Iain McGilchrist
Iain McGilchrist
Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, doctor, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar. McGilchrist came to prominence after the publication of his book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
total
We have 26,000 genes. But a blind, millimetre-long roundworm with only 959 cells in total already has over 19,000.
inspirational keys attention
We bring about a world in consciousness that is partly what is given, and partly what we bring, something that comes into being through this particular conjunction and no other. And the key to this is the kind of attention we pay to the world.
years culture world
Over recent years, urbanisation, globalisation and the destruction of local cultures has led to a rise in the prevalence of mental illness in the developing world.
world matter way
Socialism and capitalism are both essentially materialist, just different ways of approaching the lifeless world of matter and deciding how to share the spoils.
disclose ends favour founded inclined massive pair rational
It is not rational to assume, without evidence, that rationality can disclose everything about the world, just because it can disclose some things. Our intuition in favour of rationality, where we are inclined to use it, is just that - an intuition. Reason is founded in intuition and ends in intuition, like a pair of massive bookends.
aware choosing compare comparing depends huge turns whether
To understand something, whether we are aware of it or not, depends on choosing a model. We get to understand what we see by comparing it with something else, something that we think we understand better. But what we compare it with turns out to have a huge influence on the outcome.
genetics pure rarely truth
The truth, it is said, is rarely pure or simple, yet genetics can at times seem seductively transparent.
commands demanded refuses sympathy trump
In Shakespeare, unique individuals repudiate the stereotypes demanded by the structure of the play: Shylock commands our sympathy, Barnardine refuses to be hanged. Individuals trump the category.
creativity drive nature space
The nature of creativity is to make space for things to happen... We can drive it out with our busyness and plans.
contains data fill genome human volumes
The human genome contains so much data that, it has been calculated, it would fill 43 volumes of Webster's International Dictionary.
architecture imperial roman vastness
The imperial vastness of late Roman architecture was made possible by the invention of concrete.
blueprint building design genome list plan
The genome was once thought to be just the blueprint for a living organism, like a combination of the architect's plan for a building and the builder's list of supplies. It specified the parts, the building blocks, and, somehow, the design of the whole, the way in which they are to be put together.
bunch hunters understand
Hunters and trackers learn not only to understand intellectually a bunch of facts about the animal they follow, but to feel their way into the very being of the animal.
along art heap music perspective tend
Perspective in art has receded along with harmony in music: We tend more and more to see the world as a heap of intrinsically meaningless fragments.