Iain McGilchrist: "Wisdom, Nature, and the Brain"
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 553 Ratings
🗓️ 23 August 2023
⏱️ 114 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode, literary scholar and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist joins Nate to discuss the way modern culture teaches and encourages us to use - and not use - the two lobes of our brains. While most functions require the use of both sides of our brains, each side is specially attuned to see and interact with the world in certain ways: the left side acts as a narrow problem solving executor, while the right side is a broadly open contextualizer. What happens when we humans - in aggregate - become imbalanced in our use of these two critical functions? Have we divided the Earth into pieces to be optimized rather than a whole (which we're a part of) to be stewarded? Can we learn to bring these two components of our brains back into balance and in turn heal fractures in ourselves, and ultimately in our communities, Earth, and her ecosystems?
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. He 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. He 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).
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dogVQDydRGQ
More information, and show notes: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/85-iain-mcgilchrist
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. |
| 0:06.3 | That's me. |
| 0:07.7 | On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, in our society. |
| 0:17.0 | Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society and as individuals. |
| 0:32.9 | I would like to warmly welcome my next guest, Ian McGilchrist. |
| 0:39.8 | Ian is a psychiatrist, a neuroscience researcher, an author, a philosopher, a literary scholar. |
| 0:48.3 | He is an associate, a fellow of the Green Templeton College, Oxford, a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, |
| 0:56.9 | a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Consultant Emeritus, the Bethlehem and Maudsley Hospital |
| 1:03.0 | in London. |
| 1:05.2 | Professor McGilchrist came into prominence with the publication of his tome, the master and his emissary, the divided |
| 1:13.3 | brain and the making of the Western world, which is how I came to be exposed to his work. |
| 1:20.7 | And then 14 years later, his most recent book titled The Matter with Things, Our |
| 1:26.2 | Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. |
| 1:30.8 | This was one of those conversations that was both profound, wise, and intimate. I had never met or spoken |
| 1:40.5 | with Ian before the camera was turned on, and I learned continually during this podcast and I immediately felt a kinship with this man, |
| 1:51.0 | um, who deeply cares about the state of the world and has spent a lifetime researching |
| 1:58.0 | what I think is the most important aspect of our situation, which is the human brain |
| 2:03.0 | and our disconnect from the types of experience and perspectives of our ancestors. |
| 2:09.9 | I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. |
| 2:13.2 | Please welcome Dr. Ian McGilchrist. |
| 2:29.5 | Thank you. Please welcome Dr. Ian McGilchrist. Dr. Ian McGilchrist. |
| 2:33.1 | Very good to be with you, Nate. Thank you for asking me along. |
... |
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