Everything You Know About the BRAIN is WRONG! Here’s How the Brain ACTUALLY Works | Iain McGilchrist

I’m teaching a LIVE workshop later this November to teach you how to make ANY goal stick.

Look - the truth is, most people never come close to achieving their goals - and it’s not because they’re not smart enough, or not worthy. It’s because they aren’t using the right strategies to stick to doing the work that’s going to lead to their success. Make no mistake, achieving goals is a PROCESS - that means you can learn it and get better at it. To join me and register your seat, go to live.impacttheory.com.

Iain McGilchrist, renowned psychiatrist, author and thinker joins Tom to share some of the key ideas he writes about in his latest 2 volume book, The Matter of Things. Part of what he proposes is that you keep an open mind and be aware that the ideas and images people are so strongly influenced by are in fact myths and stories. The version of what you see in your reality matters to what you decide to see and live your life by.

“It doesn't matter what you look at, it matters what you see.” -Henry David Thoreau

So much of what the world is and who we are is not understood. To think you fully grasp the complexities of consciousness, matter, space and time would be wildly ignorant. Iain perfectly quotes psychologist William James, “ignorance is a sea and knowledge is a drop in that ocean” In this conversation Iain explores ideas of how little we truly know about the cognitive function of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. He highlights the beauty and complexity of order in the universe even where we are unable to fully grasp and understand the order. He’s calling people to be open to the seemingly random chaos and meaninglessness of life to find a better way to live and a better vision of the world we live in. The path of doing so challenges you to embrace the many paradoxical reactions occurring all around us in nature.

Check out Iain McGilchrist’s book, The Matter With Things

SHOW NOTES:

QUOTES:

“Everything that exists, not just in the brain, but in physics, in the world at large in nature, depends on a combination of division and union [...] There needs to be the synthesis of union with division.” [8:59]

“Both hemispheres do everything in some way, but it's all about that ‘in some way’. It's the how not the what. So they do the ‘what’ of the same things, but they do the how of them completely differently.” [12:47]

“The emotional brain is as much the left hemisphere as the right. It specializes in anger, irritability, and doesn't like being crossed.” [28:43]

“Neurology and theology are not at war with one another, they are seeing the same realities just at slightly different levels and in different ways.” [35:42]

“If you want to know about a human being, the brain is a pretty central place to start.” [39:32]

“I would be giving the wrong impression if I said that I know anything about what God is, or I’m a believer in whatever, but it will also be equally wrong to say, ‘I dismiss this or I don't believe it’.” [56:21]

“Belief is not about believing six impossible things before breakfast. It's about a disposition of your mind towards the world.” [57:36]

“We need to be able to keep away from this way of reducing our understanding, keeping ourselves open to all and wonder, keeping ourselves with a little humility about what our intellects can actually do, and having compassion for people who disagree with us.” [59:57]

“We should live in a world where there is virtually nothing that you can't say, it's how you say it.” [1:11:56]

“There are four main pathways to the truth, science, reason, intuition, and imagination. Any worldview that tries to get by without paying due respect to all four of these is bound to fail.” Iain McGilchrist read by Tom [1:16:48]

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