25. The Believing Brain: How Iain McGilchrist rediscovered the soul

[@Arjun-eb1yc]

Brilliant

[@djpokeeffe8019]

Keith Ward says the ‘illusion' of self is real to him. But isn’t that the business of illusions? Grass looks green but isn’t. When people say: but look at it! They beg the question that just looking will furnish the solution.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

The que sais je? Issue at 1.16 + interests me. The openness is surely big part of the message of McGilchrist's work. It also goes along with an energising curiosity, which narrow commitment can actually turn off at the source.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

Irreducibility, even a form of dualism, doesn’t in itself imply a soul, which presumably is ontologically an enduring independent substance. A tune isn’t reducible to a radio but it doesn’t outlive it.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

If our love for our children is independent of hormonal dynamics why are new mothers flooded with them? Would Jen have them subtracted and see what’s left? Post partum depression is a warning here surely. People in love have distinctive brain activity. This doesn’t mean it’s not love. Love isn’t just chemistry, but it is something to do with being the subject of chemistry, and much more…

[@djpokeeffe8019]

Having needs that can’t be answered isn’t an argument for God. It’s only an argument for itself. Plenty of people have a need for pain and hunger control that isn’t met. That can actually be a premise in an argument against God.

[@brycemannn4847]

It’s a suggestive argument. Not determinate. If you find that there are certain receptors in your brain that Would suggest that those things at least exist in the world. You wouldn’t have hunger if there were no food.. etc

[@djpokeeffe8019]

@ But what is this argument for, and what is it against? It’s consistent with both determinism and atheism.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

And yet I don’t believe McGilchrist has given any explanation of how free will could exist. Given the case for determinism is rather strong, I think he owes us an explanation.

[@damianclifford9693]

It's gone into in great detail and from many angles in his book -The Matter With Things

[@djpokeeffe8019]

@ not free will.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

@ I’d appreciate a more specific steer. I have read the book. The fact remains that there is no real treatment of causation and indeterminacy. As Hume pointed out we either seem to be subject of ineluctable forces or at the mercy of random events. If there is a third alternative I cannot find it in The Matter Of Things. By all means enlighten me, in detail.

[@damianclifford9693]

@djpokeeffe8019 ah, if you have read the book and don't feel the question is answered then I wont be able to add anything. I don't think there are any eminent physicists that believe in a determinate universe..that went out at the dawn of quantum physics. Life scientists are just catching up now.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

@ so what is the alternative.? An indeterminate universe? Please explain. If it’s indeterminate we aren’t free. Obviously.

[@djpokeeffe8019]

Half way in now. No McGilchrist yet…

[@djpokeeffe8019]

Justin, are you happy with the form of Christianity so prevalent in America right now? Or Russia? All that anger, misogyny, power obsession etc. it’s a religion with an opaque, violent act at its inception. I don’t think vicarious substitution has ever been explained.