Contemporary Articles

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

The Master’s Theory of Everything: A review of Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World – author Marius Dorobantu, from ‘Reviews in Science, Religion and Theology’, 2023, 2-1, pp. 6-17.

The Master’s Theory of Everything: A review of Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World – author Marius Dorobantu, from ‘Reviews in Science, Religion and Theology’, 2023, 2-1, pp. 6-17.

Abstract: When pointing towards inanimate objects, chimpanzees use their right hand, whereas when pointing towards living creatures, they do it with their left. Such a striking difference can, to some extent, also be noticeable in humans: for grasping things, we...

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Two Minds – by Wendell Berry

Two Minds – by Wendell Berry

Human orders – scientific, artistic, social, economic, and political – are fictions. They are untrue, not because they necessarily are false, but because they necessarily are incomplete. All of our human orders, however inclusive we may try to make them, turn out to be some degree exclusive. And so we are always being surprised by something we find, too late, that we have excluded. Think of almost any political revolution or freedom movement or the ozone hole or mad cow disease or the events of September 11, 2001.

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Science and Metaphysics: A Family Quarrel? by Iain McGilchrist – from the Marginalia Review of Books

Science and Metaphysics: A Family Quarrel? by Iain McGilchrist – from the Marginalia Review of Books

In the lecture series given in Cambridge in 1951 that formed the basis of his book Science & Humanism, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger observed:

It seems plain and self-evident, yet it needs to be said: the isolated knowledge obtained by a group of specialists in a narrow field has in itself no value whatsoever, but only in its synthesis with all the rest of knowledge and only inasmuch as it really contributes in this synthesis toward answering the demand, τίνες δὲ ἡμεῖς; “Who are we?”

Schrödinger is recalling the words of the third-century Greek philosopher Plotinus; but his point is of a contemporary relevance that it is impossible to overstate. It is reinforced by the words of the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, whose work on mapping the brain is renowned: “The problem of neurology is to understand man himself.”

From the Marginalia Review of Books

Thank you for writing with the Marginalia Review of Books. We are delighted to publish your essay, “Science and Metaphysics: A Family Quarrel”, which is available to read and share both as a web-page and PDF.

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‘HowTheLightGetsIn’ HAY 2023

‘HowTheLightGetsIn’ HAY 2023

26th May 2023 to 29th May 2023 Event description. Debate is the beating heart of HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2023. From Nobel Laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners, HowTheLightGetsIn is home to world-leading thinkers pushing their disciplines forward. Explore our wide-ranging...

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What Happens with the Mind when the Brain Dies? by Alex Gomez-Marin

What Happens with the Mind when the Brain Dies? by Alex Gomez-Marin

Abstract: A neuroscientist reflects on his near-death experience to ponder the nature of the human mind and the survival of consciousness after death. Ancient traditions, manifold personal experiences, nuanced philosophical views, and recent scientific evidence, all point to the brain as a filter (or receiver) of consciousness rather than its fanciful producer. No doubt, good-old-fashioned materialists —nowadays rebranded as physicalists, crypto-dualists, or illusionists wearing virtual reality goggles— insist that minds are “nothing but” what brains do. Nevertheless, a trans-materialist science can expand the scope and depth of the answers (and the questions) that really matter not only to science but also to human flourishing.

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