Iain McGilchrist - The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning

A tour de force of neuroscience and philosophy, Iain McGilchrist’s theory of the mind's place in the world speaks to everyone searching for happiness, understanding, and meaning in life.

For millennia humans have speculated upon the differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Why did evolution lead to humans and many other animals developing two cerebral hemispheres, separated by a groove? No neuroscientist would dispute that there are significant differences; but until now, no-one has understood why.

Dr Iain McGilchrist has an empirical answer to this question – and his ideas have profound consequences for how humans understand themselves and their place in the world. Roaming through the history of Western philosophy, art and literature, this conversation between Dr McGilchrist and science journalist David Malone explores how the competition between the two hemispheres has shaped civilisation and progress and now, in our hyper-rationalist age, threatens to undermine the deepest and most sacred human values.

Fans of Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Greenfield and Antonio Damasio ought not to miss this compelling talk from one of the most exciting thinkers of our age.

[bikeboy]

I've shamefully wasted far too many hours of my life over the years - but not the one I've just spent watching this! Deeply thought provoking. Thankyou

[melk.]

Some notes and bookmarks:
26:30 An interesting explanation of schizophrenia as left hemisphere overdrive (similar to right brain stroke symptoms and behaviours)

28:49 A left hemisphere dominant society and finding balance

39:45 One hemisphere shouting down the other

41:03 Intuition and the hemispheres

49:00 Tools to address imbalances in hemispheres
- awareness, noticing the difference
- rebalance education, arts and imagination not just maths and science
- mindfulness meditation and lifestyle, non-judgmental attention and presence, practicing stepping out of schemas and experiencing things as they are

50:56 Hemispheres and genders

53:33 Specialism vs holistic view - particularly interesting in terms of healthcare and wellbeing

55:19 Morals and ethics of an imbalanced society/system, discusses unification and division being of importance for an optimal system (similar to Dan Siegel’s idea of differentiation and integration for a healthy brain, and his Wheel of Awareness meditation practice)

57:10 How/why left hemisphere has become dominant - see the introduction of the new edition of his book “The Master and His Emissary” for a more thorough exploration of this subject

[insookchoi]

Iain M. always takes a rather reductive statement from an interviewer (who justifiably does so in order to advance the dialogue with more clarifications for an audience) with such grace (often with a short laugh), then he expands the statement. He rarely corrects unless it is necessary to avoid a misinterpretation. Such attitude requires respect and understanding, the ‘right brain’ to hold on, and being in a rhythm of interaction. I often learn something else from the way he conducts the conversations beyond what he is saying.

[TimG...]

You really didn't need to cut the guy off for the sake of keeping in under an hour (who cares?), but this was a thoroughly interesting conversation nonetheless. Thank you for sharing!

[cheri]

I have to thank you over and over again for these conversations between Iian McGilchrist and all these new people I am being introduced to and gaining more awareness for my journey to learn more.❤

[TheOnlyJonno]

It certainly explains a lot about a certain group of people. Right handed ones.

[marcobiagini]

I am a physicist and I will provide solid arguments that prove that consciousness cannot be generated by the brain (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). Many argue that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but it is possible to show that such hypothesis is inconsistent with our scientific knowledges. In fact, it is possible to show that all the examples of emergent properties consists of concepts used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is in itself, which means how the object is independently from our observation. In other words, emergent properties are ideas conceived to describe or classify, according to arbitrary criteria and from an arbitrary point of view, certain processes or systems. In summary, emergent properties are intrinsically subjective, since they are based on the arbitrary choice to focus on certain aspects of a system and neglet other aspects, such as microscopic structures and processes; emergent properties consist of ideas through which we describe how the external reality appears to our conscious mind: without a conscious mind, these ideas (= emergent properties) would not exist at all.

Here comes my first argument: arbitrariness, subjectivity, classifications and approximate descriptions, imply the existence of a conscious mind, which can arbitrarily choose a specific point of view and focus on certain aspects while neglecting others. It is obvious that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property of the physical reality, because consciousenss is a preliminary necessary condition for the existence of any emergent property. We have then a logical contradiction. Nothing which presupposes the existence of consciousness can be used to try to explain the existence of consciousness.

Here comes my second argument: our scientific knowledge shows that brain processes consist of sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes; since consciousness is not a property of ordinary elementary physical processes, then a succession of such processes cannot have cosciousness as a property. In fact we can break down the process and analyze it step by step, and in every step consciousness would be absent, so there would never be any consciousness during the entire sequence of elementary processes. It must be also understood that considering a group of elementary processes together as a whole is an arbitrary choice. In fact, according to the laws of physics, any number of elementary processes is totally equivalent. We could consider a group of one hundred elementary processes or ten thousand elementary processes, or any other number; this choice is arbitrary and not reducible to the laws of physics. However, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrary choices; therefore consciousness cannot be a property of a sequence of elementary processes as a whole, because such sequence as a whole is only an arbitrary and abstract concept that cannot exist independently of a conscious mind.

Here comes my third argument: It should also be considered that brain processes consist of billions of sequences of elementary processes that take place in different points of the brain; if we attributed to these processes the property of consciousness, we would have to associate with the brain billions of different consciousnesses, that is billions of minds and personalities, each with its own self-awareness and will; this contradicts our direct experience, that is, our awareness of being a single person who is able to control the voluntary movements of his own body with his own will. If cerebral processes are analyzed taking into account the laws of physics, these processes do not identify any unity; this missing unit is the necessarily non-physical element (precisely because it is missing in the brain), the element that interprets the brain processes and generates a unitary conscious state, that is the human mind.

Here comes my forth argument: Consciousness is characterized by the fact that self-awareness is an immediate intuition that cannot be broken down or fragmented into simpler elements. This characteristic of consciousness of presenting itself as a unitary and non-decomposable state, not fragmented into billions of personalities, does not correspond to the quantum description of brain processes, which instead consist of billions of sequences of elementary incoherent quantum processes. When someone claims that consciousness is a property of the brain, they are implicitly considering the brain as a whole, an entity with its own specific properties, other than the properties of the components. From the physical point of view, the brain is not a whole, because its quantum state is not a coherent state, as in the case of entangled systems; the very fact of speaking of "brain" rather than many cells that have different quantum states, is an arbitrary choice. This is an important aspect, because, as I have said, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness. So, if a system can be considered decomposable and considering it as a whole is an arbitrary choice, then it is inconsistent to assume that such a system can have or generate consciousness, since consciousness is a necessary precondition for the existence of any arbitrary choice. In other words, to regard consciousness as a property ofthe brain, we must first define what the brain is, and to do so we must rely only on the laws of physics, without introducing arbitrary notions extraneous to them; if this cannot be done, then it means that every property we attribute to the brain is not reducible to the laws of physics, and therefore such property would be nonphysical. Since the interactions between the quantum particles that make up the brain are ordinary interactions, it is not actually possible to define the brain based solely on the laws of physics. The only way to define the brain is to arbitrarily establish that a certain number of particles belong to it and others do not belong to it, but such arbitrariness is not admissible. In fact, the brain is not physically separated from the other organs of the body, with which it interacts, nor is it physically isolated from the external environment, just as it is not isolated from other brains, since we can communicate with other people, and to do so we use physical means, for example acoustic waves or electromagnetic waves (light). This necessary arbitrariness in defining what the brain is, is sufficient to demonstrate that consciousness is not reducible to the laws of physics. Besides, since the brain is an arbitrary concept, and consciousness is the necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness, consciousness cannot be a property of the brain.
Based on these considerations, we can exclude that consciousness is generated by brain processes or is an emergent property of the brain. Marco Biagini

[bevarnold]

The compartmentalisation of the medical profession seems to be a perfect example of the lack of right brain revision in diagnosis as is the failure of specialisation in diagnosing human health conditions

[DrCharlesParker]

Love this discussion, a mutual interest in my work as well. Please take a moment to link McGilchrist's book in the show notes and the other books as well. I'm interested and would much appreciate more specific, accessible documentation. Thanks for the excellent info.

[DaveE]

Hack ones rt/lt balance- 1) be aware of it, once you see it, I see the whole works differently, Reading and feeling your way into it will readdress that balance. 2) reform education to stop banging on about us getting on about being better machines, but rather focus on making better people/. 3) mindfulness induces a state in which rt hemisphere’s attention is on the world.

[TheOnlyJonno]

This was amazing in it's entirety.

[rickroberts]

Wonder how this would relate to people on the asperger/autism spectrum? Left-brain dominant, etc?

[GBlunted]

@28:00 — BOOM 🤯! This is EXACTLY what I was expecting to hear in the description of the right hemispherical performance characteristics because it matches up with current hypothesize on some of the more common and ubiquitous psychic phenomenon that everyone is capable of as much as everyone is capable of playing an instrument or producing impressive artwork...
This description also lens credence to consciousness being the fundamental matrix in which spacetime emerges and NOT consciousness being an emergent phenomenon of any sufficiently complex arrangement of spacetime or 3 dimensional matter...

[cameronidk]

The first discussion with JBP turned me on to Iain and his book.. his second discution with JBP is probable what causes this vlog .. 46 comments refreshing to be part of such a small discussion. Another very deep mind concept Iain puts forth is the fact that there is some thing very iratiinal about the brain . And this might have a huge impact in AI and AGI .. the man is on to some thing very important

[mingonmongo]

Great stuff, thx! Nice interview, and good to see a little more exploration of the obviously 'yuge' implications from Sperry & Gazzaniga's famous Split Brain research in the 60's and 70's... that no matter how 'rational' we may be, we're all still literally of 'two minds'. BTW, clinical narcissism and autism/aspergers have both been described as expressions of overwhelming 'Left Brain' dominance, to the point of total _exclusion_ of the Right Hemisphere... which the latter is unaware of, while the former simply chooses to _ignore._

[ongogablogian]

Might this be uploaded to the How To Academy podcast?

[ascgazz]

Very rude to cut the man off mid answer on a web cast.
Interesting interview though. Thanks.

[theWinterWalker]

The right hemisphere has all the ""CONTEXT"

[thephilosophicalagnostic]

I've questioned the left-brain/right-brain dichotomy idea. And then I stumbled upon this:

"Twenty-five years ago, scientists thought that our capacities for language were on the left side of the brain and those for music were on the right. But our understanding has come a tremendous way since then. According to Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist who studies music’s effects on the brain, music affects almost every area of the brain so far studied."

I suspect this is true for every single thing each of us experiences. I suspect when the returns are in from neuroscience, each conscious experience a human being has will register throughout the brain.

If so, every single philosophy, theology, science based on the purported reality of hermetically sealed left-brain/right-brain processing will turn out to be deeply flawed.

[kathytaylor]

Please explain when a large part of the brain is removed in brain surgery, the neurons in the remaining part of the brain restructures the parts that have been removed. Have you researched this phenomenon?