Iain McGilchrist

Psychiatrist, Philosopher, and Neuroscientist

Iain McGilchrist is a British psychiatrist, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar best known for exploring how the two hemispheres of the brain shape human perception, thought, and culture. His work challenges the popular “left brain vs. right brain” cliché, instead showing how the hemispheres have deeply different but complementary ways of attending to the world. McGilchrist argues that Western society has increasingly favored the left hemisphere’s narrow, analytical focus at the expense of the right hemisphere’s broader, more holistic awareness—an imbalance he believes underlies many modern cultural and environmental crises.

After studying English literature at Oxford and working as a Fellow in English at All Souls College, McGilchrist retrained in medicine and psychiatry, specializing in neuropsychiatry. His acclaimed books, including The Master and His Emissary (2009) and The Matter with Things (2021), weave neuroscience, philosophy, art, and history into a sweeping narrative about the divided brain’s role in everything from science and politics to meaning and spirituality. Known for both his erudition and his ability to connect complex science with everyday life, McGilchrist’s work has influenced thinkers across disciplines and sparked lively debates on the nature of mind and reality.

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Mentioned in 3 documents

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

A Landscape of Consciousness

Diverse explanations or theories of consciousness are arrayed on a roughly physicalist-to-nonphysicalist landscape of essences and mechanisms. Categories: Materialism Theories (philosophical, neurobiological, electromagnetic field, computational and informational, homeostatic and affective, embodied and enactive, relational, representational, language, phylogenetic evolution); Non-Reductive Physicalism; Quantum Theories; Integrated Information Theory; Panpsychisms; Monisms; Dualisms; Idealisms; Anomalous and Altered States Theories; Challenge Theories. There are many subcategories, especially for Materialism Theories. Each explanation is self-described by its adherents, critique is minimal and only for clarification, and there is no attempt to adjudicate among theories. The implications of consciousness explanations or theories are assessed with respect to four questions: meaning/purpose/value (if any); AI consciousness; virtual immortality; and survival beyond death. A Landscape of Consciousness, I suggest, offers perspective.

Daniel Schmachtenberger and Nate Hagens

Artificial Intelligence and the Superorganism

Daniel Schmachtenberger and Nate Hagens discuss a surprisingly overlooked risk to our global systems and planetary stability: artificial intelligence. Through a systems perspective, Daniel and Nate piece together the biophysical history that has led humans to this point, heading towards (and beyond) numerous planetary boundaries, and facing geopolitical risks all with existential consequences. How does artificial intelligence not only add to these risks, but accelerate the entire dynamic of the metacrisis? What is the role of intelligence versus wisdom on our current global pathway, and can we change course? Does artificial intelligence have a role to play in creating a more stable system, or will it be the tipping point that drives our current one out of control?

Joscha Bach

How a Spiritual Worldview Explains Consciousness