Notes for Video: Our Unmaking of the World - and the return to being

This is a collection of notes for a video interview with McGilchrist about his book “Unmaking of the World and the return to being. (contact me for the link). Here you go:

  • “if there is something wrong with the world right now, maybe it relates to how we think”
  • we have become mesmorized with a mechanistic, reductionist way of thinking of the left brain half

–> maybe read “mastery of hemisphere” (?) (RIGHT) pay manute attention to detail right: known, explicit, disembodied, reduced to their part, sees a world that is fragmented –> makes contributions to science & reason but also to intuition & imagination (LEFT) pay broad, sustained, vigilant attention left: essentially connected, fresh, unique, never fully certain, all that is implicit, 2-dimensional perception – values of power and utility

how we attend to the world changes what we find there

distinction: of being present in the world and allowing the world to presence to us (Heidegger uses this) <—> living in a representation (a scheme, a theory, a map)

Questions of the book

6:40 tynus (?) asked the question “who are we?” and “what is the world?”

to reach some insight, we need to look at both hemispheres and understand how they deliver information to know which one to favor (though both might give some truth)

“how do we know aything?” (the big question of #epistemology)

“what is the structure of the cosmos and what is it made out of?”

portals to the world: attention, perception, judgement, emotional and social intelligence, kognitive intelligence, capacity to think creatively <– all of those are better performed by right hemisphere (makes sounder judgement) - better at comprehending

left hemisphere is better at apprehending, better at getting stuff and manipulating it - we prioritize the getting and the grasping. thats why its so big. when we see the signs of flattened out arguments devoid of emotional and spiritual connection in a philosophical argument, we know that this is the left hemisphere speaking

#historyOfPhilosophy in the history of philosophy we used to say “some people see it like this and others like that” - for the first time we might say this is the imprint of the right or left hemisphere and we know that one should be prioritized

#understanding_The_World four main parts to understanding the world - we need all four

  • science (left) (procedural method)
  • reason (left)
  • intuition
  • imagination (the onlye way to get any understanding of reality (?))

reason doesn’t just mean purely logical reasoning or only application of scientific method - it’s an ability to get insight - by seing a gestalt (which is much more than the sum of its parts)

#building_Blocks

  • time
  • space
  • matter
  • consciousness
  • #ontological_primitives (value, purpose, sense of the sacred) maybe one can say that we need to “meet” in all these domains to connect with each other fully

intuition helps us make insights in science, the arts, etc…

unmaking of the world - a substitution of the animated world with the living reality

things are secondary phenomena that emerge from the web of relationships #relationships

everything that exists is in process everything that exists is interconnected

fragemention, analysis: construction into parts. sometimes, when you deconstruct, you cannot re-create the whole

to understand the parts you need to understand what wholes it can make <– relates to imagination as the only way to understand reality to understand the whole you need to understand what parts make it up

mistakes of current epistimologies

mistaking of distinction as seperation: the process of creation is a matter of individuation (dinstictive, unique beings) - distinction is not division

[18:40]

  • tendency to fix things (left hemisphere): but everything is flowing
  • tendency toward abstraction: John Due: biggest mistake made in philosophy is the tedency toward abstraction. (#vicious_Abstractionism)
  • loss of depth: when people have right-hemisphere damage they no longer have understanding of depth of time and perceive chopped-up instances; they see space as two dimensions flattened onto a wall
  • loss of depth of emotion: left (disgust, anger), right(awe, compassion)

“no one has the slightest idea how consciousness could emerge from matter if matter were not conscious” it’s totally illogical to believe that matter is unconscious. the only reason we believe it is because we think we understand matter (but it’s super mysterious) matter offers resistance which shapes consciousness into what we experience

  • we also understand values as a “paint-on” of opinion: however, they are ontological primitives (they cannot be reduced to anything else). Darwin expressed this: beauty might be used as lure to reproductive, sortitive mating but this doesn’t explain why beauty comes into existence (why are certain forms and shapes intrinsically beautiful?) #values #beauty
  • why do uphold the value of truth? if the our cosmos and life is a heap of non-sensical stuff. Why prioritize #truth ? The existence of values is primary and we exist to respond to these primary values of truth, beauty, and goodness

[26:00] - the left hemisphere is immoral, the right hemisphere is moral

  • also conflates undersatnding of purpose: left hemisphere thinks of it as control;
  • misunderstand the sacred: cannot be descrived by langauge and reason then it doesn’t exist or it is a mistake - we think
    • “it is not irrational to find deep meaning in music. it is not irrational at all. it is just not ecnompassable by reason” - transrational or suprarational –> the limitation of language to express it are by no means a sign that it doesn’t exist #music
    • all the great traditions of the world have a taboo to name what it is that represents the divine because it limits it, breaks it: if you understand god, then it’s not god you’ve understood [29:40]
    • richard fineman: “if you have understood quantum mechanism, you have not understood quantum mechanics”
    • “the limitations of language should be pretty obvious to anyone who thinks” #limitations-of-language
  • we have an obsession with clarity. clarity is important but when we try to make things overclear, things get wrong (illusory precision)

science & reason are crucial

“science needs to be more scientific by investigating the various posibillities in an undogmatic way. and reason, too, should not be dogmatic” #philosophy-of-science problematic: if we don’t see the assumptions we have made, we don’t see the limitations of the model

there is no war between science & reason <–> intuition & imagination

they all do necessary things. they complement one another. the problem comes when one things - because it sees less - that it sees all (dunning kruger effect) [33:00]

the things that give us psychological, physical health

  • social cohesion
  • proximity to and involvement with the natural world
  • having a spiritual belief about the world

the path to re-making our world is to be aware of the unmaking of our world

“I want to reintroduce us to a living, complex, beautiful world - that is our birthright - of which we have been robbed by a kind of reductionist, materialist thinking, which i believe is intelectually shotty, morally irresponsible & spiritually bankrupt”


ID MCGILCHRIST2021-VID