Understanding The Matter with Things Dialogues Episode 5: Chapter 5 Apprehension

This series of dialogues between Iain McGilchrist and Alex Gomez-Marin explores Iain's latest book The Matter with Things. In Episode 5 Iain and Alex discuss Chapter 5, Apprehension.

To purchase The Matter with Things

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

[kenfalloon]

Thank God for the presence of a soul and mind like Ian's in the world right now.

[tonybaker]

The great understanding produced in these talks is the result of the affinity of the two participants and their knack for finding points of reality, even if ephemerally. Thank you for hard work made to appear easy.

[oliviadate]

I love these conversations! Alex, you are such a perfect foil for Iain, it seems to me, with a richer vein of thinking emerging from the 'encounter'. Thank you both so much.

[barbarajohnson]

I'm reading the Master now, but the Matter is somewhere in the supply chain, to arrive later in the month. Very excited to discover your work, and your generosity of discussing the work as I find on YouTube. Enjoy you Alex and these discussions. Gratitude

[AnAlgernon]

This was an excellent and educational video. I watched the first 1/2 of it, then 1/2 of what remained, and then 1/2 of that. Unfortunately, I'll never finish it. My right mind says, it's ok, relax.

[CalumJambo]

Where's this week's chapter? Love these videos, thanks for making them.

[cheri]

These are the most important discussions in our world today.
I share this with everyone.
I have left comments to Cambridge Union that they have to have Dr. McGilchrist on.(If they haven't already, they should. )

[real]

Cannot wait for the metaphysics chats. Yes, please do go deep even if it takes more the one talk for each chapter. I’m finding reading some of the sections in each chapter requires a lot of thought.

[HCh-bjox]

Encouraged by the beginning and ending of this episode, I’d like to ask my own very stupid question if I may.

Dr. Iain mentioned once that there is indeed a substantial neural network in the stomach and digestive tract, nothing like the brain obviously, but still considerable nonetheless, can we qualify this network as Alex’s third ‘hemisphere’? I’m only asking because sometimes I confuse my intuition with my gut feeling.

Thank you both very much, I’m beyond grateful.

[scottjrowan]

What a fantastic episode. Thank you both. 🙏

[faireytales]

I am thoroughly enjoying these conversations. I am curious if Iain would have anything to say about Jill Bolte Taylor's new book "Whole Brain Living" in regards to her concept of four characters in our brain related to the left and right hemispheres.

[mmnuances]

Hello Alex, I was curious and interested to know that you are reading some of our comments. I am very resonant with your approach in this series and as I mentioned before, find it reaching toward what I see as the key question: Have humans reached a point in the global zeitgeist where the respective contributions of the right and left hemispheres have made us nonadaptive on this planet of billions of people whose survival relies on the use of huge amounts of energy that in turn create effects, such as climate change, that reduce the habitability of the planet, which then requires the use of even more energy to mitigate the damage? Has the imbalance in our attention, amplified and magnified by computers, entered a positive feedback loop of self-referential planetary destruction, a spiral into oblivion which is already so established that we cannot see it or save ourselves?
Finally, what is the felt sense in the body, for you personally, of the non-duality that Ian describes which is a non-duality that comprehends the non-duality of non-duality and duality? My personal experience is that it is in a wholesome, keen, present centered attentiveness to the felt sense in the body that we can access this non-duality which is the non-duality of non-duality and duality. Further, I hypothesize that this state, which is more of a vibrational, energetic flow sensation in the body (I think the Sufis called it baraka.) is the natural state of humans and was the basis of human flourishing in our hunter/gatherer evolutionary past. For example, I can access it when I am walking in a beautiful forest. This state can effortlessly "freeze" into something "material and solid' when it needs to grasp or utilize or shave, but then just as effortlessly, can "melt" the solid and return its energy to the flow. Much more can be said about it, but the "tasting" of it is what modern humans are seeking and having so much difficulty finding due to the interferences of the Emissary. The desire for this "enlightenment" and the talking about it leads us away from, and covers up, the actual experience and benefit.

[cameronidk]

Dr. Iain McG .. Just like to show my support.. Please Sir... Do not let the ever temporary Spotlight be a deterrent to your research and work .. Your inspiring personally and scientifically.. Modern technology and .. . the views and likes can get into the most stoic minds ... I wish i had more time to dedicate to your channel's and poetry and research lol

[Bartisim]

What a profound and beautiful conversation.

[DavidBaumSeattle]

“A glitch in the Matrix, ” indeed! Nice to know the door to reality is never closed.

[oakbellUK]

In response to the 'what if we had 3 hemispheres?':
You could say that the 'Default Mode network' has this third function. In humans (as I understand it) the development of the medial prefrontal cortex works with working memory and draws in memories to allow up to plan to do something by simulating us doing it. This also allows creativity...
Apparently you do not see planning in other animals.

[AdelSalti]

Thank you, Dr. McGilchrist. Could the trinitarian structure furnish the element which concomitantly separates and unites? In it, the relationship is concomitant with the relata. The relation, say self-giving love, separates as distinct father from son yet simultaneously unites them in one whole.

[siyaindagulag.]

34:40
The best explanation of
Omnomatapeia I've ever heard.

[daniellee]

I want to go through all of these, and appreciate having access to the main ideas without having to read the "Bible." 🙂. I try to simplify passing along these ideas by writing in active imagination, in which the image leads, and the voice serves it. I don't always understand a dream in words right away, and it's the same with the images. They don't need words if you can absorb the image directly, without, as you say, re-presenting it. It will come up to conscious understanding when it's ready. Iain, your intelligence is always a welcome guest, and I enjoy one of your videos more than anything on commercial television.

[BcClarity]

So good to be living in the great turning 2022