The The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World

This is a quite amazing intellectual journey that has many insights into many, if not all, areas of learning, education and thinking generally. The author writes with an easy communicative style and maintains a clear link to his hemispherical theory. This is a long read for sure, but it has so many aspects that I will be thinking about for a very long time. This book will become one of the intellectual classics of the current world.

I've just finished reading the first two parts of The Matter with Things, and begun part 3 in the second volume.Rather than attempt to summarise the voluminous, varied and rich content of the book (and fall far short of doing it justice), let me simply say that this work does not simply talk about science, reason, intuition and imagination (among so many others), but is masterfully crafted by an author who has much life experience and insight to offer and clearly embodies the best of such paths and qualities.Sadly, I've already seen some comments in the social media from certain detractors who, in spite of not having read this book, believe that they can dismiss the work – which is 1,500 pages in print and 2,997 pages in the Kindle edition, and contains hundred of pages of closely-argued, liberally-referenced and deeply-nuanced text in Part I of the book alone – by posting single articles these “Google scholars” have found while carrying out their “research” (that is, searching the web for material with which to debunk the work).In my opinion (for what little that is worth), it's not a matter of agreeing with the author 100% or, on the other hand, utterly dismissing his work (or even damning it with faint praise), in terms of either/or, black and white, or even shades of grey – which is surely the domain of left hemispheric thinking – but rather a matter of and-both, often in glorious Technicolor; an open-ended exploration and a varied and rich experience, more characteristic of the right hemisphere and with the holistic, transcendent experience of both (where the left is servant to the master, the right).No matter: as the author quotes Friedrich Waismann: “No philosophic argument ends with a QED.” It's not a finite game but a wonderful infinite game, as James P. Carse proposed, in which playing the “game” rather than winning, the journey and the companionship rather than the final destination, is what it's all about.Sooner or later, I trust that we will come to see this in a whole new light (a Gestalt, even) – see that what we are not only witnessing but in the throes of here, in these increasingly “interesting times” is nothing less than a “Copernican Revolution” and “Fall of the Roman Empire” of the psyche (and hence Being). And in this, Iain McGilchrist will have played a major pivotal role. His work could not be more timely and apposite.Having said that: of course your mileage may well vary. Indeed, it would be strange if it did not.

I purchased this book in response to a comment made by a dear friend and non-dual teacher, Rupert Spira, in answer to a question posed on a retreat. I am a long-term meditator (43 years) but also have the sort of mind that asks questions of the deep mystery we inhabit. There is much talk in spiritual circles of ‘making the mind go away’ as if we could do such a thing, or as if the mind is a problem, not something we are born with, along with hands, feet and eyes. This over-simplification has never been helpful for me as I quite enjoy having a brain and spend a lot of time in it, while recognising its inherent drawbacks, if you will.This book is one of the few that have enabled me to understand how our magnificent brains work (at least understand in part) and has therefore contributed profoundly to my life journey. Hitherto it was a bit like being a car driver but not knowing where the gear stick was, screaming along in first gear. A clumsy example but it serves to show how a bit of knowledge can be transformative to one's experience. I see that ‘getting rid of the mind’ could be translated into ‘don’t let your left brain go off on one’ (to misquote McGilchrist). I now have insight into the workings of my own brain and can spot its tendencies (usually in the left hemisphere) to take me away from the present, gently heading them off at the pass. This is just one of the many insights this beautifully written and deeply informative book has given me. And I haven’t even completed it yet (don’t tell me the ending).‘To understand all is to forgive all’ is a common saying, but I have long thought that ‘to understand all’ is enough. Understanding renders forgiveness redundant. In understanding how the hemispheres work, there is no need to get rid of anything (even if such abstraction were possible). Just understand the brain (as best you can!) and live your life in kindness. I think St Augustine said something similar: Love and do what you will.I work in education and I have long thought that there is a skewed emphasis in our (UK) education system that works in direct opposition to the mental and emotional development and wellbeing of children. I hope to contribute to the body of writing on this topic from my specialist perspective (I work in home education with many special needs children, although that is not exclusively what I do) and this book has helped clarify my thinking and articulate my understanding to hopefully help others in my own field of work.Finally this book is not only one of the most important I have ever bought, it is also one of the heaviest! It is in two volumes but each is too much for this limp-wristed reader, who likes to read supine in bed. To expire from brain injury caused by dropping a heavy book about the hemispheres on one’s head struck me as an irony too far, so I got the kindle version too. I pass that on for what it’s worth, although the physical book is gorgeous and has a nicer layout.Finally I was pleased to discover that Iain McGilchrist lives on Skye, which is my favourite place on earth. I always do my best thinking on that magical isle where ‘the veil between gods and mortals is thin’. It would seem that McGilchrist does too. I am profoundly grateful for both his intellectual scholarship and his deeply developed heart. I am indebted - thank you.

Let me tell you a joke to illustrate the magnitude of Dr. McGilchrist work. One day, God called three souls for three equally important jobs on earth, to the first he said: Adam, you are going to revolutionize the field of economics, I'm tired of seeing people poor and hungry, to which the soul said, yes my lord, and Adam, -said God- keep your "invisible hand" on the table while we are having supper. Next, and the second soul approached God, you James, I command you to free men from the hardships of bearing heavy loads, and create the industrial revolution so Adam's theories can be applied, and humans can have trains and smartphones an all that, the regular stuff; and you, Iain, please fix the mess these two are going to create by explaining what went wrong, why a lot of people feel lost in spite of having abundant material wealth, and good health and pensions, etc. and how can we improve upon. But God, said Iain, if you know they are going to create a mess why don't avoid it all and don't send any of us, and God said: Because what is important is not the WHAT but the HOW. (and if you don't read the book, you probably don't get the whole joke, sorry)I'm on page 259 right now, and although I'm pretty much used to academic book books and heavy reading, Dr. McGilchrist books are as dense as a neutron stars, I have to stop every 10 pages or so to think about what I've read and what I've been introduced to; it is an endless trip, with the next room bigger and wider than the last one. The good thing is that he has the same classic English style as Winston Churchill, very proper and cult, but also poetic and fluid. His mastery of his native language is humbling, but as if that wasn't enough, the amount of knowledge he possesses and is capable of conveying is staggering, but the book is not impressive because is well written and full of interesting facts or ideas, that would turn it into a mere novelty, what makes this book (and his previous book) powerful emotional experience is the fact that at least in my case, when I am reading it, I feel the same as I was looking at The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini or listening to a caprice by Paganini. There is art beyond technique in this academic literary masterpiece, and I'm sure, I wont be the same person after I finished it, and so wont you.

Ian McGilchrist has an exceptional, astonishing yet ultimately credible and perhaps even strangely comforting understanding of how our minds and brains work, how they sometimes fall short or misapprehend what is important, and how they are involved in “making” the worlds that we experience. Each piece, perspective and process of our lives is rooted in and sustained by our brains and minds.He tells his story in a way that balances “structure” and the analytical approach of the left hemisphere, with the more holistic, generative, intuitive insight of the right, along with its humour and easygoing poetic style. But he does so effortlessly and naturally, so it is hard to tell if that is a deliberate choice of styles. He is an excellent writer, as well as a superbly insightful scientist.There are many, many stories, examples, quotations and such like that are used to support his case, but the “theory” he proposes has its own grounding in neutral logic, evidence, and an insight into subjectivity itself.I think this work has some critical implications for various aspects of our lives … partly in medicine and science, and in philosophy … but also, less obviously perhaps, for education, art, economics, commerce, politics.We are working our worlds in ways that are at very least sub-optimal, and probably much worse than that. I would like to hear more about how we might address that issue, which is appearing to me to be increasingly urgent and intractable.I very much enjoyed “The Master and his Emissary” too, but this is a more rounded, deeper work, with a bigger ambition in terms of implications for individuals, and for how we can and indeed should interact with (and as) our societies, communities, teams.It is difficult to find the right words to convey the way this book is both amazing, fresh, innovative … and yet apparently revealing enduring truths that we already half “know”.This book is something that speaks to us from somewhere very special.

The word oeuvre means a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer.I have had the great privilege to interview Iain McGilchrist on a number of occasions for the Innovation Show.I rarely listen back to my own show, but I have listened back to Iain many times and each time I learn something new.When a polymath writes, and when that polymath is a gifted writer, you get something special, that is what this book is. In addition, it is written on the foundation of humility, he writes from a whole-brain perspective, examines the individual parts with his left brain, while explaining the whole with his right.Here is a passage that exhibits his approach: "We can’t make a plant from a seed; we can, however, choose to stunt it or permit it to flourish. I want to permit something that I believe is already there in the reader to flourish.”If there is one book you should buy and slowly digest it, letting the thoughts it sparks marinate over time it is this magnificent oeuvre.