Contemporary Articles

This area of Channel McGilchrist is dedicated to articles of interest on contemporary topics as chosen by Dr Iain McGilchrist.

Members’ Q&A – 7th September 2023

Members’ Q&A – 7th September 2023

7th September 2023 (6.00pm to 7.45pm) Event description This event is open to Channel McGilchrist members only. As a Channel McGilchrist member, you have the unique opportunity to put a question to Iain for a live Q&A session via Zoom. These Q&A's take place...

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Iain McGilchrist: “Oriente equilibró mejor las visiones de los dos hemisferios cerebrales”

Iain McGilchrist: “Oriente equilibró mejor las visiones de los dos hemisferios cerebrales”

Es psiquiatra, filósofo y neurocientífico, dedicó toda su vida al estudio de la relación mente-cuerpo, se formó en medicina y en sus libros intenta explicar cómo los humanos podemos vivir y comprender el mundo real reuniendo la filosofía, la física y la neurociencia para crear una visión única de nuestra realidad; demoliendo el mito de la teoría de los hemisferios cerebrales y encontrando una singular interpretación para ciertas formas de entender el universo.

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To ‘See’, or not to ‘See’:  That is the Question. Moving on from a Half-Brained System of Economic Governance: The Regulatory Policy Institute Research Group

To ‘See’, or not to ‘See’:  That is the Question. Moving on from a Half-Brained System of Economic Governance: The Regulatory Policy Institute Research Group

The underpinning thesis of this Essay is that practically useful knowledge concerning economic governance, and governance more generally for that matter, can be acquired by study of the structure and functioning of the human brain. The arguments have some resonances with, inter alia: the ancient microcosm-macrocosm analogy in philosophy, the brain being the microcosm and the governance system (‘Leviathan’s brain’) being the macrocosm; the Apollo/Cassandra story in Greek mythology; and much more recent mathematical analysis of self-similar systems, most notably in relation to fractals. They lead us to call for a new and better ‘Gestalt’ when thinking about the organisation of the structure and conduct of economic policy. The arguments follow a path already beaten in the development of AI, in the course of which major advances have been made via the study of neural networks and their use as analogies and sources of insight. No similar path has been trod in thinking about governance: as the 2nd President of the United States put it in his own time, the science of government has been “at a stand”.

Hutchinson and G. Yarrow, “To ‘see’, or not to ‘see’: that is the question. Moving on from a half-brained system of economic governance”, Essays in Regulation NS13.1, Regulatory Policy Institute, Oxford, 6 July 2023.

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Recovering the Sacred, Recovering the Soul: Session 1 of the ‘Recovering the Sacred’ online series – Pari Perspective

Recovering the Sacred, Recovering the Soul: Session 1 of the ‘Recovering the Sacred’ online series – Pari Perspective

According to Laozi:

He who knows does not tell and he who tells does not know.

The power of unknowing and not doing is celebrated in Chinese philosophy. Also in the Western tradition. For example, Meister Eckhart in one of his sermons speaks of the attainment by the soul of darkness and unknowing and he imagines a bystander asking him:

‘But what is this darkness and unknowing and what is its name?’ To this he replies, ‘I can only call it a loving and open receptiveness which however in no way lacks being. It is a receptive potential by means of which all is accomplished.’

This suggests the fertility of union between a creative principle and a receptive, womb-like space in which something is to grow: a process. It’s of this encounter, this process, that I wish to speak today.

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Festival of Writing & Ideas (in-person event)

Festival of Writing & Ideas (in-person event)

16th June to 18th June 2023 Event description. 2023 will be the eleventh edition of Borris House Festival of Writing & Ideas, and we are proud to have weathered the last few years to bring you another intimate and invigorating weekend, in a place as beautiful as...

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Wonder and Enchantment – Iain McGilchrist and Patrick Curry

Wonder and Enchantment – Iain McGilchrist and Patrick Curry

FREE online event in which Iain and Patrick will be discussing the phenomenon of enchantment, especially the experience of wonder that is at its heart. Why does it matter? And what are some of its attributes and dynamics? We shall also look at how it relates to the two modes of right and left brain hemispheres, and why it might be a possible effect of their integration, and therefore a life of sanity.

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