Tag: Iain McGilchrist

Liked https://www.theredhandfiles.com/thoughts-about-loneliness/ (theredhandfiles.com)

Philosopher, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist says we require three things to attain a meaningful life. The first is feeling part of a wider community – family, friends, and society in general. Second is an understanding of nature and a connection to the natural order of things, which McGilchrist feels we have largely lost. Finally, we need to form a relationship with the sacred or divine – this can be found in art, music, poetry and religion, where we acknowledge the ineffable and all-encompassing force that holds the world together.

Nick Cave https://www.theredhandfiles.com/thoughts-about-loneliness/

Liked Introducing the work of Iain McGilchrist by jennymackness (jennymackness.wordpress.com)

These are the steps I would take if you want a gentler introduction.

  1. Watch the RSA Animate Video which explains how our ‘divided brain’ has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. (11.47 mins)
  2. Watch The Divided Brain Documentary (I hour 18 mins). This is a beautifully produced and very informative documentary, well worth watching. It is not free, but you can rent it for 48 hours for only £4.99, or you can buy it for £14.99.
  3. Read Ways of Attending. How our divided brain constructs the world. This was published in 2018. It is a short introduction to Iain McGilchrist’s ideas, only 30 pages long, and very accessible. For some reason I don’t understand it is expensive for such a short book – £14.99 in paperback, Kindle edition £8.67, but if you really want a brief introduction to the key concepts of Iain’s exploration of brain lateralization, and its impact on human culture, this is the book to buy.
  4. If you are still unsure about whether you want to invest in a copy of The Master and his Emissary, then the Introduction to the book, is freely available online as a PDF
  5. Hopefully, all this has been enough introduction to the full text: The Master and His Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. The paperback edition of this on Amazon Prime is cheaper than Ways of Attending! £13.63.
Liked Understanding ‘Betweenness’ – seeing beyond the parts by jennymackness (Jenny Connected)

I suspect that any attempt to fully articulate and define what ‘betweenness’ might mean is going to fail, if only because, if it is embedded in experience, then it will necessarily be personal to each and every one of us. The nearest anyone I know has come to presenting a holistic view of ‘betweenness’ as expressed by McGilchrist is Matthias Melcher with this map

Liked There are No Things. There are patterns. by jennymackness (Jenny Connected)

‘The statement that ‘there is no such thing as truth’ is itself a truth statement, and implies that it is truer than its opposite, the statement that ‘truth exists’. If we had no concept of truth, we could not state anything at all, and it would even be pointless to act. There would be no purpose, for example, in seeking the advice of doctors, since there would be no point in having their opinion, and no basis for their view that one treatment was better than another. None of us actually lives as though there were no truth. Our problem is more with the notion of a single, unchanging truth.’ (McGilchrist, p.150)