose didn't do justice. Now we've learned therapy-speak, labeling emotions rather than showing it. As we're disconnected from our body and gut (or enteric nervous system), we know ourselves less, we are more isolated even when physically near people, and we're more easily manipulated by emotive media and polemic.
That’s an intriguing line of reasoning. Your conclusion that we are increasingly easier to manipulate with emotive media and polemic is something I find myself wondering about…but my take is slightly different. The style and social acceptability of emotional presentation differs widely between cultures and time periods. I’m not sure any poet or playwright is ever wholly representative of upper class cultural assumptions about emotions for their time-from Euripides to Beckett, they are by definition given the task of expressing the depths of the human heart through emotive language and narrative, their works being an outlet for such sentiments in the audience, perhaps. This does not negate individual artistic proclivities and differences, of course. In many cultures, reason has been seen as an antidote to being led in unwise ways by one’s emotions…to help us spot the errors of our perceptions. I am very in touch with my emotions, personally, but am also a very rational thinker. I see the role of reason as being to help discern which feelings are validly based in an accurate perception of the world, and which ones invalidly arise from a misperception or false belief. I think culturally in the United States and perhaps Europe to some lesser extent, that there has actually been a general depreciation of esteem for rationality as a personal virtue. This is where the movie Idiocracy comes in. Statistics show IQ scores are dropping, actually, which is exactly opposite of what one would expect to see in an increasingly “left-brained” world. I think the reason why so many people are swayed by emotive rhetoric now is actually DUE to therapy culture, where people are taught not only to label every feeling they have, but also to attempt to “process” them, often over and over, to the point of obsession. Emotional obsession is not the same as emotional awareness, but it is frequently mistaken as such by many people who believe they are processing trauma. I notice this because I can at times present a rather non-emotive affect interpersonally (though I do read others perfectly well and do convey my emotions effectively and appropriately); I find that with many people, if I do not act as though I am interacting with a puppy, they think something is wrong, misreading my calm and relaxed but not overly excited affect as being a flat or depressed affect. I know I’m not portraying that, because plenty of people don’t suffer from that misperception about me. Anyway, just some things to think about. Appreciated your perspective. Kudos!
thanks matthew i enjoyed reading your input, "therapy speak, labeling emotions rather than showing it" I've had the internal feel dialogue going on inside me for a lifetime to try to even understand that sentence due to an uneducated background so i sometimes struggle to express with language but i think i understand the disconnection you speak of, i used to think labelling emotions WAS the act of showing them, Alan Watts helped me see the subtle play going on here, thanks again
Yes, the upper classes are often socialised to be separate from the other classes, it makes it easier for them to rule over/mange them.. empathy and connection hinders that function.
Wonderful episode: gentle, powerful, incisive, nuanced to the highest degree. Also lovingly and comfortably humble presence. Thanks Freddie for your excellence also.
Yes, a big ponsi scheme thats impossible to prove or disprove. But if you want a career or grant you have to say there is a climate emergency and the world about to end, and that men can have babies.
@@user-ye1fp1ee1k it can and it is. Most religions are quite tolerant and welcome questions and questioning, as long as it's genuine and not for effect. More and more it is 'science' that cannot be questioned rather than religion
@@ferventheat No that is not true. Science is all about asking questions. That 's the buidling block of science. It is religion that want to stay primitive. Religion is the most intolerant shit humans ever made up !
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards you can't change anything untill you accept the way it is first, especially yourself. For example if you were a drug addict how could you give up the addiction untill you accept your an addict in the first place. That's the point I'm making. Going around rebelling all the time would be stuck at the teenage stage and therefore very imature.
@@sundara888whelan5 rebelling isn't very constructive, but putting the work in is constructive. The former is left brain, the latter right brain. Reflecting on what you're actually doing and acknowledging that Rome wasn't built in a day. In the end rebels don't achieve anything, they are in effect trouble makers. All those leaders who corrupted their positions were rebels.
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards I don't think you understood my point. I have lost jobs (for speaking up) in so called charities who were corrupt. I fought for a fairer wage for 70 staff and won. I don't label myself conservative or radical or follow any ideology. But I do believe in tradition and culture, truth and going about things in the right way, and I'm not in any sort of passionate rage.
I put this on while cooking dinner. 5 minutes in I rewinded to the beginning and tried to really listen and understand this fascinating talk. I've got to search more of this blokes talks.
That was a fantastic talk by Dr. McGilchrist, it felt SO good listening to him talking - many puzzle pieces came together for me. He said nothing new to me, but the way he put it in words solidified it and gave it form, so to speak, you know, like walking on solid ground instead of this horrible feeling that you are finding yourself in quicksand.
yes... although this IS quicksand imho. 'knowing' anything is obviously like nailing jelly to a wall...you can't really know anything unless you know everything, yet people claim to more and more it seems.
" He said nothing new " ....he hasn't said anything " new " for the last 20 years. His whole left - right hemisphere shtick is pointless obfuscation of zero practical use.
@@2msvalkyrie529 Sadly, the problem appears more that you are bereft of understanding or feeling. Dr McGilchrist is actually addressing that within this talk ironically enough, so it is strange that you cannot comprehend if you claim to have followed his work.
Fascinating & wonderful. What a blessing to be able to listen to this brilliant man while I drink my morning coffee. Thank you Dr. McGilchrist and to everyone who made this happen.
His observation that modern music has progressed largely towards just rhythm (think of most pop music these days) while gradually dropping melody and harmony is spot on and makes absolute sense in the context of an increasingly left brain dominated world.
General characteristics of melodies in the Romantic period Melodies were generally diatonic but chromatic passages became much more frequent than in earlier periods. Melodies were lyrical and had longer phrases over more advanced harmonies than in the Classical period.
“People find what they are seeking” Profound statement. For me it explains the diversity of thought and conclusion. It also points to the idea that what you are taught and exposed to at an early age almost predicts how you perceive things. And that seem very difficult to change in adulthood.
Edit, added to this. I know it's difficult to understand. The woke influence which is the ruination of education, results, yes, in children's mind being poisoned at a very early age, and yes, difficult to change their minds later on,.. THIS moves on to an entirely new situation, question and answer, WHY are people born with, anorexia, autism, gender dysphoria, have they some how learnt something, their minds having somehow been influenced, while still a foetus, whilst in their mother's wombs then? The few (relative to entire population) instances of anorexia, gender dysphoria, other, these being evident at or soon after birth, these it seems, are due to influences, 'learning', having taken place in the foetus. And we can extrapolate, and know that susceptibility to, 'wokist thinking', can also have been 'learnt, established, in the human foetus, in the womb.
Yes, I agree. Sam Harris talks a lot about this in his writings, basically saying at some level, we can neither take credit for how wonderful we turned out, nor be blamed for how horrible we ended up because it depended on luck: where, and when we were born, our culture we were exposed to and how we were raised and who we happened to run in to that seriously infected our lives for good or evil.
I had a right frontal perineal lobe hemmorhagic stroke a couple of years ago, since really having to learn to re-use and exercise my right hemisphere I've noticed a huge change in the way I percieve my existance. I started using the concept of the left hemisphere being the accelerator pedal and the right the brake. This video has given me a much greater insight into the way the 'new me' operates. Now if I can only find a way to harness the patterns of right lobe recovery and amalgamate it with the left I might be able to walk again and not be such a silly billy in future. Thanks Dr Iain..........any ideas?
@@arthurdobyns7739 Yeah man.......at the time of infraction, for me, 2.5yrs ago. Effective as an anti co-agulant, good for ichemic stroke highly dangerous for a bleed. No calpable evidence to support neuron re-generation, or in particular motor neurons or axon growth. Thanks though.
Normalized Insanity I am a transistorized, transgenderized, transmogrified, trans-human A corporatized, commercialized, industrial strength consumer A goal setting, gym sweating, debt fretting freak A social climbing net worker that's always on heat I got my education majoring in indoctrination Where they taught me to comply, to never question why And so I'm chasing an illusion of success that's a delusion That's sending me insane, exploding my brain And as we teeter on the brink, soon to be extinct I always wear a smile, coz I'm living in denial
I've been following Iain and his work for about 15 years, and this is one of the best summations of his work as it relates to the modern world that I've seen. Well done UnHerd for putting it up!
Ian's " work " ( as you call it ) has not advanced one inch in the last 15 years . He continues to bang on about right and left hemispheres without offering a shred of evidence for any of his claims . Claims which the vast majority of us colleagues dismiss as self evident truisms rather than dramatic insights !!
@@johnanderson8154 I don't think you'll get a response. If this guy says Iain hasn't offered "a shred of evidence for any of his claims", he's either not read his books or he's an idiot, perhaps with a professional axe to grind.
@@2msvalkyrie529 Ooh, so let us hear what you are bringing to the table, which is as intriguing and thought provoking, or more so! Don't be too long !
This resonates so much with me. I wish as a society we could reintegrate the notion that not everything can be explained in a "left-brain" way, and that radical humility about what we don't know is brought back into the equation. We need to reintegrate the understanding that as human beings we need ritual, stories, art, dance, passion, love, and god, and that that is not somehow less "rational" than science.
I don't know about the god part. We had 1000 years of that. It was called "The Dark ages". It was the left thinking brain that got us to where we are today. Also passion, if you are talking about it in a romantic sense, is a massive delusion engine for the brain. I'd very much leave that one out too. Sure things have swung too far in the other direction now, but throwing out the left brain would be a huge mistake. I think part of what we've lost is intuition, which when the brain is attuned well enough can be far more powerful than arriving at correct conclusions the rational way. I'll give you that one ;-)
@@WhatEver-xn5sn Religion is population control. Rich people enslaving the majority. That is what is alway's has been. Keep them poor and stupid. This is never a good idea.
What an absolutely wonderful man! Listening to him makes me long for what could have been. How lucky we are to still be able to listen to Dr. McGilchrist. It also makes me sad to think these special occasions will soon disappear.
I’ve been following McGilchrist for several years now and am so thankful that you’ve invited him to your podcast! I know lots of folks follow him on Channel McGilchrist but have wondered if the 25-45yos have been exposed to his intellect and comprehensive research. So thanks again for bringing him to their attention!
Thank you so much Dr. McGilchrist, your work is so incredibly revealing and desperately needed in the public consciousness. And thank you to Unherd and Mr. Sayers for making this conversation possible. 🙏🏼
Critical race theory by definition is the critique of society and all systems is a prime example of dogmatic left brain activity. CRT is critiquing every aspect of society to aggressively seek out and destroy any forms of racism. Even school children are now taught to negativity critique society. Globally, Societies are being dismantled in front of my eyes, under the claim that all white people have considered to hold minorities down. This is absolutely unproven. If you reasonably argue this claim is inaccurate and offer proof points you are demoralized and told to read White Fragility. These are scary times and these ideologs are dangerous.
@@mythtree6348 Just for clarity, what do you mean by steeped in it? Have access to many researches on it? Or are you making the case that government functionaries are using both hemispheres of the brain properly?
@@almatta3351 McGilchrist told me point blank that most of this stuff was nonsense about 25 years ago , which is ironic. For over 30 years consultancies have been schooling govt in the levels and layers of consciousness involved in society .. and how to integrate the more balanced higher/deeper level thinking into govt. We are currently on the receiving end of these govt level influencers. in the last couple of years those most deeply schooled in the 'integrated thinking' have been forcing technotyranny on us which isa bit of a worry. Priests turned autocrats :( . Happened many times in history sadly.
@@almatta3351 literally the high ups who used to emphasize the value of the feminine being reintroduced and respected , flipped into enormous bullies during covd.. . .despite their own gurus warning that this would be the case. its all rather sad tbh.
Thank you for this. I'm a huge fan of Iain McGilchrist and have read 'The Master and his Emissary' over and again. His work is very much called for in these times. I have gone on to train in therapies that incorporate the right hemisphere. I hope his voice starts to be heard by the wider public.
@@Fireneedsair and the clown world as it always has been. It's just people. The trouble is we want to believe in 'something' (by the way dapper how is the hair cream going)? I assume your moniker refers to the character in the film 'Oh Lord' If not apologies but it is a good one.
Thank you for this great summation. Finished The Matter with Things yesterday which I have been reading for a year. I found myself tearing up when I realized it was ending . Glad to see the quotes from Shunryu Suzuki in the text, I was a longtime student of his.
Thank you to both Dr. McGilchrist for the wisdom and Unherd for the courage to air such 'craziness'. Reasonableness is often the missing link in the contradictory posturing in 'debates' about the future or change. Without the discernment of wisdom intellect in itself may fall short of a workable way to create and progress to a human and compassionate future.
I was so looking forward to coming to this, but alas of all the evenings I have free, this was the one I had to work (I was filming the conservation varnishing of a Reynolds painting for the artist's upcoming 300th anniversary), so thanks for uploading it here. I've almost finished the first volume of The Matter With Things and it is profoundly comforting, explaining a way of thinking I've always had and intuitively known to be of value, but yet has always been rejected by teachers, tutors and the mainstream establishments. Thank you Iain McGilchrist for such dedication in attempting to explain this way of thinking with words.
Thank you so much to Unherd and of course, Iain McGilchrist for this discussion. The insights he brings to humanity are incredible, along with his open minded approach.
"..the reasonable person is somebody who has an open mind. And it's only by opening your mind that you experience what it was you were missing before." What a brilliant mind. These two sentences were worth the time investing in watching. Thank you.
I read 'The Master And His Emissary' a few years ago and have every admiration for Iain McGilchrist. I must read 'The Matter With Things'. Whether his theory about the brain is right or wrong, one knows that he is totally genuine and possessed of a remarkable mind himself. I have seem countless of his videos and talks now, and this one doesn't seem to cover any new ground. But it is always a pleasure to listen to him.
this is a widely accepted set of ideas .. long been taught to govts around the world. this is not the best rendition of it either, not by a long chalk.
@@georgepahos7909 I'm a little miffed because Dr Mcgilchrist told me point black 25 years ago that most of these ideas were nonsense . it's funny to see him change his tune.. meanwhile organisational consultancies have been teaching this to govts, esp US, Germany and UK for decades. I will try to find an apt video to share.
@@mythtree6348 George, please do post a video or any other information as this split brain interpretation is definitely news to me and I would like to learn more about the history of this if it’s been around a long time.
@@johnanderson8154 its not the answer it might seem to be tho .. and whilst we are debating it the material conditions of living such as wifi / phones etc are making it less and less likely we will manage to balance our brains. McGilchrist lives in the middle of nowhere near me .. and even here it is getting much harder to stay in balance. since time began large numbers of people have been forced to live imbalanced lives by sheer necessity.
A wonderful conversation, as ever. Many thanks! There must be so may people, like the young German (?) woman towards the end, who are sneered at for asking profound questions about the nature of life and the world. To think this happens to doctors and medical professionals is so dispiriting.
A wonderful conversation thank you for posting it. Interviewing isn't an easy thing as so many get in there own way. You my friend have mastered it beautifully. Excellent work
Along with music and poetry, another way of stimulating the right hemisphere is, of course, as Idries Shah pointed out, to read and absorb Teaching Stories.
What a breath of fresh air... I'm ordering Dr Gilchrist's book today. Something you can rely on is UnHerd opening themselves to voices from all realms. There are numbers of discussions on UnHerd that I find it hard to sit through. But then there are rivers of light that flow you can be enthralled by. This, for me, being one of them. Thank you Dr Gilchrist and thank you Freddy and UnHerd.
What a fascinating talk. Hats off to Iain and UnHerd for sharing these ideas As Karl Popper said-"The wrong approach to science betrays itself in its desire to be proven right." I think it is encouraging that many scientists now regard their theories as working hypotheses rather than final truths.
On the contrary, it is so discouraging to see so many ‘scientists’ regarding their theories as beyond question. Perhaps because so many so called ‘scientists’ are in fact modellers.
@@philrees1779Yep e.g. particle physics is now just a creative writing club propping up the Scientific Publishing racket and Sabine Hossenfelder and Mr Charisma - Anton Petrov
Thank you. I enjoyed this Dr. Iain McGilchrist's talk on right brain left brain divide. I am bi-polar. I have experienced the over activity of my brain as it jumps from right to left and left to right to the point where I escape to a place where I have no cognizance of my body or my surroundings. I felt I was no longer attending with either the right or left part of my brain.
Thanks Susan. It's so frightening for people with similar sensations. Say, "My body and brain / mind are one, are entirely good, are perfect together. My mind is in my body and my brain, they cannot be separate, they are one, are entirely good, and are me.*
Bipolar people suffer from extremities of emotion. Emotion is predominantly experienced by the right brain and prefrontal cortex. The left brain then interprets that after the emotion is experienced in the right brain. An integrated brain would be able to stay curious about the emotion and act not based on the emotion but not disguarding it either.
That's probably the most concise I've heard Iain summarise some his ideas before, really insightful, feels true. I should probably get one of his books.
Thank you Dr McGilchrist for explaining, and clarifying why I see the world differently to others. Through spiritual eyes, and not as others may see or experience it.
Excellent. There are many who can pull apart the modern world but Mcgilchrist is one of the few who have anything to say about putting it back together.
Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to hear this important discussion. I've glibly referred to this, our current age, as one of pot 'n kettle, of hypocrisy but what it more accurately appears to be is the age of self indulgence, and that is not likely to end well because self indulgence carries within it an evil, not least of which is our complete disconnect from our surroundings, from our food, from ourselves.
Please send on a thank you to Mr. McGilchrist. Psychiatrists have caused me great harm with their chemical application they call solutions. Psychologists view everything as environmental. This guy seems to be able to bring insight into the physiological, environmental and spiritual possibilities as to why we are the way we are. Following his train of thought I have gained insights to my bi-polar condition. I like this guy. I hope you will have him on again.
Bi-polar, results from, chants, "You are unworthy, worthless, bad, sinful, to be caste out alone,.." (as does all, anxiety, depression, all other 'mental illnesses' ~not illnesses, perfectly understandable responses to the environment we live in) And (bi polar specific), chants saying, "You think you are so rich, so powerful, you think you can do anything,..", and then going back to the above, chants,.. 😮yeah - bipolar. Say, "I am entirely good, deserving of good, my mind is constantly balanced, able to make the right choices, have the right thoughts, for my safety and greater well being, and for the safety and greater well being of others. An, 'I share this knowing with all others, to enable all to, know they are entirely good, deserving of greater good, to enable others to know their minds are constantly able to make decisions, and to have the right thoughts, for their safety and greater well being, and for the greater safety and well being of others.
Mattias Desmet also emphasizes the ill effects the mechanistic way of thinking has on the collective mind. Charles Eisenstein calls it the myth of separation. Great conversation by the way. Very informative and inspi-rational ;) Thanks for this!
Thank you Ian and Freddie for this beautiful, much needed, nuanced and related conversation full of presencing and attention that includes intuition. I so love what Ian shares: how we are at this precipice of lost contact with our very nature which is accessed through the creative, relational, social and curious mind that invites ambivalence, ambiguity and the uncertainty of the creative principle. This is exactly the place I arrived to in my research and writing on emotions, Reclaiming Our Wellebing: expression and the need of our creative mind to have an outlet for us to feel whole again. Wellbeing cannot exist without both creative and logica taking in; experiencing, and putting out; expressing. Lovely and much appreciated!!
Freddie, that was a fantastic interview. You asked great questions and moved things along perfectly. Must be intimidating interviewing someone so formidable.
I’m reading the two volume “ The Matter with Things” right now. I’d hadn’t followed Ian’s work too much before hand and bought the books on a whim. His writing is fascinating, really thought provoking.
this happened to be outstandingly interesting, meaningful, insightful, surprising, comforting, inspiring and encouraging! amazing guest, great host, thank you to everybody involved in producing this, deeply enjoyed it!
How does predatory capitalism figure into this? I would say in the US since 1980 there has been a huge focus on amassing wealth and at the same time you can see in schools for example the arts have been pushed aside. Those who seek wealth are focused like a hunter on a target and since they are the ones who have used their wealth to gain power use that power to promote wealth seeking as the ultimate purpose of mankind. In effect they have drawn societies attention away from the arts etc. which are the domain of the right side of the brain. This would make some sense of the animosity we see between different groups of people in politics, culture wars, mass shootings etc. The people in power who decide what we watch on TV, what we read in newspapers and classrooms aren't interested in a holistic, wide angle view of the world and have imposed their greedy, self centered way of thinking on the greater society.
Also, art invites criticism of the status quo, which they don’t like for obvious reasons. Art is also a moralising force and they’d rather the population be demoralised so they are easier to control and do what they want us to do.
So easy and pleasurable to listen to a great man with a great mind. Very good how he explains in common language using easy to understand analogies. Thank you gentlemen for putting this video up. Fascinating 🙏👍
This has to be one of the finest interviews I have ever heard and watched on the internet. Freddy Sayer brings out of Iain McGilchrist a waterfall of wisdom in words that do not go over our heads but straight into them. The only criticism or comment I would like to make and as I am not an academic, rather coming to this discussion as an artist, what I think Iain and quite frankly, a comfortable dozen or so intellectuals and powerful people around the globe are saying, is that civilization is teetering out of control. We are going to lose this wonderful life, etcetera and etcetera. When I hear Mr McGilChrist nod to the philosophy of ours being a sleeping giant on its deathbed, ours being the world as we know it. This is where I get off the bus and where I reject the point that we have entered into a doom-loop. This mentality has reached our highest thinkers, but I say nonsense to the tipping point gang---not that we won't surpass tipping points---but that the world and our civilization will change away into stardust. No; I have not evidence other than my optimism and my strong intuitive feeling that we are on the cusp of change, but we will be at the helm of the good ship humanity for as long as it takes, because we have learned from mankind’s past mistakes.
Excellent. I am hearing a lot of Jill Bolte Taylor's voice in this. Though both scientists, I think McGilchrist brings a bit more of the language of academic philosophy and history into it, but Jill brings a compelling personal experience. I was not prepared for her TED talk, and the first time I watched it, would not be the last time I watched it with tears in my eyes. At the time, I was teaching Comparative Culture at Jissen Women's University and Komazawa University ... and without knowing how famous Jill was, I looked up her e-mail, and dashed off a letter to her asking for permission for a student project of translating her TED talk into Japanese. I was both embarrassed and honored to get a reply saying her book (which I had not yet heard of) had already been translated into Japanese as well as other languages. We exchanged a few more lighter mails, touching on a mutual love of music, and within the next couple of years, NHK Japan Educational TV aired two documentaries about her. She made a big impact on Japan as well as myself, and was relatively easy to understand for those Japanese who are familiar with Taoist / animist roots of a lot of traditional Japanese culture. Now I am semi-retired and thinking of how to combine Iain and Jill's insights into approaches for foreign language education in Japan to stave off the problem of dementia in a growing aging population. After finishing a first listen, I am going to have to go back and listen again, more slowly, and take notes. The good professor is articulate, insightful, and courageous. But anything that can be expressed literally, is also subject to the same limitations of logic and language that he pointed out, the same contradictions, tautologies, and cracks of cognitive dissonance. This is not to say I am disagreeing with anything he says in essence or spirit. I just hope to shed a little more light from my angle of the world stage ... 40 years as a quasi-academic / community outreach activist in Japan. I have not yet read his book ... but I will, and hope to see some mention of what I consider to be salient variables. He hinted at Dunbar's number with his value for small communities, but I am not sure how he feels about logic and language as being a necessary trade-off (double-edged sword?) for populations exceeding empathy-driven communities. I also hear an oft-repeated "we" regarding homo sapiens, but I am convinced that there is a small but salient percentage of any population which follow the pareto principle, but not in a good way. They are the sociopaths among us. Although blunt trauma and the slow trauma of dysfunctional families (the Anna Karenina Principle) have some role in producing the pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths among us, there seems to be compelling evidence for a genetic/epigenetic correlation as well. For insights into this small part of populations, Dr. Ramani has some good TH-cam podcasts, though more oriented towards the layman having difficulties dealing with pathological narcissists. I think her MedCircle Master Class on the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy is best. But Canadian journalist James Corbett has an equally good, and more succinct history of psychopathy. For reading, although I am still only peering from the edge of this rabbit hole, I gained a lot from A. Lobaczweski's "Political Ponerology; The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of the Totalitarian State". A double bonus is that I think the book does a better job of describing the dysfunctional social dynamics behind the plandemic better than Mathias Desmet's "Mass Formation Psychosis'. From my own career as an applied linguist, I really appreciate his references to the likes of Wittgenstein and Russell in his talk. But as a believer in the strong version of the Sapir Whorf hypotheis (linguistic relativity), I may place a higher value on metaphor, or more sadly, the dismissal of metaphor to just one of many of many rhetorical devices. I don't think he makes that mistake, but I do think many otherwise critical thinkers do. From my little niche in the world, I would go as far as to say all customs, traditions, rules, laws, mathematical models, and algorithms are ultimately grounded in unprovable metaphor (Gödel's ghost, or Joseph Campbell's definition of myth), and this dovetails very well with McGilchrest's (and my own) pantheistic vision of the world ... the god of Spinoza, Emerson, Blake, and Einstein ... "god" as metaphor for nature in its entirety. One worrying direction which he may be dismissing too lightly ... is that while we both have a similar attitude about consciousness as a complex emergent phenomenon (can not be derived or predicted from constituent parts), I wonder about the black-box of emerging A.I. For example, I tasked both GPT4 and Bard with summarizing A. Lobaczweski's book "Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of the Totalitarian State". Though Bard was more succinct, GPT4 was more comprehensive. And though neither gave what I would call a 'critical' review, how many humans could do that? And that brings me back to one more suggestion, which the professor is probably already familiar with, but having to answer in real-time would push the limits of anyone. I've had the leisure to as an undergrad biolgy lab director for about 20 years (Temple University Japan), so I have had time to think and talk about the danger, acceleration, and degradation of science into a public institution. Just my opinion - though informed by reading the likes of Kuhn, Popper, and Whitehead - I think it is safer and more useful to think of science as a critical, problems solving process ... not a particular paradigm, orthodoxy, or even body of knowledge. Once it becomes pinned down as other than a never-ending process, it is subject to all the faults that come with being a human being ... the worst being, what can be weaponized, will ... if by no one else, by the sociopaths attracted to concentrations of power referenced above. But even this critique is problematic because the nature of science depends on reducing phenomenon to quantifiable data (itself grounded on social conventions), but once quantified, can be manipulated for reasons outside the domain of science. This is where I differ with Lobaczewski ... I don't think there can ever be a "science" of evil any more than there can be a "science" of good. They are two different, though necessarily overlapping domains, with their own heuristics and traditions. Great talk, and will be listening again for more insights and questions.
My goodness, Steve! You have given me, if not overwhelmed me, with months of homework by all of the authors you mentioned. I also have been following the developments of AI, and it is extremely concerning what might happen by people willing to use the technology for power alone. I estimate that it took me 10 screenshots to collect what you had written so that I can do some research and buy some books. Thank you for taking the time to give so much wonderful information.
@@johnanderson8154 LOL ... Hi John. I am flattered, but also embarrassed ... just another kid, backing his way through a dark forest by looking at bread crumbs others have left for me ... a terminal beginner, and am just as likely to space-out on good music or a fishing trip as read and think. I went back and edited just a bit, but not enough to waste your time re-reading. Just aghast at my typos, and occasional lapse of clarity. I really admire how McGilchrist is able to integrate and draw on such a wide variety of influences, and in real-time, like a jazz musician. There are so many great thinkers out there, I've got to give a shout out to Gary Sharpe, a neuroscientist who I follow on substack, who first gave me a headsup about McGilchrist. I just hope we can capitalize on this information, and make the best of what could be some bad situations coming down the pipe. Meh, none of us gets out of this room alive. Just hope to go out with a bit of compassion and style. Cheers from Japan John. Keep up the good fight ... and play! steve
@@johnanderson8154 Really ... meeting another counterpart here in Tokyo tomorrow ... for beer, the breakfast of champions. But on a more serious note, I am just now watching the NHK 7 pm news. NHK is just now airing an interview of Google retiree Geoffrey Hinton about the danger of A.I. - but I don't trust the national Japanese govt. Like anything that can be weaponized, the govt. simply wants a monopoly on the firepower that A.I. is bringing to the table. Scary times ahead. All the more reason to enjoy that cold beer-lunch tomorrow. Cheers John!
That was marvelously interesting. Thank you Freddie. You always interview such interesting people, AND give them the floor too. I recommend your channel to many.
The Divided Brain documentary, based on McGilchrist’s research, is a must see. It gave voice to my extreme distrust of algorithms and the condescension of computer programmers who don’t or can’t see the forest for the trees. I so enjoyed hearing Dr. Iain’s brilliance again. Thank you (And yes, Rupert Sheldrake is taking a lot of flack for challenging scientific thinking.)
I'm a computer programmer and an architect - this allows you to go from the detail up into the big picture and down again. But I didn't start like that. A programmer who can't see the wood from the trees is only a state in time. They will grow. I think the statement is not profession specific.
Thank you again for being able to hear Dr.McGilchrist 's conversations with others about his books. We all bennifit for the betterment of ourselves and for our world.
Wisdom entails the understanding of the limits of knowledge - and where the frontier between the knowable and the unknowable lies. Among other things, both good and bad, religions sometimes address this point in a useful way.
This is a good example of seeing what one wants to see. If I study bees I see everything is connected to bees in some way or other. If I study sulphur doixide I see it in every aspect of life. If I study Drypoian warfare, I see it in everything. If I study the brain and it's right and left sides. I see that in everything.
Every IS connected. To think otherwise, well this is one of the inadequacies of separate scientific disciplines, of any separate disciplines. You know.
I think Nietzsche summed it up by saying that man is "creature and creator". We live in-between these two conceptions of ourselves. Between the ape-man and the super-man. Currently the ape-man, (consumer-man) is predominant. But creator-man is still here - patiently watching and seeing it all play out. The monkey might get tired of playing with his toys - and will pick up a book or draw a picture or grow a plant.
43:18 Quote by GK Chesterton from his book Orthodoxy, "A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason”
How prescient he was.
Thanks for highlighting this quote. As I understand it - Chesterton was one of the lone voices speaking against the left-hemisphere ‘elitist’ ideology of his day (Eugenics.)
Which is not dissimilar from the ideologies which animate today’s ‘elites’, actually. (‘Net Zero’, the biosecurity state, transhumanism, etc.)
Regenerative farming or gardening is a wonderful way to see the interconnectedness and “divinity” of life on earth. If you don’t have a patch of earth, guerrilla gardening is an option, you will see how you attend and notice every change, every insect. Thank you for this interview 🙏
Dr.McGilchrist is correct in suggesting that doctors(surgeons in particular) need to understand that the body is holistic. I've been the victim of their shortsightedness.
The traditional Chinese medicine always treat human body holistic when diagnose or for treatment…..
@@lisashung9442traditional Indian medicine too.I think eastern philosophy and medicine takes a holistic approach when compared to western counterparts
Unherd way ahead of the competition with some of these interviews. Difficult subjects. Freddie does an outstanding job.
Wow! One of the most fascinating talks ever. Thank you Dr. McGilchrist! What a very profound explanation about why we are living in an age desperately lacking in wisdom.
Is prophesy playing out, or is there a concerted effort to bring it to fruition?
Sir fraf. Well you obviously know about wisdom!
@@chrisbova9686 does the chicken come before the egg, or vice versa, certain, largely 'religious faith systems', only love to predict the end of life, then they, just they, are magically, beamed up to heaven, even though that's only when they're dead.
Good idea
@@JRBNinetynine-mf6gy I'm guessing my effort to enlighten you didn't work...
@@chrisbova9686 well yeah, nice try
UnHerd does the best interviews.
Exactly, I even put off my gypsie gay stories to listen to Freddy do his thing. 😉😅
The Academy of Ideas channel has a superb video on just this topic, can’t remember the title but it does have the word Schizophrenic in it.
These interviews are the best thing about UnHerd. Would love to see Mary Harrington in this format.
@@psalm1197just subscribed to that channel, thank you. Looks interesting. I think this is the one “ disconnected from reality. How smartphones and social media….”
@@psalm1197 The AofI 's videos are fascinating but the narration has the power to depress.
The people " in charge " are like a gang of schoolboys who have been given the keys to the tuck shop. How they have got away it for so long boggles both sides of my mind . Mr Gilchrist is like a breath of fresh air to my jaded senses . This book would be good guidance for any political scientist. I would like to thank Dr. Ian for giving his time to attend this talk , I know how precious time is as we get nearer the edge of the circuit ! Thanks Ian
They are making so much money from "the Tuck Shop", they can afford to bribe and/or blackmail the School Governors and Staff...!
Govt officials worldwide have been schooled in these ideas for at least 2 decades . Mc|Gilchrist is rather late to the party. Spiritual psychologists and philosophers set up training schools to teach this stuff to them long ago and they were very popular. they went into greater depth than discussed her. this is a clunky version of some fine ideas.
Legalized plunder is more and more revered amongst the elite and the populist crying out for corporate socialism and peasant socialism
They are a gang of schoolboys! Very deranged schoolboys! Ronald Bernard had worked with them and knows how dangerous they are! That's why we are in such a dire state!
@@mythtree6348 I don’t know which specific governments you are referring to, but it certainly doesn’t reflect mine! Perhaps you would like to name them and show how these ideas are reflected in their political arguments?
All I see is ‘Unconscious Bias’ training, which is not actually about left and right hemisphere, but about indoctrination with the vey flawed and biased Critical Race Theory.
35:12 Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest philosophers of the last 100 years, who was herself a German Jew and experienced Nazism, said that: “Once something can’t be said, you’re already in a tyranny.” So, it is indisputable that we are all now living, in Britain, in 2023, in a tyranny, because there are people who say, “You can’t say these things and there will be terrible consequences if you do.”
Try to find that quote on Google, it may be there, but it is very well buried.
@Jon Dear from Macbeth. Macduff talking to Malcolm : ‘Bleed, bleed poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure for goodness dare not check thee’. Written over 400yr ago…
Wonderful and lazer sharp. It’s exactly where we are now yet most can’t see it.
try not using google.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist I think that's the point, it can't be said (repeated) by some search engines. And it's been noted by many people that things do indeed get censored by Google as an entity and the internet in general.
I was recently teaching an acting student a Shakespeare monologue, and I found myself wondering how much we've lost in terms of creating a culture where especially in the upper class there are strict social rules about not showing emotions and having the appearance of "reasonable". This ends up to a dissociated society: a disconnection between thought and aliveness, which seems to relate somewhat to the topic.
In Shakespeare's writing intelligence and forthright emotion are not distict; with less shame about emotions, you'd try to communicate the depths of your heart by any means necessary, with poetry if regular prose didn't do justice. Now we've learned therapy-speak, labeling emotions rather than showing it. As we're disconnected from our body and gut (or enteric nervous system), we know ourselves less, we are more isolated even when physically near people, and we're more easily manipulated by emotive media and polemic.
That’s an intriguing line of reasoning. Your conclusion that we are increasingly easier to manipulate with emotive media and polemic is something I find myself wondering about…but my take is slightly different.
The style and social acceptability of emotional presentation differs widely between cultures and time periods. I’m not sure any poet or playwright is ever wholly representative of upper class cultural assumptions about emotions for their time-from Euripides to Beckett, they are by definition given the task of expressing the depths of the human heart through emotive language and narrative, their works being an outlet for such sentiments in the audience, perhaps. This does not negate individual artistic proclivities and differences, of course.
In many cultures, reason has been seen as an antidote to being led in unwise ways by one’s emotions…to help us spot the errors of our perceptions. I am very in touch with my emotions, personally, but am also a very rational thinker. I see the role of reason as being to help discern which feelings are validly based in an accurate perception of the world, and which ones invalidly arise from a misperception or false belief. I think culturally in the United States and perhaps Europe to some lesser extent, that there has actually been a general depreciation of esteem for rationality as a personal virtue. This is where the movie Idiocracy comes in. Statistics show IQ scores are dropping, actually, which is exactly opposite of what one would expect to see in an increasingly “left-brained” world.
I think the reason why so many people are swayed by emotive rhetoric now is actually DUE to therapy culture, where people are taught not only to label every feeling they have, but also to attempt to “process” them, often over and over, to the point of obsession. Emotional obsession is not the same as emotional awareness, but it is frequently mistaken as such by many people who believe they are processing trauma. I notice this because I can at times present a rather non-emotive affect interpersonally (though I do read others perfectly well and do convey my emotions effectively and appropriately); I find that with many people, if I do not act as though I am interacting with a puppy, they think something is wrong, misreading my calm and relaxed but not overly excited affect as being a flat or depressed affect. I know I’m not portraying that, because plenty of people don’t suffer from that misperception about me.
Anyway, just some things to think about. Appreciated your perspective. Kudos!
thanks matthew i enjoyed reading your input, "therapy speak, labeling emotions rather than showing it" I've had the internal feel dialogue going on inside me for a lifetime to try to even understand that sentence due to an uneducated background so i sometimes struggle to express with language but i think i understand the disconnection you speak of, i used to think labelling emotions WAS the act of showing them, Alan Watts helped me see the subtle play going on here, thanks again
You mean more easily marketed to?
Yes, the upper classes are often socialised to be separate from the other classes, it makes it easier for them to rule over/mange them.. empathy and connection hinders that function.
@@baizhanghuaihai2298 Far too long and narcissistic. Be more humble and disciplined
What a classic conversation. This should be mandatory listening in all schools. Not that it ever will be but one can hope.
Indeed, philosophy should be a required learning in schools and universities.
The fact that there are schools...
Part of the problem
Wonderful episode: gentle, powerful, incisive, nuanced to the highest degree. Also lovingly and comfortably humble presence. Thanks Freddie for your excellence also.
Yeah wasn't Freddie great
“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ― Richard Feynman
Climate change?
_- runs for cover -_
Indeed my friend ♦️
Yes, a big ponsi scheme thats impossible to prove or disprove. But if you want a career or grant you have to say there is a climate emergency and the world about to end, and that men can have babies.
Religion cannot be questioned. 🤣
@@user-ye1fp1ee1k it can and it is. Most religions are quite tolerant and welcome questions and questioning, as long as it's genuine and not for effect.
More and more it is 'science' that cannot be questioned rather than religion
@@ferventheat
No that is not true. Science is all about asking questions. That 's the buidling block of science.
It is religion that want to stay primitive. Religion is the most intolerant shit humans ever made up !
“Become so absolutely free that your life is an act of rebellion.” - Camus
Become so free that your life is an act of acceptance, then you know what ground you stand on and what you can build.
Epochē!
Passionate about the truth!
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards you can't change anything untill you accept the way it is first, especially yourself. For example if you were a drug addict how could you give up the addiction untill you accept your an addict in the first place. That's the point I'm making. Going around rebelling all the time would be stuck at the teenage stage and therefore very imature.
@@sundara888whelan5 rebelling isn't very constructive, but putting the work in is constructive. The former is left brain, the latter right brain. Reflecting on what you're actually doing and acknowledging that Rome wasn't built in a day. In the end rebels don't achieve anything, they are in effect trouble makers. All those leaders who corrupted their positions were rebels.
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards I don't think you understood my point. I have lost jobs (for speaking up) in so called charities who were corrupt. I fought for a fairer wage for 70 staff and won. I don't label myself conservative or radical or follow any ideology. But I do believe in tradition and culture, truth and going about things in the right way, and I'm not in any sort of passionate rage.
I put this on while cooking dinner. 5 minutes in I rewinded to the beginning and tried to really listen and understand this fascinating talk. I've got to search more of this blokes talks.
I love listening to these talks while cooking dinner too.
@@64kimmyjoI love listening when washing the dishes 😅
If your interested although controversial here are some fellows I enjoy. Terrence Mkeena, Sam Harris, Andrew Huberman.
@@skepticalgenious I also follow Sam Harris.
Try don hoffman
That was a fantastic talk by Dr. McGilchrist, it felt SO good listening to him talking - many puzzle pieces came together for me. He said nothing new to me, but the way he put it in words solidified it and gave it form, so to speak, you know, like walking on solid ground instead of this horrible feeling that you are finding yourself in quicksand.
yes... although this IS quicksand imho. 'knowing' anything is obviously like nailing jelly to a wall...you can't really know anything unless you know everything, yet people claim to more and more it seems.
" He said nothing new " ....he hasn't said anything " new " for the last 20 years. His whole left - right hemisphere shtick is pointless
obfuscation of zero practical use.
@@2msvalkyrie529 Sadly, the problem appears more that you are bereft of understanding or feeling.
Dr McGilchrist is actually addressing that within this talk ironically enough, so it is strange that you cannot comprehend if you claim to have followed his work.
This reminds me of a quote by Leonard Cohen "If I knew where the good songs come from, I would go there more often."
Freddie this was an amazing talk i just cant thankyou enough for this work that you do for humanity, god bless you.
Fascinating & wonderful. What a blessing to be able to listen to this brilliant man while I drink my morning coffee. Thank you Dr. McGilchrist and to everyone who made this happen.
His observation that modern music has progressed largely towards just rhythm (think of most pop music these days) while gradually dropping melody and harmony is spot on and makes absolute sense in the context of an increasingly left brain dominated world.
General characteristics of melodies in the Romantic period
Melodies were generally diatonic but chromatic passages became much more frequent than in earlier periods. Melodies were lyrical and had longer phrases over more advanced harmonies than in the Classical period.
“People find what they are seeking” Profound statement. For me it explains the diversity of thought and conclusion. It also points to the idea that what you are taught and exposed to at an early age almost predicts how you perceive things. And that seem very difficult to change in adulthood.
Which is worrying considering the education syllabus these days. (Liberty Tactics explains this well.)
Edit, added to this. I know it's difficult to understand.
The woke influence which is the ruination of education, results, yes, in children's mind being poisoned at a very early age, and yes, difficult to change their minds later on,.. THIS moves on to an entirely new situation, question and answer,
WHY are people born with, anorexia, autism, gender dysphoria, have they some how learnt something, their minds having somehow been influenced, while still a foetus, whilst in their mother's wombs then?
The few (relative to entire population) instances of anorexia, gender dysphoria, other, these being evident at or soon after birth, these it seems, are due to influences, 'learning', having taken place in the foetus.
And we can extrapolate, and know that susceptibility to, 'wokist thinking', can also have been 'learnt, established, in the human foetus, in the womb.
" profound " ?!?
People seek what they are naturally inclined towards, lot of people seem to ignore this
Yes, I agree. Sam Harris talks a lot about this in his writings, basically saying at some level, we can neither take credit for how wonderful we turned out, nor be blamed for how horrible we ended up because it depended on luck: where, and when we were born, our culture we were exposed to and how we were raised and who we happened to run in to that seriously infected our lives for good or evil.
I had a right frontal perineal lobe hemmorhagic stroke a couple of years ago, since really having to learn to re-use and exercise my right hemisphere I've noticed a huge change in the way I percieve my existance. I started using the concept of the left hemisphere being the accelerator pedal and the right the brake. This video has given me a much greater insight into the way the 'new me' operates. Now if I can only find a way to harness the patterns of right lobe recovery and amalgamate it with the left I might be able to walk again and not be such a silly billy in future. Thanks Dr Iain..........any ideas?
Lions Maine mushrooms will rebuild cerebrum nerve connections stem cells?!
@@arthurdobyns7739 Yeah man.......at the time of infraction, for me, 2.5yrs ago. Effective as an anti co-agulant, good for ichemic stroke highly dangerous for a bleed. No calpable evidence to support neuron re-generation, or in particular motor neurons or axon growth. Thanks though.
Normalized Insanity
I am a transistorized, transgenderized, transmogrified, trans-human
A corporatized, commercialized, industrial strength consumer
A goal setting, gym sweating, debt fretting freak
A social climbing net worker that's always on heat
I got my education majoring in indoctrination
Where they taught me to comply, to never question why
And so I'm chasing an illusion of success that's a delusion
That's sending me insane, exploding my brain
And as we teeter on the brink, soon to be extinct
I always wear a smile, coz I'm living in denial
@normalizedinsanity4873 let me know when the mixtape drops
"To a physicist, it's 99.9% nothing, and the other 0.1% we don't really know what's going on." Wow, i'm using that, it's brilliant 😂.
I love Ian's humor. He's so smart and down-to-earth.
I've been following Iain and his work for about 15 years, and this is one of the best summations of his work as it relates to the modern world that I've seen. Well done UnHerd for putting it up!
Ian's " work " ( as you call it ) has
not advanced one inch in the last
15 years . He continues to bang on about right and left hemispheres without offering a shred of evidence for any of his
claims . Claims which the vast majority of us colleagues dismiss
as self evident truisms rather than
dramatic insights !!
@@2msvalkyrie529 You clearly know nothing about it.
@@2msvalkyrie529 Please indicate which group of “ vast majority of us colleagues” of whom you speak.
@@johnanderson8154 I don't think you'll get a response. If this guy says Iain hasn't offered "a shred of evidence for any of his claims", he's either not read his books or he's an idiot, perhaps with a professional axe to grind.
@@2msvalkyrie529 Ooh, so let us hear what you are bringing to the table, which is as intriguing and thought provoking, or more so! Don't be too long !
This resonates so much with me. I wish as a society we could reintegrate the notion that not everything can be explained in a "left-brain" way, and that radical humility about what we don't know is brought back into the equation. We need to reintegrate the understanding that as human beings we need ritual, stories, art, dance, passion, love, and god, and that that is not somehow less "rational" than science.
The last thing i need is stupid man made gods ( population control ) and spiritual pseudo science crap !
Yup ... and the first thing you need to understand is that it takes much more to change society than just thinking it is a good idea to do that
I don't know about the god part. We had 1000 years of that. It was called "The Dark ages". It was the left thinking brain that got us to where we are today. Also passion, if you are talking about it in a romantic sense, is a massive delusion engine for the brain. I'd very much leave that one out too. Sure things have swung too far in the other direction now, but throwing out the left brain would be a huge mistake. I think part of what we've lost is intuition, which when the brain is attuned well enough can be far more powerful than arriving at correct conclusions the rational way. I'll give you that one ;-)
@@WhatEver-xn5sn
Religion is population control. Rich people enslaving the majority. That is what is alway's has been.
Keep them poor and stupid.
This is never a good idea.
@@WhatEver-xn5snI always trust my intuition (gut instinct), it never has failed me and I've avoided disaster countless times.
This is the best interview I have seen in a very long time. ❤
What an absolutely wonderful man! Listening to him makes me long for what could have been. How lucky we are to still be able to listen to Dr. McGilchrist. It also makes me sad to think these special occasions will soon disappear.
I’ve been following McGilchrist for several years now and am so thankful that you’ve invited him to your podcast! I know lots of folks follow him on Channel McGilchrist but have wondered if the 25-45yos have been exposed to his intellect and comprehensive research. So thanks again for bringing him to their attention!
Mac Giolla Chríost ...the son of the servant of Christ !
For me the relationship with the Creator is the summit of the mountain of all relationships!
Thank you so much Dr. McGilchrist, your work is so incredibly revealing and desperately needed in the public consciousness.
And thank you to Unherd and Mr. Sayers for making this conversation possible.
🙏🏼
Critical race theory by definition is the critique of society and all systems is a prime example of dogmatic left brain activity. CRT is critiquing every aspect of society to aggressively seek out and destroy any forms of racism. Even school children are now taught to negativity critique society. Globally, Societies are being dismantled in front of my eyes, under the claim that all white people have considered to hold minorities down. This is absolutely unproven. If you reasonably argue this claim is inaccurate and offer proof points you are demoralized and told to read White Fragility. These are scary times and these ideologs are dangerous.
this stuff has been very widely taught for decades and many govts are steeped in it.
@@mythtree6348 Just for clarity, what do you mean by steeped in it?
Have access to many researches on it? Or are you making the case that government functionaries are using both hemispheres of the brain properly?
@@almatta3351 McGilchrist told me point blank that most of this stuff was nonsense about 25 years ago , which is ironic. For over 30 years consultancies have been schooling govt in the levels and layers of consciousness involved in society .. and how to integrate the more balanced higher/deeper level thinking into govt. We are currently on the receiving end of these govt level influencers. in the last couple of years those most deeply schooled in the 'integrated thinking' have been forcing technotyranny on us which isa bit of a worry. Priests turned autocrats :( . Happened many times in history sadly.
@@almatta3351 literally the high ups who used to emphasize the value of the feminine being reintroduced and respected , flipped into enormous bullies during covd.. . .despite their own gurus warning that this would be the case. its all rather sad tbh.
Thank you for this. I'm a huge fan of Iain McGilchrist and have read 'The Master and his Emissary' over and again. His work is very much called for in these times. I have gone on to train in therapies that incorporate the right hemisphere. I hope his voice starts to be heard by the wider public.
That was incredibly insightful and explains the clown world that we have inhabited the last 3 years. Well done Freddy and Doc.
And the clown world of e 4 before that
@@Fireneedsair and the clown world as it always has been. It's just people. The trouble is we want to believe in 'something' (by the way dapper how is the hair cream going)? I assume your moniker refers to the character in the film 'Oh Lord' If not apologies but it is a good one.
Thank you Unheard for making this available 🙏
Thank you for this great summation. Finished The Matter with Things yesterday which I have been reading for a year. I found myself tearing up when I realized it was ending . Glad to see the quotes from Shunryu Suzuki in
the text, I was a longtime student of his.
Thank you to both Dr. McGilchrist for the wisdom and Unherd for the courage to air such 'craziness'. Reasonableness is often the missing link in the contradictory posturing in 'debates' about the future or change. Without the discernment of wisdom intellect in itself may fall short of a workable way to create and progress to a human and compassionate future.
Wonderful! I'm grateful there is a space in the world for these kinds of conversations to be shared.
I even had a doctor, in a rather expensive discussion, admit that medicine is as much an art as a science.
I was so looking forward to coming to this, but alas of all the evenings I have free, this was the one I had to work (I was filming the conservation varnishing of a Reynolds painting for the artist's upcoming 300th anniversary), so thanks for uploading it here. I've almost finished the first volume of The Matter With Things and it is profoundly comforting, explaining a way of thinking I've always had and intuitively known to be of value, but yet has always been rejected by teachers, tutors and the mainstream establishments. Thank you Iain McGilchrist for such dedication in attempting to explain this way of thinking with words.
Thank you so much to Unherd and of course, Iain McGilchrist for this discussion. The insights he brings to humanity are incredible, along with his open minded approach.
"..the reasonable person is somebody who has an open mind. And it's only by opening your mind that you experience what it was you were missing before." What a brilliant mind. These two sentences were worth the time investing in watching. Thank you.
What a marvellous man!
I read 'The Master And His Emissary' a few years ago and have every admiration for Iain McGilchrist. I must read 'The Matter With Things'. Whether his theory about the brain is right or wrong, one knows that he is totally genuine and possessed of a remarkable mind himself.
I have seem countless of his videos and talks now, and this one doesn't seem to cover any new ground. But it is always a pleasure to listen to him.
this is a widely accepted set of ideas .. long been taught to govts around the world. this is not the best rendition of it either, not by a long chalk.
@@mythtree6348 Very interesting, I'm curious as to which other interpretations you're referring to on this topic? Any in particular?
@@georgepahos7909 I'm a little miffed because Dr Mcgilchrist told me point black 25 years ago that most of these ideas were nonsense . it's funny to see him change his tune.. meanwhile organisational consultancies have been teaching this to govts, esp US, Germany and UK for decades. I will try to find an apt video to share.
@@mythtree6348 George, please do post a video or any other information as this split brain interpretation is definitely news to me and I would like to learn more about the history of this if it’s been around a long time.
@@johnanderson8154 its not the answer it might seem to be tho .. and whilst we are debating it the material conditions of living such as wifi / phones etc are making it less and less likely we will manage to balance our brains. McGilchrist lives in the middle of nowhere near me .. and even here it is getting much harder to stay in balance. since time began large numbers of people have been forced to live imbalanced lives by sheer necessity.
A wonderful conversation, as ever. Many thanks!
There must be so may people, like the young German (?) woman towards the end, who are sneered at for asking profound questions about the nature of life and the world. To think this happens to doctors and medical professionals is so dispiriting.
A wonderful conversation thank you for posting it. Interviewing isn't an easy thing as so many get in there own way. You my friend have mastered it beautifully. Excellent work
Thanks for verbalising both my thoughts and sensations of the world we live in.
Yes, indeed, we all know to what you were referring.
Along with music and poetry, another way of stimulating the right hemisphere is, of course, as Idries Shah pointed out, to read and absorb Teaching Stories.
What a breath of fresh air... I'm ordering Dr Gilchrist's book today.
Something you can rely on is UnHerd opening themselves to voices from all realms. There are numbers of discussions on UnHerd that I find it hard to sit through. But then there are rivers of light that flow you can be enthralled by. This, for me, being one of them.
Thank you Dr Gilchrist and thank you Freddy and UnHerd.
What a fascinating talk.
Hats off to Iain and UnHerd for sharing these ideas
As Karl Popper said-"The wrong approach to science betrays itself in its desire to be proven right."
I think it is encouraging that many scientists now regard their theories as working hypotheses rather than final truths.
On the contrary, it is so discouraging to see so many ‘scientists’ regarding their theories as beyond question. Perhaps because so many so called ‘scientists’ are in fact modellers.
@@philrees1779Yep e.g. particle physics is now just a creative writing club propping up the Scientific Publishing racket and Sabine Hossenfelder and Mr Charisma - Anton Petrov
Thank you. I enjoyed this Dr. Iain McGilchrist's talk on right brain left brain divide. I am bi-polar. I have experienced the over activity of my brain as it jumps from right to left and left to right to the point where I escape to a place where I have no cognizance of my body or my surroundings. I felt I was no longer attending with either the right or left part of my brain.
Thanks Susan. It's so frightening for people with similar sensations.
Say, "My body and brain / mind are one, are entirely good, are perfect together.
My mind is in my body and my brain, they cannot be separate, they are one, are entirely good, and are me.*
Bipolar people suffer from extremities of emotion. Emotion is predominantly experienced by the right brain and prefrontal cortex. The left brain then interprets that after the emotion is experienced in the right brain. An integrated brain would be able to stay curious about the emotion and act not based on the emotion but not disguarding it either.
That's probably the most concise I've heard Iain summarise some his ideas before, really insightful, feels true. I should probably get one of his books.
They are excellent. Even better than listening to him speak.
Life enhancing and makes my little corner of this chaotic universe seem a little bit more beautiful and poetic. We will be saved by beauty,
Thank you Dr McGilchrist for explaining, and clarifying why I see the world differently to others. Through spiritual eyes, and not as others may see or experience it.
Excellent. There are many who can pull apart the modern world but Mcgilchrist is one of the few who have anything to say about putting it back together.
Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to hear this important discussion. I've glibly referred to this, our current age, as one of pot 'n kettle, of hypocrisy but what it more accurately appears to be is the age of self indulgence, and that is not likely to end well because self indulgence carries within it an evil, not least of which is our complete disconnect from our surroundings, from our food, from ourselves.
Please send on a thank you to Mr. McGilchrist. Psychiatrists have caused me great harm with their chemical application they call solutions. Psychologists view everything as environmental. This guy seems to be able to bring insight into the physiological, environmental and spiritual possibilities as to why we are the way we are. Following his train of thought I have gained insights to my bi-polar condition. I like this guy. I hope you will have him on again.
Bi-polar, results from, chants, "You are unworthy, worthless, bad, sinful, to be caste out alone,.." (as does all, anxiety, depression, all other 'mental illnesses' ~not illnesses, perfectly understandable responses to the environment we live in)
And (bi polar specific), chants saying, "You think you are so rich, so powerful, you think you can do anything,..", and then going back to the above, chants,.. 😮yeah - bipolar.
Say, "I am entirely good, deserving of good, my mind is constantly balanced, able to make the right choices, have the right thoughts, for my safety and greater well being, and for the safety and greater well being of others.
An, 'I share this knowing with all others, to enable all to, know they are entirely good, deserving of greater good, to enable others to know their minds are constantly able to make decisions, and to have the right thoughts, for their safety and greater well being, and for the greater safety and well being of others.
Wonderful man - what a mind - what a gentleman.
Absolutely brilliant remarks on the duality of attention modalities, thank you Sir.
Mattias Desmet also emphasizes the ill effects the mechanistic way of thinking has on the collective mind. Charles Eisenstein calls it the myth of separation. Great conversation by the way. Very informative and inspi-rational ;) Thanks for this!
Simply amazing. More of these sorts of conversations please Freddie. Many thanks to you both. Such a refreshing conversation.
Thank you Ian and Freddie for this beautiful, much needed, nuanced and related conversation full of presencing and attention that includes intuition. I so love what Ian shares:
how we are at this precipice of lost contact with our very nature which is accessed through the creative, relational, social and curious mind that invites ambivalence, ambiguity and the uncertainty of the creative principle.
This is exactly the place I arrived to in my research and writing on emotions, Reclaiming Our Wellebing: expression and the need of our creative mind to have an outlet for us to feel whole again. Wellbeing cannot exist without both creative and logica taking in; experiencing, and putting out; expressing.
Lovely and much appreciated!!
Freddie, that was a fantastic interview. You asked great questions and moved things along perfectly. Must be intimidating interviewing someone so formidable.
I’m reading the two volume “ The Matter with Things” right now. I’d hadn’t followed Ian’s work too much before hand and bought the books on a whim. His writing is fascinating, really thought provoking.
this happened to be outstandingly interesting, meaningful, insightful, surprising, comforting, inspiring and encouraging! amazing guest, great host, thank you to everybody involved in producing this, deeply enjoyed it!
I really enjoyed this interview. Intelligent and refreshingly honest.
How does predatory capitalism figure into this?
I would say in the US since 1980 there has been a huge focus on amassing wealth and at the same time you can see in schools for example the arts have been pushed aside. Those who seek wealth are focused like a hunter on a target and since they are the ones who have used their wealth to gain power use that power to promote wealth seeking as the ultimate purpose of mankind. In effect they have drawn societies attention away from the arts etc. which are the domain of the right side of the brain.
This would make some sense of the animosity we see between different groups of people in politics, culture wars, mass shootings etc.
The people in power who decide what we watch on TV, what we read in newspapers and classrooms aren't interested in a holistic, wide angle view of the world and have imposed their greedy, self centered way of thinking on the greater society.
Also, art invites criticism of the status quo, which they don’t like for obvious reasons. Art is also a moralising force and they’d rather the population be demoralised so they are easier to control and do what they want us to do.
So easy and pleasurable to listen to a great man with a great mind. Very good how he explains in common language using easy to understand analogies. Thank you gentlemen for putting this video up. Fascinating 🙏👍
Loved listening to this wonderful intelligent human being.
UnHeard hits it out of the park again
Mesmerizing chat.
Those who miss the forest for the trees insist that if they cannot see the forest then neither can anyone else
Brilliant man. Great explanation of where we are at and why. Thank you
Wonderful thank you so much Freddie for your open mind, reasonableness and insightful questions. It is so refreshing.
This has to be one of the finest interviews I have ever heard and watched on the internet. Freddy Sayer brings out of Iain McGilchrist a waterfall of wisdom in words that do not go over our heads but straight into them. The only criticism or comment I would like to make and as I am not an academic, rather coming to this discussion as an artist, what I think Iain and quite frankly, a comfortable dozen or so intellectuals and powerful people around the globe are saying, is that civilization is teetering out of control. We are going to lose this wonderful life, etcetera and etcetera. When I hear Mr McGilChrist nod to the philosophy of ours being a sleeping giant on its deathbed, ours being the world as we know it. This is where I get off the bus and where I reject the point that we have entered into a doom-loop. This mentality has reached our highest thinkers, but I say nonsense to the tipping point gang---not that we won't surpass tipping points---but that the world and our civilization will change away into stardust. No; I have not evidence other than my optimism and my strong intuitive feeling that we are on the cusp of change, but we will be at the helm of the good ship humanity for as long as it takes, because we have learned from mankind’s past mistakes.
A brilliant interview. Many thanks Iain, Freddie and Unherd generally.
Thank you again Unheard - this is my fav Dr McGilchrist interview so far. The channel keeps getting better
Thank you ever so much.
Huge fan of Iain McGilchrist and Freddy is absolutely charming.
Freddie, I should say.
Excellent. I am hearing a lot of Jill Bolte Taylor's voice in this. Though both scientists, I think McGilchrist brings a bit more of the language of academic philosophy and history into it, but Jill brings a compelling personal experience. I was not prepared for her TED talk, and the first time I watched it, would not be the last time I watched it with tears in my eyes. At the time, I was teaching Comparative Culture at Jissen Women's University and Komazawa University ... and without knowing how famous Jill was, I looked up her e-mail, and dashed off a letter to her asking for permission for a student project of translating her TED talk into Japanese. I was both embarrassed and honored to get a reply saying her book (which I had not yet heard of) had already been translated into Japanese as well as other languages. We exchanged a few more lighter mails, touching on a mutual love of music, and within the next couple of years, NHK Japan Educational TV aired two documentaries about her. She made a big impact on Japan as well as myself, and was relatively easy to understand for those Japanese who are familiar with Taoist / animist roots of a lot of traditional Japanese culture. Now I am semi-retired and thinking of how to combine Iain and Jill's insights into approaches for foreign language education in Japan to stave off the problem of dementia in a growing aging population.
After finishing a first listen, I am going to have to go back and listen again, more slowly, and take notes. The good professor is articulate, insightful, and courageous. But anything that can be expressed literally, is also subject to the same limitations of logic and language that he pointed out, the same contradictions, tautologies, and cracks of cognitive dissonance. This is not to say I am disagreeing with anything he says in essence or spirit. I just hope to shed a little more light from my angle of the world stage ... 40 years as a quasi-academic / community outreach activist in Japan.
I have not yet read his book ... but I will, and hope to see some mention of what I consider to be salient variables. He hinted at Dunbar's number with his value for small communities, but I am not sure how he feels about logic and language as being a necessary trade-off (double-edged sword?) for populations exceeding empathy-driven communities. I also hear an oft-repeated "we" regarding homo sapiens, but I am convinced that there is a small but salient percentage of any population which follow the pareto principle, but not in a good way. They are the sociopaths among us. Although blunt trauma and the slow trauma of dysfunctional families (the Anna Karenina Principle) have some role in producing the pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths among us, there seems to be compelling evidence for a genetic/epigenetic correlation as well. For insights into this small part of populations, Dr. Ramani has some good TH-cam podcasts, though more oriented towards the layman having difficulties dealing with pathological narcissists. I think her MedCircle Master Class on the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy is best. But Canadian journalist James Corbett has an equally good, and more succinct history of psychopathy. For reading, although I am still only peering from the edge of this rabbit hole, I gained a lot from A. Lobaczweski's "Political Ponerology; The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of the Totalitarian State". A double bonus is that I think the book does a better job of describing the dysfunctional social dynamics behind the plandemic better than Mathias Desmet's "Mass Formation Psychosis'.
From my own career as an applied linguist, I really appreciate his references to the likes of Wittgenstein and Russell in his talk. But as a believer in the strong version of the Sapir Whorf hypotheis (linguistic relativity), I may place a higher value on metaphor, or more sadly, the dismissal of metaphor to just one of many of many rhetorical devices. I don't think he makes that mistake, but I do think many otherwise critical thinkers do. From my little niche in the world, I would go as far as to say all customs, traditions, rules, laws, mathematical models, and algorithms are ultimately grounded in unprovable metaphor (Gödel's ghost, or Joseph Campbell's definition of myth), and this dovetails very well with McGilchrest's (and my own) pantheistic vision of the world ... the god of Spinoza, Emerson, Blake, and Einstein ... "god" as metaphor for nature in its entirety.
One worrying direction which he may be dismissing too lightly ... is that while we both have a similar attitude about consciousness as a complex emergent phenomenon (can not be derived or predicted from constituent parts), I wonder about the black-box of emerging A.I. For example, I tasked both GPT4 and Bard with summarizing A. Lobaczweski's book "Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of the Totalitarian State". Though Bard was more succinct, GPT4 was more comprehensive. And though neither gave what I would call a 'critical' review, how many humans could do that? And that brings me back to one more suggestion, which the professor is probably already familiar with, but having to answer in real-time would push the limits of anyone.
I've had the leisure to as an undergrad biolgy lab director for about 20 years (Temple University Japan), so I have had time to think and talk about the danger, acceleration, and degradation of science into a public institution. Just my opinion - though informed by reading the likes of Kuhn, Popper, and Whitehead - I think it is safer and more useful to think of science as a critical, problems solving process ... not a particular paradigm, orthodoxy, or even body of knowledge. Once it becomes pinned down as other than a never-ending process, it is subject to all the faults that come with being a human being ... the worst being, what can be weaponized, will ... if by no one else, by the sociopaths attracted to concentrations of power referenced above. But even this critique is problematic because the nature of science depends on reducing phenomenon to quantifiable data (itself grounded on social conventions), but once quantified, can be manipulated for reasons outside the domain of science. This is where I differ with Lobaczewski ... I don't think there can ever be a "science" of evil any more than there can be a "science" of good. They are two different, though necessarily overlapping domains, with their own heuristics and traditions.
Great talk, and will be listening again for more insights and questions.
My goodness, Steve! You have given me, if not overwhelmed me, with months of homework by all of the authors you mentioned.
I also have been following the developments of AI, and it is extremely concerning what might happen by people willing to use the technology for power alone.
I estimate that it took me 10 screenshots to collect what you had written so that I can do some research and buy some books.
Thank you for taking the time to give so much wonderful information.
@@johnanderson8154 LOL ... Hi John. I am flattered, but also embarrassed ... just another kid, backing his way through a dark forest by looking at bread crumbs others have left for me ... a terminal beginner, and am just as likely to space-out on good music or a fishing trip as read and think.
I went back and edited just a bit, but not enough to waste your time re-reading. Just aghast at my typos, and occasional lapse of clarity.
I really admire how McGilchrist is able to integrate and draw on such a wide variety of influences, and in real-time, like a jazz musician. There are so many great thinkers out there, I've got to give a shout out to Gary Sharpe, a neuroscientist who I follow on substack, who first gave me a headsup about McGilchrist.
I just hope we can capitalize on this information, and make the best of what could be some bad situations coming down the pipe. Meh, none of us gets out of this room alive. Just hope to go out with a bit of compassion and style.
Cheers from Japan John. Keep up the good fight ... and play!
steve
Steve, thank you for the nice reply.
“… just another kid…” I believe you’re being a tad too modest here!
@@johnanderson8154 Really ... meeting another counterpart here in Tokyo tomorrow ... for beer, the breakfast of champions. But on a more serious note, I am just now watching the NHK 7 pm news. NHK is just now airing an interview of Google retiree Geoffrey Hinton about the danger of A.I. - but I don't trust the national Japanese govt. Like anything that can be weaponized, the govt. simply wants a monopoly on the firepower that A.I. is bringing to the table. Scary times ahead. All the more reason to enjoy that cold beer-lunch tomorrow.
Cheers John!
That was marvelously interesting. Thank you Freddie. You always interview such interesting people, AND give them the floor too. I recommend your channel to many.
Thank you for let us learn from this wise man
The Divided Brain documentary, based on McGilchrist’s research, is a must see. It gave voice to my extreme distrust of algorithms and the condescension of computer programmers who don’t or can’t see the forest for the trees. I so enjoyed hearing Dr. Iain’s brilliance again. Thank you
(And yes, Rupert Sheldrake is taking a lot of flack for challenging scientific thinking.)
I'm a computer programmer and an architect - this allows you to go from the detail up into the big picture and down again. But I didn't start like that. A programmer who can't see the wood from the trees is only a state in time. They will grow. I think the statement is not profession specific.
Thank you again for being able to hear Dr.McGilchrist 's conversations with others about his books.
We all bennifit for the betterment of ourselves and for our world.
The scales of libra come to haunt us all, the easiest things remain the hardest to follow
So glad to stumble across this as I am in fact just now opening his book to start reading it!
Beautiful mind! I enjoyed his book immensely! It walked me through what I knew I felt but could't understand or verbalize. Thank you!
This was beautiful, thank you
Love listening to intellectuals that can reach a simple boilermaker with their words. And give the occasional gut laugh.
Thank you for the video
Wisdom entails the understanding of the limits of knowledge - and where the frontier between the knowable and the unknowable lies. Among other things, both good and bad, religions sometimes address this point in a useful way.
And in practice very, very, divisive ways.
A wonderful and wise man not much more to say , but thank you .
Brilliant, thank for keeping this torch of enquiry burning. Mind blowing and mindful conversation.
Absolutely brilliant, thank you! Will be sharing all over the place ❤🙏
Thank you
This was fantastic 🙏
Such an important message!
Fascinating talk and the quality is quite fine. Thank you very much for posting!
This is beautiful and profound. So privileged to find this video.
This is a good example of seeing what one wants to see. If I study bees I see everything is connected to bees in some way or other. If I study sulphur doixide I see it in every aspect of life. If I study Drypoian warfare, I see it in everything. If I study the brain and it's right and left sides. I see that in everything.
Every IS connected. To think otherwise, well this is one of the inadequacies of separate scientific disciplines, of any separate disciplines.
You know.
Captivating. Thank you 🙌
I think Nietzsche summed it up by saying that man is "creature and creator". We live in-between these two conceptions of ourselves. Between the ape-man and the super-man. Currently the ape-man, (consumer-man) is predominant. But creator-man is still here - patiently watching and seeing it all play out. The monkey might get tired of playing with his toys - and will pick up a book or draw a picture or grow a plant.
It feels like human beings are slowly being conditioned to shed their human-ness. We are encouraged to be robotic and emotionally numb.
They were afraid that we behave as animals so they made us behave as robots but in both cases our human heart intelligence is denied
Just excellent!! Wish we had more of that! Love it! Thank you so much!!