Interview with Dr. Iain McGilchrist, on consciousness and its role in nature
Seeing | Philosophy | 2022-04-17
Natalia Vorontsova, MA
Dr. Iain McGilchrist
Essentia Foundation’s Natalia Vorontsova interviews psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist about his new work, “The Matter with Things,” and the role of consciousness in nature. Unmissable!
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Recently published
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This short and powerful essay argues that the widespread dismissal of the Hard Problem of Consciousness is an unintended consequence of science education itself. Our pedagogy first encourages us to project the language of intention onto mindless processes, cheapening the concept; then, it swiftly debunks that intention as a mere metaphor. After years of this training, we reflexively apply the same logic to ourselves, trivializing the one form of interiority that is undeniably real, argues Brian Fang.
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Professor of Biology Denis Noble, best known for creating the first mathematical model of a beating cardiac cell, proposes a profound shift in how we understand life. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, he challenges the long-standing central dogma of Neo-Darwinism: the notion of one-way causation from DNA to cell to organism, with genes positioned as the ultimate governors of biology. Instead, Noble proposes a theory of ‘biological relativity’: no single level—genes, cells, organs, or the whole organism—has privileged causal authority.
From the archives
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In this remarkably Schopenhauerian essay, Arthur Haswell argues that a world where consciousness is fundamental may still be a world of suffering; even fundamental suffering: “Does a universe imbued with mind, or even purpose, necessarily translate into one that is benevolent or meaningful in the way we might wish, or purposeful in a way that is conducive to joy? Surely, if consciousness is ubiquitous, then the problem of suffering may be expanded rather than alleviated,” he argues.
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David Lloyd invites us to see form as an expression of feeling, a notion whereby the physical world becomes the geometric expression of inner emotion, carrying—or, better yet, mirroring—in its patterns the qualitative structures of feeling. This essay is not an analytical argument, but an invitation to imagine reality in a different, richer way, taking its metaphysical cues from a form of objective idealism.
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What if you are a pixel in a higher-level consciousness navigating through extra dimensions of time? Meet the ‘Nested Observer Window Model’ of Jonathan Schooler, PhD, who is Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara, Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential, and Acting Director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. In this video, Hans Busstra interviewed Schooler on his Nested Observer Window Model and how we need to extend physics to account for consciousness.
Reading
Essays
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Dr. Kelvin McQueen, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Chapman University, examines the leading quantum-consciousness theories and the unresolved questions that still hinder them all: what exactly is collapse, and what counts as a measurement? Building on his work with David Chalmers, McQueen argues that the neuroscience of Integrated Information Theory (IIT), with it’s definition of consciousness as intrinsic causal integration (quantified by Φ), offers a novel way forward.
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Brian Fang discusses the many instances in which mathematics developed without empirical motivation turned out to precisely describe the physical patterns of nature. Why would primates evolved to hunt and gather develop the cognitive ability to unveil the underlying mathematical structure of the cosmos? He argues that the most plausible explanation is that nature is itself the expression of mind-like structures also directly present in the human intellect. Mathematical introspection is thus an exploration of the underlying mental landscapes of the cosmos as a whole.
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In this remarkably Schopenhauerian essay, Arthur Haswell argues that a world where consciousness is fundamental may still be a world of suffering; even fundamental suffering: “Does a universe imbued with mind, or even purpose, necessarily translate into one that is benevolent or meaningful in the way we might wish, or purposeful in a way that is conducive to joy? Surely, if consciousness is ubiquitous, then the problem of suffering may be expanded rather than alleviated,” he argues.
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David Lloyd invites us to see form as an expression of feeling, a notion whereby the physical world becomes the geometric expression of inner emotion, carrying—or, better yet, mirroring—in its patterns the qualitative structures of feeling. This essay is not an analytical argument, but an invitation to imagine reality in a different, richer way, taking its metaphysical cues from a form of objective idealism.
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What if you are a pixel in a higher-level consciousness navigating through extra dimensions of time? Meet the ‘Nested Observer Window Model’ of Jonathan Schooler, PhD, who is Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara, Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential, and Acting Director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. In this video, Hans Busstra interviewed Schooler on his Nested Observer Window Model and how we need to extend physics to account for consciousness.
Seeing
Videos
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In this thought experiment mixed with science fiction and serious futurism, eminent neuroscientist Dr. Christof Koch sketches a not-so-distant future in which we will be tempted by the promise of eternal life in an AI cloud. With the fluidity of a novelist, he brings to life this felt temptation, in all its force, just to smash it towards the end. This essay is a critical warning to us all, an attempt to have us confront the problem before we are actually faced with it, so we can protect ourselves with the light of reason.
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Physicist and physician Dr. Anita Goel has designed the equivalent of the double slit experiment in a living system, to test if the nanomachines that read and write DNA could operate quantum mechanically. In this interview with Hans Busstra, Goel talks about her experiment and explores the new theoretical framework it could lead to: a new physics to understand life, living systems and consciousness.
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While Prof. Torday agrees with Federico Faggin that quantum mechanics is salient to consciousness, he maintains that the role of the cell membrane—which separates an organism from its environment—is key to the selective assimilation or mirroring of the quantum properties of the cosmos into the differentiated consciousness of the organism. This essay is short, dense, and may be difficult to unpack. But it handsomely rewards the effort of the patient and determined reader. The many literature citations in the essay also provide rich ground for further exploration.
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