Matter and Mind: Embrace Complexity

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Matter is far more complex than commonly perceived, as modern physics reveals significant challenges in its explanation, akin to those faced in understanding consciousness. This complexity often goes unrecognized by non-physicists who simplify matters to a stark dichotomy. Physicists acknowledge this intricacy yet caution against assuming that consciousness can merely arise from matter, suggesting that reliance on reason must be approached cautiously due to its inherent limits. Notable thinkers like Pascal highlighted the importance of recognizing the boundaries of reason, indicating that failing to acknowledge these limits renders it ineffective.

What would a post physicalist world look like?

So in this episode we’re going to evaluate the evidence presented by psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist, from his extensive analysis of split-brain studies, that support a broader understanding of the mind and reality. One that pushes beyond the traditional reductionist materialist worldview, to include the implicit, the context dependent and the consciousness dependent.

He’s just released an epic two part book to clarify all of this, ‘The matter with things: Our brains, our delusions and the unmaking of the world’ in which he asks how we should understand consciousness, space, time and matter, given the apparent over-emphasis on Left hemisphere interpretation of the world.

Iain is an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford; he’s a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London; a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, in Baltimore. And he now lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland.

He has published original research as well as original articles in papers and journals, including the British Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatry & Psychology, The BMJ, The Lancet, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times on topics in literature, medicine, psychiatry and philosophy. He has taken part in many radio and TV programmes and documentaries, including for the BBC, NPR, and ABC and also took part in a Canadian full-length feature film about his work called The Divided Brain.

This interview was recorded at the start of last year, so the new book is not covered in so much detail.

What we discuss in this episode:

00:00 In communication with the world itself

06:30 Taking the implicit apart and out of context: disembodying it

12:00 John Cutting: noticing consequences of right hemisphere damage

14:40 The differences between the hemispheres shown in many studies

27:00 The Left Brain Interpreter: Denial and invention by the right hemisphere

29:15 Scientism: the belief that science can explain everything

30:48 Imagination and intuition in scientific discovery

33:10 Reason suggests there are immaterial things

37:40 We only know about matter because of consciousness

42:00 Navigating beyond materialism