How Our Brains Model Reality & the True Nature of the World | Iain McGilchrist

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Government, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Episode 300 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Most people know Dr. McGilchrist for having authored “The Master and His Emissary” a book about what we popularly refer to as “the Divided Brain” and its role in the making of the modern world.

It is Dr. McGilchrist’s view that we have systematically misunderstood the nature of reality, because we have depended on the aspect of our brains that is most adept at manipulating the world in order to bend it to our purposes. It’s the same part of our brains that is most proficient at constructing models or representations of the world and doubling down on them even in the face of falsifying evidence.

In the conversation that follows you will learn how the brain is divided into two hemispheres: the left hemisphere, which is designed to help us apprehend the world and thus manipulate and control it, and the right hemisphere, which is designed to help us comprehend the world — to see it for all that it is in its richness, nuance, and glory.

The problem, according to McGilchrist, is that the very brain mechanisms which succeed in simplifying the world so as to make it more responsive to our ambitions for power and control have become the primary obstacles to our understanding of it. The consequences of this imbalance can be seen all around us in our ecosystems, our systems of government, our economies, and within the fabric of our very own societies. The rise of narcissism, paranoia, our obsession with categories and discrete identities, the rise in depression, the policing of language, and the panopticon of surveillance and control are all symptoms in Iain’s eyes of the tyranny of the left-hemisphere made manifest in the world around us.

The first hour of our conversation is devoted primarily to understanding the physiology of the divided brain and how to recognize each hemisphere’s contribution to the synthesized world-picture that we call reality. In the second hour, which is available to premium subscribers, we examine the various ways in which the dominance of the left-hemisphere is manifesting itself in society, as well as the deeper philosophical questions that have concerned humanity since time immemorial. We look at the ‘stuff’ of which the cosmos is made – time, space, motion, matter, and consciousness, – as well as why we might see it as divine in nature. We also explore its apparent paradoxical nature—a paradox that McGilchrist suggests has generally resulted from the clash between the ways in which the right and left hemispheres construe reality.

This was an absolutely wonderful conversation and despite some of the audio challenges that we dealt with on Demetri’s end of the microphone, we are confident that you will walk away from it with a sense of enlightenment, inspiration, and perhaps, even a new perspective on the world and our place in it.

You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page. If you still have questions, feel free to email [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

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Episode Recorded on 03/07/2023

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up everybody? My name is Demetra Cofinas, and you're listening to Hidden Forces,
0:05.8	a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens, the challenge consensus
0:12.7	narratives, and to learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.
0:18.6	My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is the most requested guest in the history
0:24.6	of the podcast. His name is Dr. Ian McGill-Christ, and most people know him for having
0:29.8	authored The Master and His Emissary, a book about what we popularly refer to as the
0:35.4	divided brain, and its role in the making of the modern world. His most recent book, The
0:41.1	Matter With Things, has been more than a decade in the making, and it explores the deepest,
0:46.6	most fundamental questions about the nature of the human experience. This conversation
0:51.8	will provide you with a new way of looking at the world, that is very different from
0:56.4	the one that has largely dominated the West, going at least as far back as the dawn of
1:01.6	the European enlightenment. It is Dr. McGill-Christ's view that we have systematically misunderstood
1:07.7	the nature of reality, because we have depended on that aspect of our brains that is most
1:13.1	adept at manipulating the world in order to bend it to our purposes. The part of our brains
1:18.4	that is most proficient at constructing models or representations of the world, and sticking
1:23.8	to them, indeed doubling down on them, even in the face of falsifying evidence. In the conversation
1:30.2	that follows, you will learn how the brain is divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere,
1:36.0	which the sum up a vastly complex matter in a phrase, is designed to help us apprehend
1:41.5	the world, and thus manipulate, control, and exert power over it. And the right hemisphere,
1:48.1	which is designed to help us comprehend the world, to see it for all that it is in its
1:52.7	richness, nuance, and glory. The problem, according to Ian, is that the very brain mechanisms,
1:59.8	which succeed in simplifying the world, so as to make it more responsive to our ambitions
	...

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