An interview with Iain McGilchrist

The Mythos and the Machine

Are you a machine?

I recently interviewed Iain McGilchrist, psychiatrist and author of The Master and his Emissary (2009) and The Matter With Things (2021)

And the question of machines was front and centre

McGilchrist is famous for the divided brain theory of consciousness. Humans have evolved two forms of consciousness, one that builds a simplified model of reality to grasp at objects, the other with a whole view of reality to grasp the big picture.

McGilchrist's wider argument is that the lesser "left brain" conscious - the Emissary - has displaced the "right brain" - the Master.

One symptom of this is the widespread belief that reality and everything in it, including us humans, is a machine. The lesser consciousness is mechanistic, and sees all reality as a mechanism.

I talk through the divided brain theory, the literal mindedness of the left brain, the mythic imagination of the right brain, and much more.

Members of the Science Fiction community will find the interview now on the private RRS feed, and in the channel members section. Everyone else gets the interview on Sunday.

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