dr iain mcgilchrist the matter with things

Join us for this live online lecture followed by discussion and audience questions.ĭr McGilchrist asks listeners to read this brief passage from The Matter with Things in advance of the lecture. As this talk will attempt to illuminate, many aspects of our current plight can be related to our complete failure to understand this essential truth.' 'The idea that opposites coincide', Dr McGilchrist writes, 'is an ancient and arguably universal perception. Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? Is the cosmos without purpose or value? Can we really neglect the sacred and divine? The Coincidence of Opposites In his landmark new book, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, Iain McGilchrist addresses some of the oldest and hardest questions humanity faces – ones that, however, have a practical urgency for all of us today. Why, indeed, are we engaged in destroying everything that is valuable to us? Is the world essentially inert and mechanical – nothing but a collection of things for us to use?Īre we ourselves nothing but the playthings of chance, embroiled in a war of all against all? Professor Charles Foster, Oxford University It is a thrilling exposition of the nature of reality, and a devastating repudiation of the strident, banal orthodoxy that says it is childish and disreputable to believe that the world is alive with wonder and mystery … No one else could have written this book.' 'It’s very simple: this is one of the most important books ever published. With a gift for synthesising neuroscience, culture and philosophy, his thought has provided essential frames for making sense of the times we live in and proved particularly influential on Rebel Wisdom.This event took place on October 26th, 2021 and can be viewed in podcast form here. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a former Clinical Director of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher and literary scholar.

When we do, we tap into an understanding that is both profound and beautiful, in line with the deepest traditions of human wisdom.ĭr. He suggests that in order to understand ourselves and the world we need science and intuition, reason and imagination, not just one or two.

He argues that we have become enslaved to an account of things dominated by a partial view dominated by the brain’s left hemisphere, one that blinds us to an awe-inspiring reality that is all around us, had we but eyes to see it.

In ‘The Matter with Things’, Iain McGilchrist tackles the big questions: Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? What happens if we neglect the sacred and divine?

Dr iain mcgilchrist the matter with things