ConnectIONS Live

Normally only available for IONS Members, we’ll share a replay of our most popular ConnectIONS Live webinars every week throughout the summer. This video is available to the public until August 25th.

Our Unmaking of the World — and the Return to Being

Recorded on November 12, 2021

Dr. Iain McGilchrist addresses some of the oldest and hardest questions humanity faces – ones that, however, have a practical urgency for all of us today. Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space, and time? Is the cosmos without purpose or value? Can we really neglect the sacred and divine? In his landmark new book, The Matter with Things, he argues that we have become enslaved to an account of things dominated by the brain’s left hemisphere, one that blinds us to an awe-inspiring reality that is all around us, had we but eyes to see it. He suggests that in order to understand ourselves and the world, we need science and intuition, reason and imagination, not just one or two; that they are in any case far from being in conflict; and that the brain’s right hemisphere plays the most important part in each.

SPEAKER

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a former Clinical Director of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. His previous book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World reached international recognition and acclaim and has marked him out as one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of our time.

HOST

David Lorimer is a writer, lecturer, poet, and editor who is a Founder of Character Education Scotland, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, and former President of Wrekin Trust and the Swedenborg Society. He has also been editor of Paradigm Explorer since 1986 and completed his 100th issue in 2019. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Survival? Death as Transition, Resonant Mind (originally Whole in One), The Spirit of Science, Thinking Beyond the Brain, and Radical Prince about the ideas and work of the Prince of Wales. He is the originator of the Inspiring Purpose Values Poster Programmes, which has reached over 350,000 young people. He is also Chair of the Galileo Commission which seeks to widen science beyond a materialistic worldview. Visit his website to learn more.

We are pleased to share the following resources from the webinar:

• Website for Dr. Iain McGilchrist
• The Matter With Things by Dr. Iain McGilchrist [Book]
  • The Matter With Things by Dr. Iain McGilchrist [Book – UK Purchase Only]
• Website for David Lorimer
• The Scientific and Medical Network [Website]
• Galileo Commission [Website]