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9 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
11 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
9 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
3 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
5 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
2 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
8 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
5 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
4 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
6 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
3 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
4 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
3 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
4 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
2 episodes with iain mcgilchrist
Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. The final lecture of Ralston College's symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, asks a question that turns from the future of artificial intelligence to something far older and more enduring: What does freedom require? Weaving together neuroscience, philosophy, physics, and literature, Dr Iain McGilchrist examines free will, consciousness, and the forms of attention that compose our engagement with the world. Over several decades at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience, Dr McGilchrist's contributions have transformed contemporary discussions of consciousness, attention, and meaning. At a moment so often dominated by mechanical explanations and computational models, he emphasizes the indispensable role of openness, receptivity, and participation in understanding, arguing that reality exceeds reductionist accounts. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Henry Stapp Pierre-Simon Laplace Benjamin Libet Immanuel Kant Plato Socrates Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Charles Darwin William Blake Carl Jung Albrecht Altdorfer Daniel Phillips
Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. Ralston College welcomed Iain McGilchrist and Stephen Wolfram in May of 2026 for a public conversation during our symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul. Beginning with the promises and implications of this technology, the discussion opens onto a deeper inquiry concerning consciousness, computation, purpose, and the irreducible constitution of reality itself. Setting out from seemingly distant philosophical commitments, these thinkers demonstrate an uncommon willingness to follow first principles wherever they lead. After decades in physics, computer science, and the study of complex systems, Wolfram shares his vision through the lens of computation, looking for the simple rules underlying complexity in the natural world. Drawing upon decades studying philosophy, literature, and neuropsychiatry, McGilchrist makes the case that reality exceeds computation, suggesting that consciousness is grounded in embodiment, receptivity, and participation. The two thinkers do not remain at the level of disagreement, but examine one another's fundamental assumptions with a rare seriousness and intellectual charity. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Alan Turing Isaac Newton Albert Einstein Charles Darwin Aristotle René Descartes Ludwig Wittgenstein John von Neumann Roger Penrose
In this episode, William Green chats with Christopher Begg, a renowned hedge fund manager who is the CEO & CIO of East Coast Asset Management. Chris is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, where he teaches the prestigious Security Analysis course that Ben Graham taught to Warren Buffett in 1951. Here, Chris shares rich insights about Tesla, Alphabet, SpaceX, Constellation Software, & the art of discovering great investments hidden in plain sight. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN: (00:00:00) Intro (00:03:30) How writing helps Chris Begg to “compress complexity into essence” (00:10:38) How to succeed by slowing down, training your attention, & going deep (00:32:48) How Alphabet embodies everything he seeks in a long-duration compounder (00:38:44) How fears of AI disruption created enticing bargains among software stocks (00:43:18) Why he focuses on great businesses with 8 layers of competitive advantage (00:55:04) What he learned from Buffett & Munger about the power of deserved trust (01:02:17) What ancient cathedrals can teach investors about businesses that endure (01:08:15) Why he steered clear of Elon Musk, then changed his mind & bet big on Tesla (01:24:58) What investors don't yet see about the emerging capabilities of SpaceX (01:33:04) Why he reveres right-brained investment giants like Bill Miller & Nick Sleep (01:38:52) How Chris structures his life to create enduring value (01:51:43) How to prosper mightily without engaging in “extractive short-termism” (01:59:00) How a magical experience with his son reveals the true meaning of wealth Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Inquire about William Green's Richer, Wiser, Happier Masterclass. Christopher Begg's investment firm, East Coast Asset Management. Robert Pirsig's books Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance & Lila. Iain McGilchrist's books The Matter with Things & The Master & His Emissary. Christopher Begg's song, The Great Work. William Green's podcast episode with Daniel Goleman & Tsoknyi Rinpoche. William Green's 2025 podcast episode with Christopher Begg. William Green's 2023 podcast episode with Christopher Begg. William's book, Richer, Wiser, Happier. Follow William Green on X. Related books mentioned in the podcast. Ad-free episodes on our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Get smarter about valuing businesses through The Intrinsic Value Newsletter. Follow our official social media accounts: X | LinkedIn | Facebook. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: Plus500 Netsuite Shopify Vanta References to any third-party products, services, or advertisers do not constitute endorsements, and The Investor's Podcast Network is not responsible for any claims made by them. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this second lecture from our recent symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, theologian and iconographer Jonathan Pageau asks: Who, or what, does AI serve? By drawing on mythology, scripture, symbolism, and poetry, he argues that the questions raised by AI directly concern human purpose and meaning. Through the stories of Prometheus, the Holy Grail, Moloch, and the Tower of Babel, Pageau unpacks the deepest questions raised by AI, calling on us to recognize what technology reveals about ourselves and the civilization we are building. Recorded at Ralston College in May 2026, this event brought together leading thinkers including Iain McGilchrist, Jonathan Pageau, and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy The Holy Grail (Arthurian Legend) Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene Scott Alexander's Meditations on Moloch Allen Ginsberg's Howl Alfred North Whitehead Simone Weil Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning
Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this opening lecture from Ralston College's symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, Dr Iain McGilchrist traces a line of questions concerning the nature of intelligence, embodiment, wisdom, and the soul in an age increasingly defined by mechanistic thinking and the rise of large language models. Drawing on neuroscience, literature, theology, music, and myth, he explores what it means to understand beyond the constraints of reductionist accounts that view the human being as a computational information processor. In this wide-ranging and dynamic talk, he invites us to consider, as deeply as we can, the essence of our humanity. Recorded at Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, this event brought together leading thinkers including Jonathan Pageau and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. . If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops Isaiah Berlin Plato David Bohm Ludwig Wittgenstein Gabriel Marcel Homer William Shakespeare: Othello William Ernest Henley: Invictus Nelson Mandela William Wordsworth: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey Thomas Tallis Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Tomás Luis de Victoria William Byrd Emil Cioran Johann Sebastian Bach Eugene Gendlin George Gaylord Simpson Galileo Galilei Peter Medawar Niels Bohr Joseph Pieper V. S. Ramachandran D. H. Lawrence Laozi: Tao Te Ching George Steiner Martin Heidegger Hannah Arendt John Milton: Paradise Lost Saint Paul: Epistle to the Ephesians Onondaga Nation Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning
For most scientists, the mind is little more than a machine. With the rise of AI, some now claim that computers may themselves become conscious. For acclaimed neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, this is a profound mistake. The attempt to explain the mind in purely mechanistic terms reflects the flawed assumptions of materialism and reductionism – both symptoms of a civilisation dangerously dominated by left-hemisphere thinking. To understand mind and matter, he argues, we need to restore the right hemisphere to its rightful primacy and move beyond materialism.Iain McGilchrist is a distinguished British neuroscientist, psychiatrist and philosopher. A former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Iain McGilchrist also worked as a consulting psychiatrist, and is known for his influential work on the relationship between the structure of our brains, human cultures and our understanding of the world.Oliver Adelson is Philosophy Desk Lead at the Institute of Art and Ideas. He is also Head of Speaker Booking for the IAI's HowTheLightGetsIn Festival.Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Moon pulls the tides of the ocean, but the question that won't let us go is simpler and stranger: what is it pulling in us? Melanie Reinhart joins me for a wide, grounded, moonlit ramble through lunar consciousness, astrology, and the body. We start with the moon as a constant companion for earthlings, a reliable rhythm of waxing and waning that can steady us when life feels politically, personally, and collectively turbulent.From there, we drop into somatic territory. We talk craniosacral therapy and the experience of “tides” in the system, from surface noise to the deeper mid tide and the long tide where time feels different. That becomes a living metaphor for the lunar path: not a heroic push to achieve, but a deepening that restores life force. We also bring in the Orphic Hymn to the Moon as an invocation practice and explore why reverence matters, not as an antique idea but as a way to relate to powers we still live inside.We get practical about moon phases too: the dark of the moon as a window for retreat, the full moon as an emotional amplifier, and how lunar timing can support better choices in work, conflict, learning, and creativity. We move into dreams as night-world digestion, why forcing interpretations can block the nourishment, and how light pollution mirrors a cultural forgetting of darkness, sleep, and imagination. If you care about the lunar cycle, dreamwork, depth psychology, the Jungian unconscious, or the roots of astrology in the night sky, this conversation is for you.*the above blurb was auto-generated by Buzzsprout's AI.Cover Artwork is The Fairy of the moon by Hermann Kaulbach (b&w) circa 1891 with a background extension from Canva.The Orphic Hymns including the one in this episode dedicated to the moon, and the invocation with Musaeus. It's the Thomas Taylor translation from 1792. Melanie's personal favourite.Find out more about Melanie and her work here. She has many great books including, famously, Chiron and the Healing Journey.Melanie reads from:Dane Rudhyar, The Lunation Cycle: A Key to the Understanding of Personality, from the section “The Pattern of the Lunation Cycle.”Rudolf Steiner, “In Pure Rays of Light” The verse appears in Esoteric Instructions (GA 264), with related commentary in an esoteric lesson of 5 December 1907 (GA 266/I).We discuss:Iain McGilchrist's book: The Master and his Emissary and associate right brain activity with the moon and left brain with Mercury.Jung, obviously, comes up a lot. I paraphrase this quotation from him.We also talk about the Tides in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. If you'd like to know more about that the work of Franklyn Sills (may he rest in peace) is a good starting point.Clearing up the confusion of the 'far side' vs the 'dark side' of the moon we go to NASA...But always appreciative to Pink Floyd for creating such confusion but also such a cracking album.Melanie also mentions the Dark Sky Movement. Such important work. Have a look at darksky.org.We also acknowledge that "mentor" is not etymologically related to Mene or taurus. What we're engaging in during that section is a nice bit of folk etymology.Join the Newsletter!Podcast Musician: Marlia CoeurPlease consider becoming a Patron to support the show!Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.
What if: you are not too much, and you are not too little. You are just turned the wrong way. That's the claim this episode makes, and it might not be a comfortable one to sit with. Self-importance gets talked about like it's vanity — too much ego, too much me. But what if it's the opposite of too much self? What if it's a starvation, and the constant checking, measuring, and needing to be seen is just what starvation looks like from the inside? This episode traces that reframe through four unlikely companions and theoretical frameworks: Alan Watts and his image of the self sealed inside its own skin, cut off from the world it actually belongs to; Iain McGilchrist and the two hemispheres of the brain, one built for direct contact with what's real, the other built only to represent and compare; Heinz Kohut and Alice Miller, who spent careers studying what happens to a person when the mirror they needed as a child was never held up true; and Robert Bly, naming a culture of siblings raising each other because the elders never showed up. Four different frameworks, four different vocabularies, but one unified shape underneath: a self that's stopped sourcing itself vertically — up into something larger and more magical and mysterious, and down into the ground it's actually made of — and started sourcing itself sideways instead, off the reactions of the room. That sideways reach is self-importance. Not arrogance, but a misdirected hunger. This is the why episode. It sets the cosmology, the diagnosis, the ache underneath the pattern — without yet handing you the tools to catch it in yourself. That's coming. If you've ever caught yourself needing the room to confirm you're okay, this one's for you. Not to fix that orientation, but just to see it clearly, maybe for the first time.
Ep 281 Peacewarts: Resonant Charms 101 - The Tuning Fork Test (Class 1) Welcome back to Peacewarts! Avis Kalfsbeek opens the Department of Resonant Charms with a formal orientation to the Resonance Chamber and the departmental axiom: Resonance over Reach. In Class 1, we introduce the tuning fork test as a foundational skill for reading the 70/30 rule of communication. Using the history of listening circles in South Africa, we examine how a deliberate slowing of frequency allows for social repair. We explore the one breath behind technique and the importance of attuning rather than matching the intensity of an opponent. Homework: Look up the term emotional contagion and find one study or example of how a person's state affects others. Write down one question about any of this episode's topics. If you don't have a question, write 'no question.' Optional: Perform a ten-second scan in a room today and name the frequency. Books: If you'd like to read more on this subject, some book suggestions are My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem, which explores the deep somatic connections of how collective calm or trauma vibrates through a room's emotional climate, and The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist, a brilliant look at how we attend to our environment and why focusing strictly on verbal content fails if we ignore the holistic climate. Learning Topics: Departmental Orientation; Language as Architecture; The 70/30 rule of communication; The ten-second pre-speech scan; South African TRC Listening Circles; Attuning vs. matching; The one breath behind technique. Get the Books:AvisKalfsbeek.com Podcast Music: Javier Peke Rodriguez “I am late, madame Curie” Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW
Steve, Dana, and Julia gather once more—for almost the last time—to unpack the week's culture. This week, conversation has to include the cultural, cinematic juggernaut Steven Spielberg and his new film Disclosure Day. Starring Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt, it's a sci-fi, action thriller about the longheld Spielbergian obsession: extraterrestrial life. Does it deliver that trademark Spielberg sense of wonder or tired cliches… or both?Next, they welcome longtime friend of the program Isaac Butler to discuss his new book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars and threats to free expression past, present, and future. Finally, and for the final time, beloved chartologist Chris Molanphy joins the show to remember Summer Struts past and curate the ultimate shortlist of shortlists. The panel shares their most adored songs from previous years and the tracks that never made the list but should have.Listen to the final, ultimate, best of Summer Strut shortlist here. And for even more struttin', you can listen to ten years of Summer Strut shortlists in one playlist here.For Slate Plus subscribers, our bonus episode includes even more propulsive, groovy tracks and reflective conversation about what was Summer Strut.EndorsementsDana: Slate's Spielberg Week and the 2023 conversation between the three philosophers John Vervaeke, Iain McGilchrist, and Daniel Schmachtenberger on "The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis."Chris: The 2025 music video, directed by Mike Mills and starring Saoirse Ronan, of the Talking Heads classic Psycho Killer.Julia: L.A. Material's upcoming Culinary Cup, a tournament of Los Angeles restaurants from the national diasporas represented in World Cup teams. Steve: Sports. (Latecomers and bandwagon fans welcome! Go Knicks!)And don't forget to preorder Isaac Butler's book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars.--Email us your thoughts at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Steve, Dana, and Julia gather once more—for almost the last time—to unpack the week's culture. This week, conversation has to include the cultural, cinematic juggernaut Steven Spielberg and his new film Disclosure Day. Starring Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt, it's a sci-fi, action thriller about the longheld Spielbergian obsession: extraterrestrial life. Does it deliver that trademark Spielberg sense of wonder or tired cliches… or both?Next, they welcome longtime friend of the program Isaac Butler to discuss his new book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars and threats to free expression past, present, and future. Finally, and for the final time, beloved chartologist Chris Molanphy joins the show to remember Summer Struts past and curate the ultimate shortlist of shortlists. The panel shares their most adored songs from previous years and the tracks that never made the list but should have.Listen to the final, ultimate, best of Summer Strut shortlist here. And for even more struttin', you can listen to ten years of Summer Strut shortlists in one playlist here.For Slate Plus subscribers, our bonus episode includes even more propulsive, groovy tracks and reflective conversation about what was Summer Strut.EndorsementsDana: Slate's Spielberg Week and the 2023 conversation between the three philosophers John Vervaeke, Iain McGilchrist, and Daniel Schmachtenberger on "The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis."Chris: The 2025 music video, directed by Mike Mills and starring Saoirse Ronan, of the Talking Heads classic Psycho Killer.Julia: L.A. Material's upcoming Culinary Cup, a tournament of Los Angeles restaurants from the national diasporas represented in World Cup teams. Steve: Sports. (Latecomers and bandwagon fans welcome! Go Knicks!)And don't forget to preorder Isaac Butler's book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars.--Email us your thoughts at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this Gurometer edition, Matt and Chris feed Iain McGilchrist into the sacred instrument to see where exactly refined country-parish-minister vibes land when combined with galaxy-brained hemispheres, civilisational decline narratives, decorative scholarship, and the other features of guruosity.Iain McGilchrist Gurometer00:27 Introduction01:00 Iain McGilchrist Reactions04:40 Galaxy Brain-ness06:39 Cultishness08:28 Anti-Establishmentarianism11:39 Grievance Mongering14:30 Self-Aggrandizement and Narcissism17:21 Cassandra Complex19:54 Revolutionary Theories20:48 Pseudo-Profound Bullshit24:10 Conspiracy Mongering25:08 Excessive Profiteering26:10 Moral Grandstanding27:15 Overall Score28:47 Bonus Round33:04 Guru Binary Scores37:18 Outro
This week we look the Murrell/Sturgeon scandal in Scotland; Ireland and Iran; The British Museum cancels Israel; Country of the Week - Cambodia; Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner wants to protect pregnant men; Pride returns to Sodom and Gomorrah; The racist death of Henry Novak; Transgender Extremist who plants bomb in Melbourne spared jail; the Pope on AI; Newcastle Knights; Married at First Sight; Top ten guitarists - no. 6 Jimmy Page; Feedback; Iain McGilchrist on the need for Christianity; Jesus turns up on the Gold Coast; and the Final Word - Genesis 11:5-9 - with Bachman Turner Overdrive; Sinn Sisamouth; Preah Ang La Hor; Mike Zito; Kraftwerk; Led Zeppelin and Dave Henderson
Why do so many churches feel spiritually thin, aesthetically bland, and disconnected from the deep longings of modern people?In this lecture, the Rev'd Dr Jamie Franklin argues that the crisis of the modern West is not merely theological or moral but rather aesthetic in nature. Drawing on Alexander Schmemann, David Bentley Hart, Iain McGilchrist, St Anselm, and the Christian tradition, he explores a striking idea: that Original Sin was, at its heart, a refusal to receive creation as a gift and offer it back to God in thanksgiving.This talk traces how Christianity once understood the world as sacramentally charged with divine meaning and how that vision was gradually eclipsed by modern secular assumptions.Topics include:• Original Sin as a failure of “original blessing”• The sacramental vision of creation• The Reformation, iconoclasm, and the loss of symbolic thinking• Beauty, liturgy, and the recovery of the sacred• Why the Eucharist stands at the centre of a truly Christian vision of the world• What parish churches can teach a disenchanted cultureIf you've ever wondered why beauty matters, why ancient liturgy continues to attract people in a secular age, or how Christianity can recover a sense of the sacred, then this conversation is for you.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------JOIN US FOR IRREVEREND LIVE! - Holy Trinity Church Winchester, Tuesday 23rd June, 7pm: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/irreverend-live-with-tom-daniel-and-jamie-tickets-1990101934458?aff=oddtdtcreatorEmail the Show with comments and questions! irreverendpod@gmail.com You make this podcast possible. Support us and get episodes early, bonus Uncollared audio podcasts, monthly epic chats between Jamie and Nick Dixon and more!On Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/irreverendOn Substack - https://irreverendpod.substack.com/Buy Me a Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/irreverend To make a direct donation or to get in touch with questions or comments please email irreverendpod@gmail.com!Notices:Join our Irreverend Telegram group: https://t.me/irreverendpodFollow us on Twitter: https://x.com/IrreverendPodBuy Jamie's Book THE GREAT RETURN!: https://amzn.to/4pwAH8RDaniel French Substack: https://undergroundchurch.substack.com/Jamie Franklin's "Good Things" Substack: https://jamiefranklin.substack.comIrreverend Substack: https://irreverendpod.substack.comFind me a church: https://irreverendpod.com/church-finder/Support the show
Iain McGilchrist is a former fellow at Oxford University and the author of a few books, including Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, and The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Greg and Iain discuss Iain's work on hemispheric differences in the brain, especially in The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things. Iain argues the left and right hemispheres embody distinct modes of attention—narrow, acquisitive focus versus broad, open vigilance—and that how we attend changes what we perceive. He rejects pop-psychology stereotypes and contends the right hemisphere “sees more” and should guide the left, which is useful but prone to delusion when dominant. Iain traces three Western cycles where early cultural flourishing gives way to left-hemisphere domination and civilizational decline, linking this to bureaucracy, organizational “exploit” drift, and modern metrics-driven thinking. They also discuss metaphor's centrality to science, AI's limits, mental-health decline, internet-driven polarization, and reforms to universities to revive the humanities alongside science. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Imagination needs a maintenance of open attention 17:57: See, imagination is misunderstood. It's not about brainstorming and writing down every silly thing that comes into your head. Imagination is about seeing something below the level that is immediately accessible to the conscious mind and listening to that and responding to it, and pursuing it, and allowing something to grow. Now, that requires patience, time, and a continuing maintenance of open attention. Once it gets closed down, you've lost it. So that's one reason that it won't work. And the other is that if you've got too many people involved in the bureaucratic side, that's not going to work well either. There are specializations, and take the hint from nature. They are so different that they do need to be kept distinct if you're going to survive. Your attention shapes your reality 40:05: It is certainly true that there is a constant dialogue between our minds and the world. The world influences the mind and the brain, and the mind and the brain, having been influenced, in turn influence the world around us. So we can get locked into a vicious cycle in which we see things in a certain limited way, and we think that's all that there is. And so that feeds back to that being the only right way to think. Science is based on nothing but metaphors 30:32: Science is based on nothing but metaphors. It is entirely metaphorical. And that's not a mistake or a problem, because it can't avoid—I mean—the alternative would be to say nothing. But it has to say it's like this. And metaphor is saying this thing can be understood by likening it to something else. And the problem is that scientists don't realize that they're using metaphors and that their metaphors both dictate what it is they can see and how they see what it is that they do see. So, models, which science can't work without, are simply elaborated metaphors. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Postmodernism Exploration–exploitation dilemma Lateralization of brain function Dunning–Kruger effect Antonio Damasio G. K. Chesterton Daniel Kahneman Logos Mythos V. S. Ramachandran Theory of mind Friedrich Nietzsche Heraclitus Renaissance Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at All Souls College | University of Oxford LinkedIn Profile Professional Website Wikipedia Profile Guest Work: Amazon Author Page Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World TED Talk: The Divided Brain Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
In this episode, we return to Iain McGilchrist as he spirals upwards from his binary hemispheric model into full cosmic spirituality. The rule is simple: everything McGilchrist likes is due to the subtle, nuanced, and deeply sophisticated right brain, while the left brain (pffft) is responsible for reductionism, modernity, and most of the problems in your life.From this neuroscientific foundation, the theory expands with admirable ambition. Civilisations rise and fall depending on which hemisphere they inhabit. Ancient societies were properly attuned to the right brain, while the modern world has gone mechanical and spiritually bankrupt. The details are, of course, very complex, but the moral is clear.Scientific evidence features occasionally, mostly in a decorative capacity or as parables of scientists being baffled by mystical forces. Hence, we learn that decapitated worms retain perfect memories, Nobel Prizes have been awarded for demonstrating a mystical direction powering evolution, and near-death experiences establish that memories form when the brain isn't functioning.Alongside this hard science, McGilchrist also ventures into more spiritual realms, where we learn that artificial intelligence is likely to be channelling demons, schizophrenia might be caused by malign spiritual forces treating our brains as a luxury resort, and recently exorcised demons prefer to communicate via text message. No really...Ultimately, what matters is that McGilchrist's bespoke theology, bespoke metaphysics, bespoke biological teleology, and bespoke panentheist philosophy are really very impressive. And if you don't find any of it compelling, well, we are sad to inform you that this itself proves you are stuck in the wrong mode of thinking and failing to recognise true profundity.And if that doesn't work, then let's just say it was all a metaphor anyway!LinksAlex O' Connor: Why Evolution Gave You Two Brains - Iain McGilchristJonathan Pageau: Artificial Intelligence, Possession, and Mental Illness - Dr. Iain McGilchristThink Faith: Philosopher Iain McGilchrist DEBATES neuroscientist Anil Seth on God & minds | Uncommon GroundSpezio, M. (2019). McGilchrist and hemisphere lateralization: a neuroscientific and metaanalytic assessment. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2019.1604416Corballis, M. C. (2014). Left brain, right brain: facts and fantasies. PLoS biology, 12(1), e1001767.Carson, A. (2010). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. By Iain McGilchrist. Yale University Press. 2009. US $38.00 (hb). 608 pp. ISBN: 9780300148787. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 196(6), 498-498.De Haan, D. (2019). McGilchrist's hemispheric homunculi. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 368-379.Shomrat, T., & Levin, M. (2013). An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planarians and its persistence through head regeneration. Journal of Experimental Biology, 216(20), 3799-3810.
Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist and philosopher specialising in the brain hemispheres and their influence on the human body, well-being, and social and cultural change. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist and philosopher specialising in the brain hemispheres and their influence on the human body, well-being, and social and cultural change.
For many of us, our instinctual response to rising conflict and instability might be to recede further into pragmatism as a way to survive. Yet, if our cultural values and ways of life are what got us here, rooted in narrow-boundary, cold, and logical thinking – then perhaps moments of turbulence like these actually call on us to change our way of thinking entirely. Is this moment our opportunity to pivot toward worldviews that emphasize the intangible qualities of life, and could that shift cause a cascade through our actions and decisions, leading to more balanced decision-making for the betterment of everyone? In this episode, Nate is rejoined by philosopher and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist for discussion on how our left-brain dominance obscures our sense of value, especially for abstract qualities such as truth, goodness, and beauty. As a way to reclaim an appreciation for these things, he urges us to slow down, create spaciousness, embrace silence and deep listening, and resist the mania for productivity in our modern culture. Nate and Iain also discuss consciousness, panpsychism, and panentheism, exploring the thread that there might be some form of universal current running through everything, uniting us all. Bringing everything together, Iain calls for a recovery of humility, compassion, awe, and wonder and insists that even a small percentage of people genuinely living differently could begin to shift cultural consciousness. How do the things we choose to pay attention to affect our ability to see what's important in the world – and subsequently what we value and prioritize? What would it feel like to treat each day as a gift rather than a problem to solve, and how might that shift our relationship with time, mortality, and meaning? Most of all, is it possible for some subset of humans to reground ourselves and our behavior in the interconnectedness of life, and could those small changes add up to meaningfully alter humanity's current trajectory? (Conversation recorded on March 24th, 2026) About Iain McGilchrist: Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. Iain has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. Iain is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009); and his book on neuroscience, epistemology, and ontology called The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (2021). Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie. --- Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
Matt and Michael open on the shores — Mission Beach, specifically — and wander through the vastness of the ocean as metaphor for life's uncontrollable forces. They explore self-organized criticality: the single grain of sand that collapses the whole system, and why we resist the small fires that prevent total destruction. The conversation turns to authenticity. Can you try to be unique without becoming a trope? Matt shares the story of his college roommate asking, "But how does Matt McCloskey sing it?" — a question that still echoes 25 years later. They discuss theme and variation, the Karate Kid, and why creativity requires structure. They land on family as placeholder — the people who hold your essential self while allowing you to evolve. And finally: God doesn't fall in love with his people. He just is. Cheers y'all
Iain McGilchrist on Rip Van Winkle, the poet's brain, and the real word for sunshine. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Iain McGilchrist Cenevre Kasım 2023 konferansı: dikkati değiştirmek için sebepler 00:08 Bilimde Dogmatizm Ve Gerçeklik Sorusu 06:24 Sağ Ve Sol Beyin Araştırmaları 13:52 İki Farklı Gerçeklik Algısı 17:50 Hakikat Bir İlişkidir 22:51 Sağ Beynin Gücü Ve Bütünlük 26:27 Sol Beynin Parçalama Eğilimi 35:25 Modern Dünyada Sol Beyin Hakimiyeti 55:51 Güven Kaybı Ve Bürokrasi 58:08 Değerler Piramidi Ve Beyin Yaklaşımı 1:05:39 Hannah Arendt Ve Hakikat 1:09:43 Meditasyon Pratiği Bu bölümde Zeynep Aksoy, Ian McGilchrist'ın Cenevre konuşması üzerinden sağ ve sol beynin dünyayı algılama biçimlerini ele alıyor. Sağ beynin ilişkisel, bütüncül ve yaşayan gerçekliği; sol beynin ise parçalayan, kategorize eden ve kontrol etmeye çalışan yönünü anlatıyor. Modern dünyanın bürokrasi, güven kaybı, indirgemecilik ve anlamsızlık krizinin büyük ölçüde sol beynin hakimiyetinden beslendiğini vurguluyor. Konuşmanın sonunda ise mindfulness ve meditasyonu, sağ beynin daha açık, bağlamsal ve canlı dikkatini yeniden uyandıran bir pratik olarak konumlandırıyor. Zeynep Aksoy, saygın bir yoga eğitmeni ve Reset platformunun kurucusudur. Web sitesi üzerinden canlı ve kayıttan izlenebilen dersler, üyelik programları ve profesyonel eğitimler sunmaktadır. Online Stüdyo üyeliği ile günlük çevrim içi derslere, geniş bir arşive ve topluluk desteğine erişim imkânı sağlar. Ayrıca Zeynep, katılımcıların hareket, anatomi ve farkındalık konularında bilgilerini derinleştirmelerine yardımcı olmak için yenilikçi Fasyal Yoga Uzmanlık Programı'nı yürütmektedir. Daha fazla bilgi almak ve sertifikalı eğitimlere katılmak için: www.zeynepaksoyreset.com
In this episode, William Green talks with Matthew McLennan, who oversees about $130 billion at First Eagle Investments. Matt is head of the firm's Global Value team & a portfolio manager of its Global Value, Global Equity, International Value, International Equity & US Value strategies. Here, he explores how to build resilient wealth by patiently holding a “non-uniform” portfolio of scarce assets that should endure & prosper even in difficult conditions. This episode provides a time-tested survival strategy for investors looking to navigate this period of extreme uncertainty. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN: 00:00:00 - Intro00:02:14 - Why Matthew McLennan thinks investors should prepare for turmoil.00:17:43 - How to construct a resilient portfolio by thinking like a gardener.00:19:38 - Why Matt loves businesses with scarce assets in mundane industries.00:23:02 - Why survival is the key to investment success.00:23:33 - How cash & gold provide a ballast in the event of unexpected storms.00:26:28 - Why he's wary of a highly concentrated investment strategy.00:51:07 - How patience has become a powerful edge in a hyperactive world.00:57:17 - How to build long-term success by focusing on process, not rewards.01:05:28 - How to think better by harnessing our right-brain capabilities.01:23:05 - Why “what's hot today” is likely to produce terrible investment returns.01:25:10 - How studying wine & playing backgammon help him as an investor.01:29:04 - Why he favors a team-based approach, instead of being a lone wolf. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community. Learn how to join us in Omaha for the Berkshire meeting here. Inquire about William Green's Richer, Wiser, Happier Masterclass. Thucydides' book, History of the Peloponnesian War. Daniel Yergin's book, The Prize. John Cochrane's book, The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level. Peter Matthiessen's book, The Snow Leopard. Iain McGilchrist's book, The Matter with Things. David Galenson's book, Old Masters and Young Geniuses. Charles de Montesquieu's book, The Spirit of the Laws. Stephen Wolfram's book, A New Kind of Science. Winston Churchill's book, My Early Life. William Green's book, Richer, Wiser, Happier. Follow William Green on X. Related books mentioned in the podcast. Ad-free episodes on our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Get smarter about valuing businesses through The Intrinsic Value Newsletter. Check out our We Study Billionaires Starter Packs. Follow our official social media accounts: X | LinkedIn | Facebook. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: HardBlock Human Rights Foundation Plus500 Shopify Netsuite Vanta References to any third-party products, services, or advertisers do not constitute endorsements, and The Investor's Podcast Network is not responsible for any claims made by them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with neuroscientist and philosopher Dr. Iain McGilchrist about the psychological and cultural crisis resulting from our modern reliance on the brain's analytical left hemisphere, a perspective that views the world as a collection of inanimate parts rather than a living whole, while making a compelling case for the rehabilitation of myth and religious tradition as essential pathways to a deeper, relational truth that can protect Western civilisation from the dehumanising effects of purely mechanistic thinking. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Yeni Yıl 2024 ve Metakrizin Psikolojik sebepleri: Schmachtenberger, McGilchrist ve Vervaeke 00:08 Metakriz Ve Dünyanın Psikolojik Krizi 03:27 Yoga Ve Algı Dönüşümü 09:38 Sağ Ve Sol Beyin Perspektifi 13:40 Dikkat Dünyamızı Nasıl Şekillendiriyor? 21:13 Bütünlük, Gestalt Ve Yaşayan Gerçeklik 27:01 Hayatta Anlam Krizi 29:14 Amaç, Bağlantı Ve Flow Hali 32:17 Dikkat, Meditasyon Ve Seçim Gücü 43:28 İçsel Ve Dışsal Değerler 51:17 Toplum, Doğa Ve Aşkınlıkla Bağ 54:40 Yeni Yıl Niyeti: Sağ Beynin Rehberliği Bu bölümde Zeynep Aksoy, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Iain McGilchrist ve John Vervaeke'nin metakriz üzerine yaptığı konuşmadan yola çıkarak bugünün dünyasını yaratan psikolojik kalıpları ele alıyor. Sağ ve sol beynin dünyayı algılama biçimleri üzerinden, modern hayatın parçalaycı, kontrolcü ve aşırı soyut düşünen yapısının bizi anlam krizine sürüklediğini anlatıyor. Buna karşılık sağ beynin daha ilişkisel, bütüncül ve yaşayan gerçeklikle temas eden tarafını güçlendirmenin önemini vurguluyor. Bölüm boyunca dikkatimizin dünyamızı nasıl kurduğunu, içsel ve dışsal değerler arasındaki farkı, insanın toplumla, doğayla ve kendinden büyük olanla bağ kurma ihtiyacını konuşuyor. Son bölümde ise meditasyonu, dikkati yeniden eğitmenin ve daha bütünlüklü bir zihin geliştirebilmenin pratik yolu olarak sunuyor. Zeynep Aksoy, saygın bir yoga eğitmeni ve Reset platformunun kurucusudur. Web sitesi üzerinden canlı ve kayıttan izlenebilen dersler, üyelik programları ve profesyonel eğitimler sunmaktadır. Online Stüdyo üyeliği ile günlük çevrim içi derslere, geniş bir arşive ve topluluk desteğine erişim imkânı sağlar. Ayrıca Zeynep, katılımcıların hareket, anatomi ve farkındalık konularında bilgilerini derinleştirmelerine yardımcı olmak için yenilikçi Fasyal Yoga Uzmanlık Programı'nı yürütmektedir. Daha fazla bilgi almak ve sertifikalı eğitimlere katılmak için: www.zeynepaksoyreset.com
Who are we? Why are we here? Does life have a meaning beyond itself? Join former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and groundbreaking psychiatrist, literary scholar and author of 'The Matter with Things', Iain McGilchrist, to explore the nature of meaning, and why we should move beyond the assumptions of a materialist worldview from radically divergent perspectives. Please feel free to email us at podcast@iai.tv with any of your thoughts or questions on the episode!To witness such debates live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Each half of our brain drives different aspects of our thoughts and behaviors. The ways each hemisphere work together impacts the way we understand and experience our faith. Join Dr. Stephen Pietsch, professor of practical theology, and Dr. David Maxwell, professor of systematic theology, in a discussion of Dr. Iain McGilchrist's book "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World."
Everything you think you know about the function of the human brain is wrong. Dr. Iain McGilchrist, author of "The Master and His Emissary," explains his groundbreaking discoveries about how the brain hemispheres really work. We also discuss how the modern world has focused almost entirely on one hemisphere of the brain, rewiring humans to think and behave in deeply unhealthy patterns. Follow on: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-auron-macintyre-show/id1657770114 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3S6z4LBs8Fi7COupy7YYuM?si=4d9662cb34d148af Substack: https://auronmacintyre.substack.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre Gab: https://gab.com/AuronMacIntyre YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/c/AuronMacIntyre Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-390155 Odysee: https://odysee.com/@AuronMacIntyre:f Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auronmacintyre/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Matt and Michael explore entrepreneurial burnout, renewed creative vigor, and the question: Do you have one last home run left in you? Cheers y'all
Iain McGilchrist, Marc Gafni & Zak Stein | The Return of Value and the Sacred | Part 2Zak Stein moderates an intense and wide-ranging conversation between Dr. Iain McGilchrist and Dr. Marc Gafni. The dialogue spans the sacred nature of story, the loss of value and eros, the nature of evil, and the deep structures shaping culture today. In Part 2, the conversation turns explicitly toward the question of value itself — whether the sacred is intrinsic to reality or merely projected, and what is at stake in that distinction.Iain McGilchrist is a British psychiatrist, literary scholar, and one of the most important philosophical voices of our time. He is best known for *The Master and His Emissary* and *The Matter With Things*, where he argues that the left and right hemispheres of the brain attend to the world in fundamentally different ways, with massive consequences for civilization. His work bridges neuroscience, philosophy, art, and depth psychology, offering a vision of human consciousness grounded in attention, embodiment, and reverence.Dr. Marc Gafni is a visionary philosopher, spiritual teacher, and social theorist. A former Orthodox rabbi with a doctorate from Oxford University, he is the co-founder of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion and a leading voice in the articulation of “cosmo-erotic humanism.” His books include *Your Unique Self*, *A Return to Eros*, and *Radical Kabbalah*. Gafni's work fuses Jewish mysticism, integral theory, and Western philosophy to explore the nature of self, eros, and value at the evolutionary edge of human identity and spirituality.Zak Stein is a Harvard-trained education and transformation philosopher known for his work on developmental ethics, meta-crisis, and the future of human learning.#IainMcGilchrist #MarcGafni #ZakStein #Eros #Story #MeaningCrisis #IntegralPhilosophy #TheMasterAndHisEmissary #CosmoEroticHumanism
In this Worldviews episode, Jim talks with Iain McGilchrist about consciousness, matter, and the nature of reality. They discuss consciousness as the basis of everything we know, matter as a phase of consciousness that provides resistance and persistence, pan-experientialism and the belief that everything in the cosmos experiences in some form, the whirlpool metaphor for individual consciousness within a broader field, emergent naturalism and nested levels of organization, the question of whether the universe is continuous or granular at the Planck scale, consciousness in animals including chimps and corvids, language as the principal difference between human and animal consciousness, John Vervaeke's distinction between propositional and participatory knowing, the divided brain and how the left and right hemispheres attend to the world differently, the left hemisphere's focus on decontextualized abstractions versus the right hemisphere's grasp of interconnected wholes, how the left hemisphere deals with representations while the right hemisphere experiences presences, living in a world dominated by the relatively stupid left hemisphere, the relationship between consciousness and reality as an encounter rather than naive realism or idealism, relations coming before things, Lee Smolin's argument that time cannot be an illusion, assembly theory's challenge to the block universe, values as ontological primitives that cannot be derived from a valueless cosmos, the distinction between value and values, teleology as a lure rather than determinism using Waddington's creodes metaphor, the three elements of a fulfilled life (belonging to a coherent social group, belonging in nature, and belonging in the cosmos), the breakdown of collective sense making despite increased education levels, the decline in the caliber of political leaders, the distinction between information and wisdom, and much more. Episode Transcript The Master and His Emissary, by Iain McGilchrist The Matter with Things, by Iain McGilchrist JRS EP 154 - Iain McGilchrist on The Matter With Things JRS EP 155 Iain McGilchrist Part 2: The Matter With Things The Emergence of Everything, by Harold Morowitz Time Reborn, by Lee Smolin JRS EP 5 Lee Smolin - Quantum Foundations and Einstein's Unfinished Revolution Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He now lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland, where he continues to write, and lectures worldwide. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains.
While you're waiting for Season 3 of Surprising Rebirth to drop... how about listening to Justin's brand new show? He's back in the moderator's chair hosting conversations between Christians, atheists, skeptics and seekers in this new podcast and video show.'Uncommon Ground' features leading figures from the world of atheism, psychology, science, culture, literature and theology. Recorded in the beautiful setting of Yarnton Manor, Oxford, they'll be debating purpose in the universe, meaning in life, faith, atheism and the deepest questions of existence. But this isn't just another debate-fest. 'Uncommon Ground' asks each guest to spell out the other's position. Connecting before correcting. Disagreeing well by understanding each other better. Season 1 will feature:Richard, Dawkins & Rowan Williams - on God & science.Alex O Connor & Glen Scrivener - on whether Christianity gave us our morality.Jonathan Pageau & Joe Folley - on whether art and beauty points to God. Anil Seth & Iain McGilchrist - on consciousness and the brain.Paul Davies & Emily Qureshi-Hurst - on whether the universe has a purpose. Elizabeth Oldfield & James Marriott - on whether there's purpose in life.Stephen Meyer & Phil Halper - big bang cosmology and the fine tuning of the universe. Philip Pullman and Francis Spufford - on literature, meaning, imagination and religion. ...and more to be announced. Subscribe here: https://justinbrierley.com/uncommon-ground-podcast/ Get access to every episode TWO WEEKS early when you support: https://justinbrierley.com/support-me/ Watch episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3rZ-nZe04d8G6kwNOMpuI8vQ4Qx3rVEQ Stay up to date - and get free chapters from both my books - by subscribing to my newsletter: https://justinbrierley.com/get-justins-newsletter/ A production of Think Faith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ralston College Dr President Stephen Blackwood speaks with newly appointed Chancellor Dr Iain McGilchrist about the fate of the universities and their role in the future of civilization. Reflecting on education, tradition, and the conditions necessary for genuine understanding, Dr McGilchrist shares his hope that we can restore places of truth, beauty, and wisdom despite the pressures of reductionism, instrumentality, and mechanistic thought. The conversation also traces prevailing academic narratives such as reduction and computation, which risk a flattening of human life into utility, data, and procedure. McGilchrist distinguishes information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, arguing that wisdom depends on lived experience, sustained attention, and a cultivated disposition toward reality itself. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Plato's Seventh Letter Aristotle's Political Animals Johann Sebastian Bach Isaac Newton Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Simon Conway Morris The Matter with Things The Cathedral Builders of the Middle Ages - Alain Erlande-Brandenburg Margaret Mead
What is it about slipping fully into a character and exploring a living, open‑ended world that makes us feel so drawn into the fantasy and have fun? What part of our human make-up is refreshed and excited by these imaginary adventures we experience during roleplay? Is there a way to understand this specific preference for slipping into a imaginary persona and exploring a living, open-ended world?This one's sharing a more experimental theory that's emerged in my mind over recent days. It's rooted back in my first conversations with friends of the show Daniel Jones from Primaeval Fantasy, Runeslinger Anthony from Casting Shadows, and my co-host Patrick Mullen from GURPStalk. It's also rooted in the psychology and philosophy of Dr Iain McGilchrist and several other authors that I've read or heard over recent years.Game on!Roleplay Rescue Details:Voice Message:speakpipe.com/roleplayrescuePatreon:patreon.com/rpgrescue Email:roleplayrescue@pm.meBlogroleplayrescue.com Bluesky Social:https://bsky.app/profile/ubiquitousrat.bsky.socialRoleplay Rescue Theme by Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore:https://taleofthemanticore.podbean.com/Logo and artwork by MJ Hiblen:https://www.patreon.com/MJHiblenART/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What is it about slipping fully into a character and exploring a living, open‑ended world that makes us feel so drawn into the fantasy and have fun? What part of our human make-up is refreshed and excited by these imaginary adventures we experience during roleplay? Is there a way to understand this specific preference for slipping into a imaginary persona and exploring a living, open-ended world?This one's sharing a more experimental theory that's emerged in my mind over recent days. It's rooted back in my first conversations with friends of the show Daniel Jones from Primaeval Fantasy, Runeslinger Anthony from Casting Shadows, and my co-host Patrick Mullen from GURPStalk. It's also rooted in the psychology and philosophy of Dr Iain McGilchrist and several other authors that I've read or heard over recent years.Game on!Roleplay Rescue Details:Voice Message:speakpipe.com/roleplayrescuePatreon:patreon.com/rpgrescue Email:roleplayrescue@pm.meBlogroleplayrescue.com Bluesky Social:https://bsky.app/profile/ubiquitousrat.bsky.socialRoleplay Rescue Theme by Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore:https://taleofthemanticore.podbean.com/Logo and artwork by MJ Hiblen:https://www.patreon.com/MJHiblenART/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
As many of us move into the holiday season and slower days, I wanted to reshare this conversation with Iain McGilchrist. It's a spacious, illuminating exploration of how we've come to live as we do — and a reminder that meaning and beauty are still available to us, even when solutions feel out of reach.Dr Iain McGilchrist (neuroscientist, psychiatrist, polymath, author of The Master and His Emissary) devised a thesis that sets out how the two sides of our brains can affect the way we both interact and create the world. The left hemisphere is a narrow, extractive, problem-solving “machine” that divides and conquers things, fails to see our part in the world and to fathom beauty, awe and responsibility. Our civilisation, Iain says, has become ruled by a left-brain mentality, which is killing us and leaving us “wretched”; we need to put the right side back in charge! Iain is an associate of Green Templeton College in Oxford and a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal Society of Arts. His 2009 book Master and his Emissary became a cult read and the recent follow-up, The Matter with Things took him 12 years to write (and is 600,000 words long!).In this chat, we cover why societies start out creative, happy and flourishing (right-brained!) but switch left and destructive as they expand; the secret to living a well and happy life and how to find meaning and beauty in a world we possibly can't “fix” (in the left-brain sense of the word). SHOW NOTESLearn more about Iain's work via his website and watch his videos here.Buy Master and his Emissary and The Matter with Things here.Listen to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's Wild episode.--If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it's where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet's connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This final episode of the year is a special compilation reflecting on the lessons, reminders, and moments that shaped 2025. It's a curated journey through insights from across the year—designed to help you slow down, take stock, and step into 2026 with greater clarity, presence, and intention.This episode is less about doing more and more about listening—reflecting on the growth, challenges, relationships, and inner shifts that defined the past year. It's an invitation to notice what wants to be released, what wants to be integrated, and what seeds you're ready to water moving forward. Sometimes all it takes is a one-degree change in direction to alter the entire path ahead.Momentous: Best Creatine in the gamehttps://livemomentous.com[Use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 35% off]2025/2026 Reflections and Intentions: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/yearinreviewAndrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list___________00:00:00 Intro00:02:30 E166 – Tim Ferriss00:05:27 E152 – Mark Manson00:10:11 E128 – Mindy Pelz00:12:26 E143 – Michael Beckwith00:17:59 E119 – Marianne Williamson00:25:15 E145 – Dr. Theresa Bullard00:31:00 E160 – Aaron Abke00:35:16 E140 – Lewis Howes00:41:57 Ad – Momentous00:43:11 E149 – Dr. Thema Bryant00:48:13 E154 – Sadhguru00:53:22 E155 – Dr. K01:01:07 E164 – Dr. John Demartini01:07:49 E118 – Aaron Doughty01:13:24 E135 – Yung Pueblo01:16:18 E146 – Cory Muscara01:20:37 E158 – Tom Campbell01:24:29 E165 – Dr. Iain McGilchrist01:29:00 E134 – Peter Crone___________Watch the Full EpisodesTim Ferriss: https://youtu.be/NxmUCGuapNwMark Manson: https://youtu.be/to-APJvffFQMindy Pelz: https://youtu.be/pgWnbRg5-cgMichael Beckwith: https://youtu.be/r3wrUmE1L3wMarianne Williamson: https://youtu.be/AQzKagUJGvIDr. Theresa Bullard: https://youtu.be/mrKiH4J0_5UAaron Abke: https://youtu.be/zXMKj8fNnYQLewis Howes: https://youtu.be/PTPjCtF9es4Dr. Thema Bryant: https://youtu.be/ItRCT_L2kpASadhguru: https://youtu.be/FMoXXb-wKE8Dr. K: https://youtu.be/zj40FT631P4Dr. John DeMartini: https://youtu.be/dVR01alAe8oAaron Doughty: https://youtu.be/79INohJ7KTwYung Pueblo: https://youtu.be/bwom9Y6ybcgCory Muscara: https://youtu.be/IrxFMkYUBFgTom Campbell: https://youtu.be/IoGSWLuH2JsDr. Iain McGilchrist: https://youtu.be/LZ5C11mlTH4Peter Crone: https://youtu.be/VCi93m9lloMEpisode Resources: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcasthttps://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com
As many of us head into the holiday season — travelling, slowing down, or looking for something good to listen to — I wanted to reshare this conversation with Martha Beck. It's a thoughtful, generous discussion about anxiety as a guide rather than a problem, and one I have a feeling will land right now.Dr. Martha Beck (author; “best-known life coach in America”) is about to release a book on anxiety. The international best-selling author – who holds three Harvard degrees in social science and was described by Oprah as “one of the smartest women I know” – specialises in helping people find meaning and integrity in their lives.In this episode, Sarah and Martha reconnect after 15 years to discuss their takes on the role of anxiety in our lives, and how it can be used to create purpose and direction (tune in to hear about the time Martha “bent a spoon with her mind” for Sarah!). They also share tangible techniques for using creativity to switch out of anxious spirals. Martha's book, Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose, is available now.SHOW NOTESOrder your copy of Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's PurposeHere's the newspaper column I wrote about my first meeting with Martha in 2010I refer to previous podcasts with Dr Jill Bolte Taylor and Iain McGilchrist, and another on the role of creativity with Ian LeslieYou can read more about Martha's work here and connect on IG here--If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it's where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet's connect on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, I'm joined by two pioneers at the forefront of reshaping our understanding of human consciousness - Professor Donald Hoffman and Dr Iain McGilchrist. Despite coming from very different backgrounds, they've both arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions about some of life's biggest questions and the nature of reality. This conversation explores the parallels—and differences—in their thinking, covering topics like: — The growing scientific evidence that consciousness may be fundamental — The shockingly complex structures that physicists are now discovering beyond spacetime and what this implies — The power of silence for creating breakthroughs in scientific and creative work — The need for both a rigorous scientific and embodied approach to understanding consciousness. And more. You can dive deeper into Iain's work through his book: The Matter with Things, and Don's via his book: The Case Against Reality. — Dr Iain McGilchrist is a Psychiatrist and Writer, who lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains. He was formerly a Consultant Psychiatrist of the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley NHS Trust in London, where he was Clinical Director of their southern sector Acute Mental Health Services. Dr McGilchrist has published original research and contributed chapters to books on a wide range of subjects, as well as original articles in papers and journals, including the British Journal of Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Telegraph and The Sunday Times. He has taken part in many radio and TV programmes, documentaries, and numerous podcasts, and interviews on YouTube, among them dialogues with Jordan Peterson, David Fuller of Rebel Wisdom, and philosopher Tim Freke. His books include Against Criticism, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning, and Ways of Attending. He published his latest book: The Matter With Things, a book of epistemology and metaphysics. You can keep up to date with his work at https://channelmcgilchrist.com. – Prof. Donald Hoffman, PhD received his PhD from MIT, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1983, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences. He is an author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and The Case Against Reality. He received a Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association for early career research, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in Edge, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Scientific American and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. You can watch his TED Talk titled “Do we see reality as it is?” and you can follow him on Twitter @donalddhoffman. --- Interview Links: — Dr McGilchirst's website - https://channelmcgilchrist.com — Dr McGilchirst's book - https://amzn.to/3oOSFIW — Prof Hoffman's profile - https://sites.socsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ — Prof Hoffman's book - https://bit.ly/3SCwTTA
In Episode 452 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Iain McGilchrist, a neuroscientist and author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things. His work on the divided brain has helped millions of people find wisdom, meaning, and guidance for living in the modern world. Iain and Demetri begin their conversation exploring McGilchrist's core thesis about the divided brain, how the left and right hemispheres attend to the world in fundamentally different ways, where we see evidence of an increased preponderance in left-brain thinking, and how this has impacted the way we conduct science, reason through problems, use our imagination, and apply wisdom to the world. Iain believes that our civilization is caught in what some have described as a metacrisis, exacerbated by the encroachment of the left hemisphere onto more and more areas of lived experience. We see it in the procedurally abysmal manner in which modern medicine goes about formulating diagnoses, the ever-increasing obsession with process over outcomes, the commodification of writing, the rise in depression, the policing of language, and the reverence for machine-like efficiency and profit maximization at the expense of almost everything else. The two discuss the importance of self-actualization in the context of community and why Iain is inspired by the change of heart he sees in younger generations who are no longer satisfied with furthering a broken paradigm and are willing to imagine something different—a different way forward that makes room for our humanity and which provides people with a relational sense of meaning and purpose. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Joining our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/01/2025
Over the past decades, neuroscience has blossomed, positioning itself as a kind of master discipline over everything else. For who understands the brain surely understands all of human activity and creation? Or not?Neuroscience's reach has extended past its scientific remit and into the world of philosophy and its major questions. What is a human? What is consciousness? Are we free? And so on. Yet its utility in this field, and in general, is still being fiercely debated, with its proponents and detractors arguing on the one side that it is the key to the universe, and on the other that it is a bunch of garbage.Join this engaging conversation from 2011 where Iain McGilchrist, famous psychologist and researcher of the brain, the late neuroscientist and neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, and journalist Bryan Appleyard delve into the nitty-gritty of neuroscience and what it has to say on major philosophical questions. Post-realist philosopher Hilary Lawson hosts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Will artificial intelligence robots have subjective experience? What are the ethical and safety implications of such entities? Which quantum physics theory can accommodate consciousness?In this episode we have the extraordinary possibility of subjective experience and feelings in artificial intelligence robotic systems to think about. So we look at experiments to try and prove if it's even possible; the quantum building blocks from which both living and artificial systems are made up; the ethical and safety implications of advanced intelligence instantiated in robots, and we get into the controversial search for a quantum physics theory that can accommodate consciousness.Fortunately, my guest today is not only one of the first pioneering scientists to really devote themselves to the creation of sentient human-similar robot minds and bodies, but is also an experimental physicist working with quantum computing systems. She is of course the quantum engineer, consciousness researcher and AI computer scientist Suzanne Gildert. She has written over 80 scientific papers, founded several successful AI companies and has dozens of US patents for her inventions. What we discuss:00:00 Intro.04:25 Her move to AI & robotics from quantum computing.06:45 Something missing from materialism.11:00 The what, how and why of consciousness.12:20 Remembering quantum fields are the base level of reality.15:50 Quantum Biology - John Joe McFadden.18:20 ‘Protecting' quantum coherence environments.20:00 The Penrose-Hameroff microtubules quantum consciousness theory.24:40 The risks of the “two mysteries” argument.30:10 Looking for subjective experience in AI robots.33:55 “Reward function”, purpose led, agential behaviour doesn't emerge naturally in AI.36:25 Limitations to building sentient AI robots.39:25 Iain McGilchrist's left-right hemisphere interpretation of split brain data.41:40 How similar are AI minds to human ones?43:40 Will Ai become conscious one day?44:40 The generalisation problem.47:50 The anthropomorphism problem.50:05 Ethical implications - Regulations, rights and protections.53:20 Survival instinct research in AI.57:20 Brain activity mapping to subjective experience, AI decoder research.50:20 Biological robots: Different emergent possibilities?01:01:50 Cellular material re-purposing itself spontaneously.01:04:10 Could the biosphere be a technology?01:07:40 Quantum Conscious Agency Theory.01:14:05 Quantum Annealing. 01:21:03 Can you test for panpsychism?01:25:10 Buddhism: the dissociated agent approach.References:www.SuzanneGildert.comQuantum Conscious Agent theory presentation - Suzanne Gildert.Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee, “On Intelligence“.John Joe Mcfadden, CC Quantum Biology episodeRoger Penrose, Orch OR (Orchestrated objective reduction) theory.Erwin Shrodinger, “What is Life?”.‘In Tests, Open AI's New Model Lied and Schemed to Avoid Being Shut Down' article‘Brain activity decoder can reveal stories in people's minds' articleJerry Tang et al. ‘Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings' paperTristan Harris & Aza Raskin, “The AI Dilemma” presentation, March 2023
Anyone who describes an experience with the sacred will find themselves often struggling for words because they find the sacred is not a 'thing', nor a set of beliefs, but rather an encounter in open and vulnerable relationship which requires a far more humble and receptive form of knowing. Dr Iain McGilchrist, neuroscientist, philosopher and author, joins the podcast for a second conversation, this time in person in Australia with Dom, Sue and Peter. Those familiar with Iain's work about the two hemispheres of the brain will know that there is a connection traced between the way we attend to reality and a more utilitarian left hemisphere way of seeing and being which has become more culturally dominant in the West. The right hemisphere, Iain contends, is better equipped for perceiving the whole, appreciating paradox and engaging with the sacred. Thinking that we know it all is characteristic of the left hemisphere, robbing us of the sense of awe and wonder which makes life both beautiful and meaningful. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Giles Fraser explores Dr. Iain McGilchrist's brain hemisphere theory, which argues that the left and right hemispheres of the brain perceive the world in radically different ways—and that modern society has become dangerously dominated by the left hemisphere's analytical, fragmented, and controlling mode of thought. He describes how the two hemispheres of the brain perceive reality in fundamentally different ways. The left hemisphere, he argues, sees a fragmented, abstract world—focused on control and acquisition—while the right hemisphere perceives a flowing, interconnected reality, rich in context, meaning, and mystery. We unpack this theory with our panel of experts: Dr. Philip Goff, philosopher and professor at Durham University. Philip is known for his work in panpsychism, a philosophical view which proposes that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe—not just something that emerges from complex brains, but something that may be present even at the level of basic matter. His research focuses on the philosophy of mind and the nature of consciousness.Canon Dr. Joanna Collicutt, psychologist and theologian from the University of Oxford. Joanna brings a unique perspective that bridges psychology, spirituality, and pastoral care—exploring how religious experience shapes and is shaped by the human mind.And Professor Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist and a leading figure in the emerging field of neurotheology—which explores the relationship between brain function and religious or spiritual experience. Andrew is Professor in the Department of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences and Director of Research at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in the United States.Also on the programme, The Sacred podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield, shares a powerful spiritual experience—one that defied easy explanation and left a lasting imprint on her spiritual life.Beyond Belief is a BBC Audio North production for Radio 4.Presenter: Giles Fraser Producer: Bara'atu Ibrahim Assistant Producer: Jay Behrouzi & Linda Walker Editor: Tim Pemberton
Whether you've been on a sacred feminine journey for decades, or just beginning...No matter what faith or spiritual practice you follow, whether you are agnostic or atheist...The healing energy of the deep feminine archetypes belongs to all of us, running like a loving current through us and our world. When we lift-up the feminine within ourselves and our world, honoring the feminine with the masculine, everyone benefits as balance is restored. When we attend to the world with our right brain perspective, we create a very different world than the world we create with our left brain perspective. The keys to planetary ascension are within.Dale Allen • In Our Right Minds: On the Sacred Feminine, the Right Brain and Restoring Humanity's Natural BalanceWebsite: https://www.inourrightminds.netBestselling Book: https://a.co/d/e8MZm8C Award-Winning Film: https://www.inourrightminds.net/watch-the-film.htmlJoin me on Facebook – Subscribe and FollowSupport the show
World-renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist explores the profound truth about the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and why understanding their relationship can change the way you see yourself, others, and the world.We go far beyond the popular myths of “creative right brain” vs “logical left brain.” Dr. McGilchrist reveals how the two hemispheres actually work together to shape perception, meaning, and even our experience of the sacred.This is a conversation about imagination, intuition, and truth... and about what we lose when the left hemisphere dominates our culture. From education and consciousness to the future of humanity, Dr. McGilchrist shows how rebalancing our relationship to the brain can awaken a deeper, more fulfilling way of living.https://fractalforest.co/knowthyself to get your free Shilajit Todayhttps://livemomentous.com and use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 35% off the best creatine in the gameAndrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list___________0:00 Intro 2:02 The Brain is Split in Two... Here's Why it Matters15:57 Right Hemisphere: Wisdom & Intuition24:00 The Problem with Reductionism 31:02 How Truth is Found in Paradox38:24 The World the Left vs Right Hemisphere Creates49:20 Ad: Fractal Forest50:51 By Grasping for Life, You're Missing Your Life55:52 Your Relationship to Life Shapes Your Life 1:06:20 Attention is Your Most Valuable Resource1:15:52 Ad: Momentous Creatine1:17:00 Defining & Experiencing the Sacred1:27:38 How Our Education System Should be Structured1:38:57 The Power of Imagination & Intuition1:57:13 Accessing Higher Information Through Consciousness2:07:30 Difference of Information, Knowledge, & Understanding 2:19:56 What it Means to Know Thyself2:26:22 Expanding the Self, Love & Oneness2:36:56 Suffering & Meaning of Life2:42:46 His Message for Humanity2:48:06 Conclusion___________Episode Resources: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcasthttps://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com
"Jung was essentially an evolutionary theorist". These are the words of Gary Clark, a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Medical Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has written a book on the intersection of Jungian Analytical Psychology and evolutionary neuroscience. If you want to learn more about Gary you can check out his book "Carl Jung and the Evolutionary Sciences: A New Vision for Analytical Psychology" (and grab a free PDF of its intro) here. You can also dive into the rest of his work on academia.edu and ResearchGate. In this conversation, I sit down with Gary to explore the intersection of Jungian psychology and evolutionary neuroscience, examining how recent psychedelic research provides empirical validation for Jung's theories about the collective unconscious and archetypes. We discuss how modern neuroscience, particularly studies of primary and secondary consciousness systems, maps onto Jung's framework of ego consciousness versus deeper archetypal layers. The conversation covers the revolutionary potential of psychedelic research for studying previously inaccessible aspects of consciousness and Jung's prescient evolutionary approach to depth psychology.⏳Timestamps00:00 James's Intro01:07 Opening and situating Gary's work03:35 Affective Neuroscience and the Primary and Secondary layers of consciousness09:00 Psychedelics, the numinous and evolutionary theory22:17 Have we found the (neuroscientific) archetypes?28:40 Psychedelics and the Collective Unconscious34:53 Jordan Peterson's Jungian synthesis36:57 Peterson gets chimpanzees and ancient humans wrong46:01 Leaving Jung behind: Depth Psychology maturation as a science58:50 Mapovers between Iain McGilchrist's work and Gary's1:01:19 What Gary's working on now1:07:32 Gary's guest recommendation: Erik Goodwyn
In Episode 440 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Paul Kingsnorth, a novelist, essayist, and former environmental activist who first came on many people's radars during the Covid-19 pandemic with the publication of his viral three-part series “The Vaccine Moment.” His current work explores the intersection of technology, culture, and the divine. In his latest book, Against the Machine, Kingsnorth examines how our increasingly mechanized way of seeing and relating to the world—and to ourselves—has contributed to the death of Western culture, and what it would take to reclaim our humanity and save our souls. Paul Kingsnorth and Kofinas spend the first hour of the episode tracing his journey from direct-action environmentalism through Buddhism and paganism to his eventual baptism into Orthodox Christianity and how that quest informs his critique of The Machine. They discuss AI as a false God and conduit through which humanity may be ushering in the anti-Christ and how Kingsnorth's Machine framework relates to Jacques Ellul's concept of technique and Iain McGilchrist model of the divided brain. They also explore why this historical moment feels “apocalyptic”—as if something is being unveiled—or perhaps more accurately as if something is being born through the wires and towers of the web and through the electric pulses and touchscreens of our connected devices. The second hour turns to a conversation about how we should each respond in this consequential time, how we draw practical lines around technology, how to rebuild our communities, how to guard ourselves against charlatans and false prophets, and why love and nostalgia can guide us home. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Joining our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/16/2025
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”— Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2The two hemispheres of our brain collaborate to produce a coherent understanding of the world—at least, that's what they're supposed to do. In his groundbreaking book, The Master and His Emissary, neuro-philosopher and psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist, proposed that our culture has been captured by the left hemisphere, whose dogmatic, technical and irrational way of processing information leads it to manifestly dangerous conclusions about the way the world works. Importantly, the left hemisphere never changes its mind.In one of the widest-ranging conversations on Planet: Critical to date, Iain explains how we came to lose sight of the bigger picture by forsaking the intuition, creativity and intelligence of the right hemisphere. We discuss how our relationship to language makes and unmakes the world, the search for meaning, human agency, relationality, morality, art and the divine, with Iain clearly spelling out a path to human fulfilment—which may very well be the only thing which can save Earth from the worst of us. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe
Topics: In this bonus episode, Brant talks about what he's learning from the book: "The Matter With Things" by Iain McGilchrist. Including: - Exploring the complexity and intelligence of living cells. - Challenging purely mechanical views of biology. - Why relationships and context are paramount. And most importantly… The many spiritual parallels that can be derived from the book and how who we are becoming matters way more than our past. Quotes: “Life requires cognition at all levels. Our cells think!” “Genes do nothing on their own; life is far more than DNA.” “Flatworms can regrow their brains and still remember.” “Healing is God's work; medicine cooperates with it.” . . . Holy Ghost Mama Pre-Order! Want more of the Oddcast? Check out our website! Watch our YouTube videos here. Connect with us on Facebook! For Christian banking you can trust, click here!
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard-trained neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author, who began to develop her concept of "whole brain living" after experiencing a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain. She has written several books on her experience and learnings, including My Stroke of Insight and her latest work, Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life. Dr. Taylors Ted Talk was the first talk to go viral. In it she describes her stroke and the life lessons that it gifted. In this episode, Dr. Jill shares how our brain creates a perception of reality, the ways to tap into all of its "characters," and why it's healthy to do weird things every day. Ted Talk Dr. Jill The Master and The Emissary by Iain McGilchrist
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