Dr Iain McGilchrist reads part 1 of the introduction from his new book The Matter With Things

Dr Iain McGilchrist’s new book The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World is to be published on Nov 9th, 2021. UK readers can pre-order the book at a discounted price here:
www.channelmcgilchrist.com/th...
This is a short clip taken from an exclusive reading for Channel McGilchrist members. To listen to the full reading (1hr 40m), join Channel McGilchrist here:
www.channelmcgilchrist.com/join

[@MrRevald]

If you haven't already, then please, for the love of all that is good, holy and sacred, do an audio recording of the entire book. Seldom have I heard such a soothing voice utter such enlightening and stimulating words. A masterpiece through and through

[@gabrielanita8319]

Exactly my thoughts.

[@onewhoflingspoo3980]

I'm still waiting :(

[@andrewizzoclarke]

Why do I feel as though we’ll count McGilchrist among the giants of philosophy?

[@carolminjares5298]

I would actually watch a video of him reading his books.

[@lindacarroll5018]

I would also love to watch a video. It is wonderful that Dr McGilchrist is reading his own work.

[@JoshFlorii]

He has such an amazing reading voice. And he's like such a cuddly grandpa.

[@mosfetmosfet2436]

I love your work so much Iain, I can’t wait to read this great big new book. Thank you for writing it for us. It’s confusing and stressful living in the world today, and I love nature and poetry and art. You have helped me understand my own confusion and depression. The utmost respect to you.

[@enieni2379]

Iain McGilchrist is such an extraordinary human with the most beautiful mind! I am so mesmerized by the beauty and harmony of his voice, at times I can't even pay attention to what he is saying/reading.

[@bookchaser1103]

The Man. The Myth. The Mcgilchrist. P.S. Please keep reading!

[@MattFRox]

I congratulate you for not only producing another great work, but also for your generosity in making it available to us thusly. Also, thank you for outright saying that randomness does not exist; randomness has always seemed, to me, to be a problem with perspective, and where one sees randomness, it's only because they have not assumed the correct perspective latitudinally and/or longitudinally.

[@jtzoltan]

@@MattFRox and "random mutation" cannot possibly be the ONLY generator function for new spellings of genes for natural selection to work on. There are other secondary and tertiary mechanisms of course like sexual reproduction, crossing over during germ cell production and in the gamete (I think I have that right), but still, single random base pair mutation is way too underpowered.

[@stephaniekaye9395]

Thank you for your work, Dr. McGilchrist

[@marcterencemckenna8930]

There is something special about an author reading his own work. Thank you for taking the time to read this introduction. New follower and fan here finally attending

[@doreengowans4261]

Listening to this has given me the most satisfying afternoon in some considerable time. Thanks you Dr McGilchrist.

[@hawkarae]

Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your brilliant work with a world in need of a new paradigm.

[@kbeetles]

Oh,this is going to be good! I can hardly wait for the book to be published. Thank you for daring to act as if wisdom still existed....

[@mapstoinsight3252]

I’ve not been so gripped by an introduction since The Master & His Emissary. Thank you for the sneak peek!

[@geoffbowcher3189]

Like walking in a well loved garden. A permaculture garden. Rich and vibrant , verdant and just oozing love. Patiently waiting to communicate . Books like these don't grow on trees.

[@CalumJambo]

Fingers crossed for an audiobook

[@helenperala3459]

I'm glad you are reading your own book, Iain. I have some difficulties in reading page after page of books though I love them and try my best at all times to have something on the go but I end up going into the garden instead to smell the roses, ha ha! (Actually I have 6 books on the go at any one time, if not more!!). Ahem! I I love your voice, it's so soothing. I have tried reading books out loud on my own and I get so far and enjoy it but I realize it's quite hard to do, in order not to get it wrong. You have to concentrate quite hard to get the intonations right but you do a lovely job here I must say. You remind me of the chap who reads all the Rudolph Steiner books out on Libravox, he is excellent too. Another velvety voice like yours. I hope you read the whole book if it's your new one. The Matter with THings..... I will most certainly listen as I do my bits of art work. It's the perfect thing for me to have in the background aside of course from music. Thank you!! I hope you get to see this and know I appreciate your work. I live in California but am from Berkshire in England so the things you speak of have been my background to some extent. I lived near Oxford. Cheers!

[@AbaseenPodcast]

It is such a pleasure to hear Dr. McGilchrist read this excerpt himself. I have the Master and Emissary but it is not narrated by him.

[@milosmudrinic2016]

Thank you Iain.

[@SensemakingMartin]

Brilliant stuff. I'd love to see you have a conversation with Forrest Landry, Iain. He has done a lot of work constructing a metaphysics that sees relationship as more primary than the things in the relationship. I bet it would be a great chat

[@GrimrDirge]

I can't wait.

[@MikaMela]

There are very few options available, I'm afraid.

[@misspy1153]

This man (genius) and this book (the most vital masterpiece ever written) is a complete and utter gamechanger. There is nothing more to be done except pumping this into our learning structures (schools etc) and sitting back and letting a better world unfold. Job done.

[@jjharvathh]

May God us keep / From Single vision & Newtons sleep” Also, what a wonderful reader you are.

[@MyMaitetxu]

To me this message, if grasp bij majority of humans will change the world for the better and will disarm the transhumanists...thank you so much Dr. McGilchrist

[@maggygwire]

Very much look forward to reading this book.

[@Robin-bk2lm]

Thanks for promoting your work in person. World needs more of that. Re "the whole is always different than the sum of the parts", of course, but it isn't permission to sneak in imaginary forces/being. If they are there they are only as real as we are.

[@noiselesspatient]

Brilliant. Can't wait! Thanks to all who have put such work and care into this.

[@anialiandr]

Thank you Ian❤

[@nikovacevic]

Can't wait for this!

[@mountainsandmagic645]

Can’t wait !

[@andrewhillhousekellypoetry4144]

Mind shifting as always, thanks 🙏💙✌️

[@marielloyd8594]

I just forwarded this to my children and some good friends. So many thanks to you, Iain McGilchrist.

[@blackbird365]

I am looking forward to this book enormously! Thank you. Very best wishes for good health & cheer.

[@00snakeman00]

Thanks for this preview! Also hoping for an audiobook here

[@guycontos1164]

Thankyou for this sir. Will be sure to try to get through the content of your new book. Your last book was a slow process for me. It is large and I had to re-read sentences and paragraphs for my mind to truly grasp. xx

[@druidjuicer636]

How on Earth has it taken me so long to find you Iain? I've spent the better part of 50 years scrabbling around trying to formulate what you are saying. I am so grateful to you for developing and publishing these ideas and (crucially) demonstrating their consonance with our implicit understanding. All my thoughts have been short flashes of insight that have stumbled over paradoxes or starved in the wilderness of disconnection. Listening here I feel those thoughts, at last, have a roof and something to eat. Thank you so much.

[@MyMaitetxu]

Wauw...thank you so much amigo, I am so inspaire by your work i wish you the best and i can not wait to read your knew Master piece

[@TennesseeJed]

The book is on it's way to my eyes!

[@Phorquieu]

Laying the foundations for a new appreciation of ourselves, the world, and the universe... And urgently needed to stop the seemingly inevitable end of history. Ship of Fools, indeed!

[@CHGLongStone]

That cut off was a bit of a tease, well played 😀 Thank you for this good sir 🤝

[@SanityIsland]

I love the concept of synthesis. There is so little of it in western culture now. It seems that all breadth of wisdom can be synthesized to aid us in our search for balance. None need be discarded, only not wholly consumed. As the seeds may stick in ones throat or the fruit may be rotten but the roots sound. As I see it today this is the only way to move forward. A new mind that has fully digested the past and gained nutrition. Form follows function. Empty forms cannot be forced to manufacture functional society, or anything else. Nature abhors the vacuous mind that grasps and refuses things for the superficial endeavor only.

[@DejanOfRadic]

I remember marveling at the formation of sugar crystals on a string dipped in sugar water and left overnight. My mind would fill in the animation of the process, as I imagined the beauty of the process in the morning. Your writings feel like that string, and I am marveling as I watch the crystals of ideas that I have felt as intuition gather and form into wonderful form. There has been so much talk lately about how "Science" is crossing over into spirituality because of the paradoxes and metaphors offered through Quantum theories, among other things......yet there has been no sympathetic attempt by philosophy to address this in a sober and dispassionate way. I look forward to reading The Matter With Things....as I suspect that you are, indeed, the philosopher that is finally making the attempt in earnest.

[@kipling1957]

Will Dr. McGilchrist ever produce an audiobook version of his new book, anyone?

[@marrowfreeze]

I want an all poetry version of the books key messages.

[@mylesjeffers6148]

You want something like John Trudell's poetry. Indigenous cultures are the last remnants of this dying human understanding of the world

[@carlT1986]

He reads classic poetry too

[@alanmunro5068]

Please tell us more.

[@DailyArchetype]

Love it! The link is unclear how to hear to the rest of the intro. How can we? Do we know when it will be available in the US?

[@nicolasholzwart7373]

I never thought anyone could talk me to peace better than Alan Watts, but now I know I am wrong.

[@bookchaser1103]

FYI, I heard Mcgilchrist talk about Tao the Watercourse Way on Rebel Wisdom, so there's definitely some cross fertilization there. But yeah, I know what you mean. I'm currently rereading Watts' autobiography, and I've listened to this intro several times ...

[@tonyburton419]

Yes, probably not selective attended to his alcoholism?

[@EE-kz4bo]

OH MY THE PEARL IN THE BOG 🟩💙🟦💚🟩💙🟦💚🟦💚🟦💚🌏🎇🌎🎇🌍🎇🌏🎇🌎🎇🌍🎇

[@perothing]

I would buy a kindle version - or the like - in a heartbeat

[@mylesjeffers6148]

This is the apex of human understanding. Human as in the emergent entity mind of combined human nodes, connected through the internet. Or at least an evolving aspect of that emergent mind. I can tell because everything you say in this video feels so prescient; it's exactly what I've come to independently understand over the past 2 years from reading and communicating online, basically going on internet Dérives. The fact that it resonates so deeply without me having encountered your content before makes me optimistic that a change is coming. A new zeitgeist hopefully.

[@kipling1957]

Looking for this to appear in print.

[@dacovaz]

The life I failed to live: Iain McGilchrist. I would love to see a conversation with Eckhart Tolle about creativity, space and object consciousness.

[@mntomovi]

Let's gooooo

[@GlidarMats]

Amazing! I wonder what Iain's view is regarding the divided brain and psychedelics. Lots of new areas of brain research and brain functioning insights going on there. Strangely Iain never speaks about psychedelics and the psychedelics community never speaks about the Master and his Emissary.

[@jimmycrackcorn8299]

I sorta feel like it's bc both Iain and psychedelics point in the same direction of humbling oneself. Like reading the master and his Emissary vs a psychedelic trip, you come away from both with the same realization ab life.

[@kiljoy3254]

I confess, I haven’t listened to all this; I do respect and appreciate Iain and I do look forward to reading The Matter With Things; I hope it proves to be not too little too late... or should that be too much too late? I’m inclined to think that had Antonio Gramsci kept his works, his blue print for the ‘long march through the institutions’ secret and buried them in a time capsule and were they exhumed this day, we might conclude he was prescient. That’s not to assume that the ‘long march’ was indeed inevitable but that most people, intellectuals especially, refuse to look the real problem in the eye; rather their role has been to reassure us that godlessness is ok. “You must understand how the touch of your hand Makes my pulse react That it's only the thrill of boy meetin' girl Opposites attract It's physical Only logical You must try to ignore that it means more than that Oh oh What's love got to do, got to do with it? What's love but a second hand emotion? What's love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here...” “Out damn spot! Out I say!” Why do you think the left are apoplectic about the ‘Heartbeat Bill ’ re abortion? “I've been takin' on a new direction But I have to say I've been thinkin' about my own protection It scares me to feel this way (anxious apprehension)” Why did Jill Biden recently make a public appearance wearing fishnet stockings? The last thing powerful, and not so powerful, career women want is a rising generation of young women reorienting to more traditional family roles reminding their sassy elders just how terribly wrong the Luciferian emancipation really is. “the very structure of reason itself comes from the details of our embodiment. The same neural and cognitive mechanisms that allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual systems and modes of reason … Reason is evolutionary, in that abstract reason builds on and makes use of forms of perceptual and motor inference present in ‘lower’ animals … Reason is thus not an essence that separates us from other animals; rather, it places us on a continuum with them.” Lakoff and Johnson “And Why do I emphasise this bodily origin of thought and language? Partly because it has been denied in our own age, not by any means only, or even mainly, by de Saussure and his followers. More than that, the fact of its denial seems to me to form part of a general trend, throughout the last hundred years or so, towards the ever greater repudiation of our embodied being, in favour of an abstracted, cerebralised, machine-like version of ourselves that has taken hold on popular thinking” Speaking of the idea of ‘exaptation’ whereby certain human traits, such as musicality, can be considered epiphenomena, Iain cites Steven Pinker (The Meaning of Life): ‘Cheesecake packs a sensual wallop unlike anything in the natural world because it is a brew of megadoses of agreeable stimuli which we concocted for the express purpose of pressing our pleasure buttons. Pornography is another pleasure technology. In this chapter I will suggest that the arts are a third … I suspect that music is auditory cheesecake’ Hmm what’s love but a second hand emotion? Who needs a heart... when the heart is your conscience. Conscience, far from being considered a gift, a kind of umbilical to God, an Ariadne thread, is, for surely the vast majority in the west, more like a terrible affliction, hence the pandemic of ‘mental illness’

[@Seanus32]

A truly brilliant mind :) @Dr Iain McGilchrist - I am loathe to use labels for the limiting effects they come with but you do strike me as a panentheist. Have you explored that at all?

[@maxfrank13]

Iain, be a dear and release your book in physical form and on Google Play Books, please.

[@TheNaturalLawInstitute]

IAN MCGILCHRIST: "How to continue the abrahamic and continental project to evade the work of continuous evolutionary computation that we call reason evidence and action."

[@RobRandolph80]

This is not a new perspective, it is the oldest perspective. David Chaim Smith details a practice for embodying this perspective in practice. Wolfram's physics is talking about the math.

[@mararurane3810]

Came here from This Jungian Life podcast. Very glad to have found you Sir. If it would be possible, a video of you talking to Jonathan Pageau or Jordan B Peterson would be extremely interesting! I am hoping to see that on youtube someday! Meanwile- Thank you for formulating the truth in such a beautiful way.

[@alanmunro5068]

There is a short recording here of meeting between I McG and JBP

[@michaelmilbocker4548]

your notion of reduction is very similar to Wolfram, look to his non reductionistic approach to reality using rewrite theory and cellular automata, Wolfram's approach is essentially right-minded in contrast to the left-minded attitude of contemporary physics

[@robertcox14]

Very challenging to comprehend, possibly multiple listenings would improve my understanding.

[@arguewithmepodcast]

This is enjoyable but I don't know what he believes he was disproving about determinism. People who believe in determinism do actually believe they don't ultimately have control over their own beliefs. So they do apply it universally. And this isn't actually an argument against determinism. Kind of a big error.

[@milosmudrinic2016]

I'm looking forward to the podcasts with Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and others when the book is released. I hope Iain goes to Joe Rogan's podcast as well.

[@martinzarathustra8604]

I don't find your critique of determinism to be convincing. Just because observers (us) are determined makes no difference to our determined observations, nor to our experience of observation. You might have something at experience itself, but this is the hard problem of consciousness that is not necessarily related to determinism. The cause of things is ontologically different than the state of things, even if one is dependent on the other for its existence. I will read your book because you may delve deeper into this, but as a starting critique against determinism I don't see the problem as dire as you seem to think it is.

[@ajsalonius8455]

Man himself How about woman herself?

[@yoya4766]

This is an insomnia cure.

[@johnanderson1421]

Is it just me or is this pseudo- profound verbiage empty of content?

[@tomgreene1843]

What do you think ...or have you made up your mind?

[@ianmerrill5279]

More apophenia I'm afraid ... another attempt to save ourselves from the real truth of the cold dark universe and our undistinguished animal self with nonsense about consciousness and quantum physics and spirituality.