Can we really neglect the sacred and divine?.Is the cosmos without purpose or value?.How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time?.In this landmark new book, Iain McGilchrist addresses some of the oldest and hardest questions humanity faces – ones that, however, have a practical urgency for all of us today: Rather than try so summarize the new book myself, let me post this from Channel McGilchrist: The core idea is that the left brain is logical and analytical, while the right brain is more intuitive. The first part of the book is fairly technical, presenting a massive amount of neuroscience research about the two hemispheres, and how deficits in one affects a person’s perception. It’s hard to say for sure, because this is a massive book, and I’m only about a third of the way through it. This new book seems to be more focused on the philosophical and metaphysical implications of his thesis. I don’t want to go into explaining his basic hypothesis here, so if you are just coming to his work, check out the basics on Channel McGilchrist. McGilchrist’s previous work, The Master And His Emissary : The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, the psychiatrist focuses on the different ways of processing information in the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. The first part of the book is a fairly technical discussion of neuroscience, and what it has to tell us about perception. It might be too late to get the hardback, but not the Kindle version. At the end of this post, you will know if someone you know would like to get this book for Christmas it appeals to a certain kind of person, and boy oh boy, am I ever that kind of person. Not only is Kindle far easier for me to deal with as a researcher (it has a notes function that allows you to highlight passages you like, and export them via e-mail to your laptop), but with a book this big, it’s easier on the wrists. If you want the hardback, you have to pay $157, but I got the Kindle version for $40.
Mind you, this book is about 1,500 pages in all, and comes in two volumes. I am deep into Iain McGilchrist’s massive tome The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, and I could not possibly be more delighted with it. I’m going to repost one of the diary entries here, because it’s an important book that I want more people to know about - RD) (Over on my subscription-only Substack ( “Rod Dreher’s Diary”), which focuses more on spiritual matters, I’ve been writing about the new book by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist.
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