Iain McGilchrist & Bernardo Kastrup Representing Reality – an Online event, 7th April 2026; 6-8pm BST
Registration for this event is via the Adventures in Awareness website
This event is organised and hosted by ISSR
(International Society for Science & Religion).
Event description
Iain McGilchrist is one of the most sought-after thinkers of our time. His research into brain lateralisation has helped illuminate the crises of modern life by showing how different modes of attention shape not only individual perception, but culture, science and our wider sense of reality. Bernardo Kastrup is leading the modern renaissance of ‘metaphysical idealism’ – the notion that reality is essentially consciousness, based on analytic philosophy, science and psychology.
Iain has argued that our civilisation is captured by a distorted mode of attention that seeks control over a universe made of things. He pushes against this modern habit of treating the world as fragmented and mechanical, and in its place presents a view of the world as dynamic, relational, flowing, and internally connected.
In his first conversation with Bernardo Kastrup, they agreed that consciousness is a primary substrate, and meaning is inherent to existence. Bernardo has argued extensively for this view based on analytic philosophy, science and psychology. But they differed in their perspectives on how reality is experienced.
In this dialogue they will compare their views, exploring the nature of reality, culture, perception, and meaning. Are we perceiving the world through a kind of dashboard representation, like a simulation? Or are we embedded in reality in ways that are immediate and profound? Themes will include Iain’s two ways of knowing reality based on his neuropsychological research, the nature of time and experience, how it can seem to be made of flow or a series of moments. The implications for our understanding of reality and our relationship to it are profound.
Before the event you might like to watch Iain’s brief synopsis of his classic The Master and His Emissary and Bernardo’s Small Theory of Everything. If you want a deeper dive, check-out Bernardo’s free course on idealism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPCvQQQrZwU
Event can be attended live, and the recording sent to everyone registered.
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All are most warmly invited to attend