The Matter With Things: The Case for Shifting Our Attention Dr Iain McGilchrist, Geneva, Switzerland

Event Details: This event took place on 09.05.2023
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Dr. Iain McGilchrist spoke at the 'The Fab' to address how an over-emphasis on reductive materialism and “left-hemisphere” attention can affect how we understand the world and act in it. Dr. McGilchrist engaged with students, researchers, and organizations from International Geneva to critically reflect upon the mindset and frameworks through which we approach complex challenges and development and explore what a more balanced approach might look like.
Event Details and Links
Geneva Graduate Institute’s Fabrique de la Paix www.graduateinstitute.ch/disc...
Host: Dr. Ameer Shaheed
To purchase The Matter with Things
Hardback internationally Amazon.com and BookDepository.com
Hardback UK only ChannelMcGilchrist.com , Amazon.co.uk and other booksellers nationwide
Kindle on www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.com

[@jordanedgeley6601]

Truly I hope your message continues to be spread far and wide. You are my favourite fighter in the war against the current dogmatic tyrannical state of our culture. So grateful for your work and efforts.

[@robertparker8039]

p😅😅😅😅😅😅😅 m nnnnn n mmnnnnnn

[@maxtroy]

Ian McGilchrists writing gave my mind sanity and peace. He’s probably saved my life.

[@jonathans.bragdon5934]

Your work has made life more tolerable for me. Thank you.

[@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices]

How so?

[@katmc73]

Thank you.❤ That was the best hour and a half of my life. My mind is dancing with wonder.

[@OceanRoadbyTonyBaker]

It is such an improvement to simply hear him teaching the book, rather than talking in a panel discussion. You're a brother, Iaian.

[@RobinTurner]

"values - which I don't find Heidegger to be so good on." Lovely understatement 😂 Joking aside, I loved this. I also think the dichotomy Dr. Gilchrist explains would be valid even if it turned out that everything we know about brain localisation was wrong . I am reminded very strongly of Fromm's Being mode (right hemisphere) and Having mode (left hemisphere).

[@jackmartinleith]

"I also think the dichotomy Dr. Gilchrist explains would be valid even if it turned out that everything we know about brain localisation was wrong ." Same here, Robin. At the very least, it''s a strong metaphor. In the book Tales of Power (1991) its author Carlos Castaneda and his teacher don Juan Matus discuss the tonal and the nagual. The tonal (“toh‑na’hl”) corresponds with left hemisphere, first attention, mundane world (my label) and synthetic imagination (as per Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill), while the nagual (“nah‑wa’hl”) corresponds with right hemisphere, second attention, primal world (my label) and creative imagination (Hill). You can find out more by doing a search on "What Newcreators call mundane world and primal world, don Juan Matus calls the tonal and the nagual". I'm not including a link as the YT bot treats comments with links as spam.

[@shortattentionspantheatre5075]

Plumbed the depths of what McLuhan was intimating in his 1955 writing: "....we begin again to structure the primordial feelings and emotions from which 3000 years of literacy divorced us. Hands have no tears to flow."

[@drawingmomentum]

❤that was amazing! Thank u!

[@fwap4273]

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing

[@DavidSumeray_BassGod]

I love this!

[@ChrisOgunlowo]

Brilliant and enlightening. Thank you 🙏🏽

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

Very thought provoking

[@JWGMarie]

Loved this presentation! Perfectly describing the world we are living in this present moment. Would have loved to have spoken to you personally, but this is a perfect example of our interactive ways today. Our once lived person to person connection has largely been replaced by AI.

[@drawingmomentum]

I miss the days when I could just use physical force on a vending machine to get it to drop my purchase down the shoot. 😉 jk Have a beautiful holiday surrounded with joy 🌟

[@tjacobsen5131]

This is the best McGilchrist talk I've heard. Illuminating. I now understand how so many were so wrong in 2021.

[@lilianarovegno4325]

Relationships without respect , principles and judgements are nothing. They are the most common. I have beautiful relations with good books and authors,with the values of nature and with my extraordinary cats

[@pakistaniraveasylum1396]

Light cannot be seen without matter. Matter cannot be seen without light.

[@dead0barbie]

I honeslty feel at home in this thought. I has the energy to fuel a critic of the bureaucratic machine over art expression and I will gladly implement it in mine.

[@geertheymans8258]

So it is. Even if just a small but fundamental insight of the reasoning : "vertrouwen komt te voet en gaat te paard". From Flanders. With due respect. G.

[@MarleneYCM]

The contrast is stark between the sterile academic classroom you are actually in, and what I hear as I’m wearing headphones, putting about the house. I picture you in a grand mahogany room that oozes warmth and comfort, sitting in a chair by a fireplace as if to be having a fireside chat 😊

[@kensurrency2564]

I listened to most of the talk either sitting or laying in front of a comfortably moderate fire. The experience is powerful.

[@bobdillaber1195]

During my recent medical problem i was visited by home care treatment staff. A nurse, occupational therapist and a physical therapist to aid me in my recovery. Each had a different role to play however each did exactly the same thing for the first half of our session. While not even looking at me, they asked the very same questions which the then had to record my answers into their phones. Only then did we begin to do what they came there supposedly to help me with. So, half our time was they on their phones and the other spent trying to aid me. Rather mad, dont you think?

[@jim6929]

You may like to consider the treatment of the different hemispheres in the the novel “a scanner darkly” by Philip Kindred (and his other works). If you don’t know about these already

[@ricardoalarcao5578]

Sir, it is useful to look into what is known before forwarding the new: Japheth's Atlas and Menoetio as intro-extrovert limbo set, and higher Pro-Epimetheus as imagination and memory se etc...

[@davidbrinnen]

I can't help but wonder what Dr Iain made of the Gateway Project document released by the CIA? Also, another great lecture, very insightful and well presented.

[@sapienspace8814]

What I find intriguing is the corpus callosum of Albert Einstein's brain appears to have been unusually large (high bandwidth/connectivity between both hemispheres).

[@katejudson8907]

And yet we know the brain isn't like a muscle. The size really does not matter in how cognition occurs.

[@ayy2193]

I wonder if playing music (he played violin?) had a role in increasing that connectivity?

[@samzied]

Is the bipartite model of the brain a product of the left or right hemispere ?

[@vermeerasia]

A fascinating lecture, thank you. I'm curious about your thoughts pertaining to the recent (dramatic) developments in artificial intelligence and where this might lead. Is AI, especially AGI if it should ever come to pass, the most distilled expression of left brain intelligence possible or might there be some potential for more global thinking with it? What do you think might be the implications for the world if AI/AGI begins to supplant and exceed human intelligence?

[@vermeerasia]

Let me clarify, since you did touch upon AI in the latter part of your lecture, combining it with bureaucracy as one of the negatives of left brain thinking. More specifically, is there the potential for a brain expressed in silicon as opposed to carbon to be anything beyond explicit, narrow, analytical and the like? Could an AGI transcend its initial programming and become a balanced intellect? After all, it must be assumed it will have read your books and listened to your lectures.

[@kbeetles]

@@vermeerasiaif you are hoping for a super-duper AGI in carbon or silicon or wonderstuff of the future - you haven 't actually heard Iain's message.....

[@LordBlk]

This fits nicely with eugune wigner's paper called The Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences.

[@ayy2193]

27:30 Certainty Vs Possibility tendancies

[@theobservereffectexplained1102]

Two people may have similar higher ACE and yet one will be addicted to the left and the other to the right. Consider trauma and hormonal issues to stay in one and not the other. Cortisol on the left and all the good ones to the right. Early childhood conditions , cultures , beliefs and values may have contributed to self distractive behaviors of worldwide dissatisfaction and distress. Brain lopping negative emotions and past history as reality. Issues of free will by Robert Spolisky Congratulations your work opens the three pound and observe humanity for human

[@JWGMarie]

Yes! Ditto! Trauma must be taken into account. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who have experienced trauma! For some, the use of AI (mobile phones etc) is triggering. Cultural beliefs & values also needs to be looked at. These alone throughout history and today create nothing but conflict.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

You have reached an active AI inventor who did a double PhD program in philosophy and computational neuroscience. I’m thinking deeply about this.

[@TheDAT9]

Well think deeper still, you are taking the wrong path.

[@user-gd4iy3bm7y]

The most stunning part of the talk is that the lecturer does not see intuition and imagination as part of science. I agree that modern scientists are often trapped in a very limited view of the world, but this is their limitation, not one of science itself.

[@kensurrency2564]

When Philosophy was divorced from science, it was doomed to hit a wall eventually.

[@hexagram531]

@user-gd4iy3bm7y I'm afraid you have either listened to, or read, a wildly insufficient amount of Dr McGilchrist's work. He is well aware of the role that intuition, imagination and dreams have played in significant scientific discoveries. This becomes clearer if you read his books, although that is plenty of work. It is many modern scientists who think, wrongly, that "science" means "rationality", devoid of intuition or imagination, and that it is all some kind of "logic" alone. This lecturer does not think that at all.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

Former comp. neuroscientist here (now in AI). I’m halfway through M&E. I would not be reading it because I was taught hemispheric differences were inconsequential or pseudoscience and am generally suspiscious of such ambitious books. It is so far a five star read. I’m not in perfect agreement but never am with even articles. However, McGilchrist has already generated ideas for experiments, ways to train AIs, and especially failures in the gem of neuroscience: vision. Stick with it.

[@TheDAT9]

AI will be the death of us.

[@siyaindagulag.]

"Thank you ,I'm here too. Sorry...Amir....😂 whoops.

[@user-uk6qt8tp1r]

I loved this presentation. I have been very concerned about society, AI, and all our burdensome, dehumanizing bureaucracy. I’m thinking now that we are at a turning point that AI itself might be offering. IF we are able to keep AI as a computational tool to be used rather than as a GLLM super-intelligence, we can collectively allow our societal left hemisphere dominance to recede. AI effectively satisfies all the computing needs of our left hemisphere, thereby allowing us to change our educational system goals and societal values toward growing an understanding of the whole. AI must remain in the role of emissary and we must cultivate our wisdom to be master. While many are working hard to keep AI in the position of emissary (Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin), we need to put a rush on that cultivating wisdom part! In the parable of the Fisherman and the Businessman we can see the mindset of the colonists in contrast with the mindset of indigenous people, left hemisphere-dominant vs right hemisphere-dominant. We need to learn again to value the mindset of the fisherman.

[@MikeFuller-ok6ok]

What if so much of what we say and do is driven by an unconscious desire to be true to our natural character.

[@vinm300]

Kenneth Clarke in his book "Civilisation" also mentions the Greek flourishing of art ~ C5th BC, then it becomes formal reproduction Also, for the Renaissance The marvellous Greek posture - weight on one leg Renaissance poise, weightless Venus Kenneth Clarke would've enjoyed this talk

[@user-bo9ci9tk6y]

Eyes on E motion ; A pivotal point in time as he said clearly to come to our senses and use the cognitive function to process our feelings to relate to each other and progress the human nature in recognition of believe how to go further by putting the most creative forces at work instead of disrupting them creating chaos and destruction first, henceforth we have to start allover again while the world/the Earth is at stake where every living being is effected or annihilated in the process. so when a dispute arises there or more ways to settle IT by using the best brains of both sides to solve a problem where the best man wins in several disciplines otherwise you get stuck in a never ending story of supremacy for you fighting a holy war by saying what's your land is now mine the power of reason will prevent this and God will be as well in showing him to respect what he gave you in the first place namely the power of the mind and reason, otherwise He will intervene and 'punish' you for neglect of IT. 🤔😉😊 doubtfully yours @ the Shrewd.

[@misewixe2777]

Out of curiosity how many non academics are in your team at cern? Crazy philosophers, with schools not used in Academia- but work flawlessly with quantum mechanics - are ignored.

[@jordanedgeley6601]

"Oh sorry thats the brain of a dog" 😂😂😂

[@weed...5692]

14:05 Trump jokes are so funny. They are hilarious. Pure humour.

[@robertgallegos1161]

I can hear Kafka laughing in his grave at this little tale. 1:23:42

[@danielash1704]

I've been thinking about qubits for years before they could estimate their positions and values that have a multitude of different characters im talking about spin colors and vibration charges that flip flop in certain circumstances that density is wave disruption to a longitudinal coherence wavelength and back to a synchronous wave each state is possible in the same location as if they are passing by each other and zero interference with the traveling process to understand that density is a key kinetic component to create a barrier or a bounce that can cause a resistance or sensitivity of its neighboring parts including the quark or spinner direction stage I'm still not sure if it helps you but it is interesting how observing and measuring density is important that i didn't expect it is as if i was involved with the actual activity or something else was going it would neutrinos be the best answer?

[@ej-fo8pd]

The president joke truly suits Obiden #2 best. As I have a sense of humor, I won’t return the books I recently ordered from Amazon. Maybe

[@UrbanPovertist]

Based on this I would assume forcing right handedness was attempt to have rule followers 🤔

[@oliverjamito9902]

Remember from who am I? Many came from! Now who are You? Let ALL noises to come forth from all feet! Shared...? FROM WHOM? Even who nor whom can't exist! Creation will say, Who WILL GLORIFY YE HAVE MADE UNTO ALL THY "SHARED THE LITTLE "i" sitting with the AM? What is existence? Without THEE? Yet many Who am I will try to STEAL! Thee! Remember go Gratitude and Honor find thy rightful place upon all my FEET resting upon my Footstool! None can steal! Fowl of the Air what is Heaven above? Thy Footstool before the Foundations of the world was laid and Heaven above thy Permanent Foundation no one can uproot nor shaken but here to stay for good! Thy Brimstone! Owner of HEAVEN ABOVE! A FRIEND kind of love. A FRIEND! Indeed! Gratitude and Honor! Who said "WHAT IS TRUTH"? WILL SAY, "REMEMBER HIS PRECIOUS TREASURES'? REMEMBER YE ALL ONCE! JUST NEEDED TO BE REMINDED WRITTEN WITHIN THEE ALL WHO AM I? PILOT AWAKEN! PILOT COMMANDED TO PROVIDE SPACE AND ROOM TO GROW! PILOT WILL SAY FROM HERE GROWS! MADE NEW! Old has passed away! BEHOLD FROM WHO AM I? NOW WHO ARE YOU PILOT? THY SHARED I AM! WHO LOVE WITH PATIENCE,MERCY, AND GRACE! JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE IS THY THRONE! GRATITUDE AND HONOR! Salvation comes with a REDEEMER. What is not possible unto men? Possible unto God of life! Yes tomorrow is not promised! Yet, remember! What is Tomorrow? What is tomorrow if even 1 of my Heirs can't EVEN WALK UPON MY FOOTSTOOL WITHOUT BEING MURDERED, ABORTED, TO VICTIMIZED, TO LUST UPON, TO BE USED AS A THING AFTER DONE CAN BE THROWN AWAY LIKE TRASH! HEIRS WHO LOVE WITH PATIENCE, MERCY, AND GRACE, JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE KNOWS? WASHERS OF FEET OF NEIGHBORS AND WIPING THEIR TEARS FROM THEIR EYES. MILEAGE FROM THY FEET IS RECOGNIZE!

[@sammesingson7584]

i think you're downplaying the importance of the left hemisphere Like when you need self esteem, and self assertion and a force

[@elioxman8496]

Hi Iain, nice to see you standing firm on your feet. I am an admirer of your books, read them all, learned and enjoyed. Sadly the language you use this time indicates some trouble in one of the hemispheres of your own...or some secret yet to be identified compartment. Just look here. Why pick on Trump's brain? In the audience of half-literates you have in front of you there are plenty of people who are much less capable intellectually than him....in fact I am not sure about your honor if put you in competition. How could you say "I know everything about every part of our brain" or close to this? You already explained that modern brain science does not know very much at all about it and not interested to learn ... Does not jive. One more mishaps I think, regarding carpenter's "true to the"...any to curved surfaces like in an arch are also true to each other which simply mean fit together. If your assumption about anything fits your previous concept of the same it sounds true. This is what you just said. Means no advance of knowledge which requires a break thru to gain any new knowledge of any significant value. ...May be the old age is kicking in your brain? Or bad preparation of the lecture?...Don't know the diagnosis but does not look good. I am just a bit younger than you and can relate to age-related stuff, so no offence. Thanks for your enthusiasm in spreading your ideas, even though nobody can predict which way they will work out. Best of health and mood.

[@Ritastresswood]

Humility is a virtue for any scholar worth his salt! Well said you!

[@carolebratteig7804]

You comment about Donald Trump was offensive and surprisingly crass. Love your lessons and insights but you’ve tarnished your presentation with ugly politics. Would say the same if you had said Biden or anyone else for that matter.

[@mavenbraun5701]

Quacks.