The Mystery of Consciousness: Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s Keynote at Kinross House (2024)

Prepare to have your understanding of consciousness transformed. In this captivating keynote, world-renowned philosopher and neuroscientist Dr. Iain McGilchrist delves into the depths of the human mind, exploring how the hemispheres of the brain shape our perception of reality. He challenges conventional thinking about consciousness, matter, and the nature of existence, offering a radical yet insightful perspective that will leave you questioning what you thought you knew.

Delivered at 'A Symposium on Consciousness' on August 2, 2024, at the stunning Kinross House Estate in Scotland, this talk was presented by Wonderstruck, The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, and Five Books.

Discover why Dr. McGilchrist believes consciousness is the foundation of reality, and explore the provocative questions raised by his research: What role do our brain hemispheres play in shaping reality? How does our attention alter the world around us? Is consciousness the ultimate reality?

This keynote is not an academic lecture—it’s a journey into the heart of what it means to be human.

Who is Dr. Iain McGilchrist:
Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, literary scholar, philosopher, and neuroscientist, best known for his groundbreaking work on how the brain’s hemispheres shape our reality. His seminal book, The Master and His Emissary, explores how the right and left hemispheres offer different yet complementary views of the world—the right focusing on the whole, the left on details. In his latest work, The Matter with Things, McGilchrist critiques reductive materialism and addresses life’s biggest questions: Who are we? What is the world? What is the nature of time, space, and consciousness?

Chapters:
0:00 – Introduction by Elizabeth
1:41 – Keynote begins: Consciousness & Epistemic Humility
2:46 – Defining consciousness and unconsciousness
4:26 – The unconscious mind and its vast scope
6:19 – Consciousness and the hemispheres of the brain
9:23 – Consciousness vs. matter debate
12:32 – The brain as a transmitter or sculptor of consciousness
17:23 – Matter, consciousness, and interconnectedness
24:07 – The role of attention and the hemispheres
31:00 – Left vs. right hemisphere delusions
35:00 – Creativity, order, and the role of consciousness
46:00 – The emergence of meaning and creativity in life
55:06 – Final reflections on consciousness and reality
59:55 – Closing thoughts and Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem

[ruhysoraya]

What an amazing mind ...the world is much more elevated for his coming. God Bless his soul!!

[MattGray_Chelsoph]

This is rock 'n roll! Cracking a beer and soaking this right in, thank you so much for this :) And yes, Iain, you should dare say "soul".

[davidfarrall]

Iain McGilchrist has become a poet and philosopher of Neuroscience in modern times. He brings in so many areas of Science in his work and his mapping of left versus right Brain/Mind is prescient.

[gameaudioshaman]

I would love a discussion between Iain McGilchrist and Bernado Kastrup. That would be tremendous.

[JamieEdmonds-okwz]

What a great talk and brilliant mind. I especially love his description of the brain as a "permitter of conx", which is exactly how the former NASA physicist and 50+ year consciousness researcher, Tom Campbell puts it in his "My Big TOE (Theory of Everything)" trilogy. He has determined that this is a Virtual Reality (VR), consciousness is fundamental and it is the "rendering engine" of this apparent Physical Matter Reality (PMR) that our avatars experience here and call the physical universe. Any VR is governed by a "physics rule set" as well as varying degrees of randomness governed by probability distributions of the various possibilities. The physical brain functions as a constraint on that consciousness that is animating this avatar and provides the "resistance" that Dr. McGilchrist mentions that is necessary for growth, progress, movement, and evolution. When our physical bodies are born, we get a random draw from the genetic lottery, we inherit the culture and traumas of our childhoods, and we strive to overcome those challenges to grow up, get ridof our ego, fear, and limiting systems of belief, and to become love, which is the fundamental nature of a low entropy consciousness. <3
Tom's Big TOE reconciles Quantum Mechanics with Relativity Theory, it explains the normal and the paranormal, as well as the physics and the metaphysics. Check it out and see how well it dovetails with Dr. McGilchrist's work and then takes it to the next most fundamental level: www.my-big-toe.com

[driggerfireon]

Beautiful kind man. Thank you immensely

[davidfarrall]

it seems like the left and right Brain hemispheres are continually checking on each other, simultaneous cooperation and competition then occurring. This is beautiful Evolutionary Neuroscience and Iain is delineating and paring back the depths of this.

[shahlaahy]

Brilliant putting into words the impossible!❤

[nathanhassallpoetry]

"Attention is a moral act... and attention changes the world. If you attend to it in a certain way, you see certain things. If you attend in another way you see quite different things and therefore attention helps, our consciousness helps, to bring into existence the experiential world, which is the only world that we can ever know."

I speak a lot about how a poet has a "mode of perception" and it changes how we pay attention to the world. The more concisely we pay attention: to the rough texture of a tree, the sound of a river, the colours and impressions we receive from the world, the better we are at putting it into poetry. A poem is, in some senses, a phenomenological act. I'll make a video on this and put it on my YouTube channel.

Now it's time to dive into the rest of the conversation for further research. Cheers!

[JimKanaris]

A perfectly authentic voice in a dessert providentially punctured by springs of hope. Very timely!

[davidfarrall]

Grateful thanks to Iain McGilchrist for this keynote speech and may he continue to reveal the wondrous mysteries of our most precious organ.

[jayherring]

Big Iain - The cast iron radiator of the mystery.

[janelast]

Fantastic talk So amazing that human beings can conceive such deep thinking and analysis but consciousness remains elusive Thank you for posting

[ArlindoPhilosophicalArtist]

Iain McGilchrist is a legend. I like what he says about brain hemispheres. Consciousness, by the way, is fundamental.

[Glowerx]

Consciousness is life and it manifests matter including the brain .

[Akareyon]

I went in blind and read Behave and Master&Emissary back to back, have watched plenty McGilchrist lectures & interviews since so the Sapolsky 55:50 rib was wild. I so hope to see both of them in dialogue one day.

[lidiakucmierz]

Consciousness changes the world, especially the inner world, our world. It is crucial to be aware of the difference between facts and our interpretation. 💚

[antoniofiorentinodistefano]

Amazing mastery of his primary concerns. Why are his words not widely heard - such in the USA.

[ajghost]

Attention as a Quantum tuning fork ser!! 🙏🏼

[waterkingdavid]

I've always "believed" in this approach since I was lucky enough to study phenomenolgical psychology.
It makes enormous sense.
The problem is that though at least the "believers" amongst us here are deeply interested in consciousness we unfortunately still don't quite get the fact that it's absolutely real not just in ourselves but in all others.
Yes Palestinians too.