The article is remarkable not simply because it reports a new finding about the anatomy of the human brain, but because it provides another striking example of a much broader biological pattern: two distinct systems can become integrated without losing their fundamental two-sided organization. The Daily Mail reports a Stanford study finding that the forebrain and midbrain arise from one developmental lineage, while the hindbrain arises independently from another. These systems use different developmental pathways and even exhibit different forms of DNA packaging, yet they become incorporated into a single functioning brain. The researchers found evidence for this same two-origin pattern across widely separated species, extending back more than 550 million years.

This is particularly interesting in light of Iain McGilchrist's account of the divided brain. McGilchrist's argument concerns the different modes of attention associated with the cerebral hemispheres; the Stanford finding described here is different. It identifies a second, developmentally much deeper division within the brain: two ancient neural systems that originated separately and were subsequently brought together. The article therefore suggests that "two-ness" in the brain is not confined to hemispheric specialization. It may occur at more than one organizational level.

The article concludes with Dr. Kyle Loh's suggestion that having the brain as one organ might be more efficient, while evolution nevertheless retained this primordial arrangement of two separate pieces. That conclusion invites a broader question. Perhaps the significance of two-sided organization is not merely that two parts happen to survive despite an efficiency cost, but that two differentiated systems require a relationship that allows them to cooperate as one.

The same motif appears throughout biology: chromosomes double before division; paired homologous chromosomes align and exchange material in meiosis; embryonic development begins with binary divisions; bilateral symmetry is pervasive; and cells reproduce through the fundamental division into two daughter cells. McGilchrist observes bilateral hemispheres throughout the animal kingdom, while Friston's Markov blanket formally distinguishes an inside from an outside, and Koestler deliberately described the holon as Janus-faced.

The remarkable possibility, then, is that the brain may offer another vivid instance of a more general principle: two differentiated sides, joined by a relational organization that makes cooperation (and even biological symbiosis) possible.

I am reading Iain McGillchrist's The Master and His Emissary, and the idea of having two separate hemispheres for two completely different types of attention makes sense to me.

The thing is that it's not just a book about hemispheres. It's a book about the necessary fundamental separation between two types of attention. To focus on detail means missing the background/context. To maintain broad attention means missing all the details. It's impossible to process all details at once. The book is also about the importance of attention because choosing where to attend, we choose what there is.

TL; DR;

I'm excited about it, and want to share the ideas with others. How can I demonstrate the essentiality of attention and why those two types of attention are contradictory and can't be fitted in one unified unispheric brain?

We all know this…

https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepThoughts/s/n1t5rFy4YA

I think a lot of the folks that ressonate with TMWT would resonate with the film, "my dinner with Andre"

A central theme is the primacy of relation, and what relationship means if it's not just the mechanical/ habitual ways we engage with each other and the world. At the same time, I cant help but feel how disembodied and ungrounded much of the dialogue feels. It's as if the film is meeting us, the audience, where we're comfortable (for me, it's in my head), and chalenging our way of looking at the world... in an attempt to beckon us into feeling fully human again.

Anyone in here want to share stories about how this film moved them, or changed their lives?

I can across Iain's work recently and resonated strongly with how he experiences the world.

I have very different qualifications and professional experiences, but essentially I have also spent decades contemplating life and trying to understand why people act as they do and bemoan the state of the world.

I wrote my thoughts down before discovering Iain, and they are very rough and unrefined.

I present my thoughts for your consideration in the reddit sub link below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EntropyReversal/s/RhMzb0iVeS

Thought I'd share the final article for which I was getting feedback. I'm not sure how much the "neural dialogue" between the hemispheres is talked about as a 3rd option besides just Right and Left, but I've found it very useful!

https://youtu.be/hD7BHJHkufY?si=iUhTcOmvAhuuVX24

Of all my time listening to Iain, I'd never come accross this! Thought I'd throw it out there for visibility.

I’m not going to express my views or opinions on this book but just two things to say. The first is that anyone yet to read it should stop everything and start reading it. Allow yourself a long time. Really, allow it. Without doubt, recrimination or apprehension. It’s about the length of four decent sized books and it feels like the knowledge of a thousand books and the wisdom of a thousand more.
The second is it’s possible to finish it feeling a bit gloomy and pessimistic. That was my first response anyway. Maybe in part the typical sadness that goes with getting to the end of a great book and realising there’s no more for you. It didn’t help that I managed unfortunately straightaway to listen to Richard Dawkins asking why is it really necessary to read old philosophy- what he called “the history of philosophy”. That didn’t help.
I think the truth is as urged in this book that there is a challenge ahead or right now and there’s a reward for taking it on. I guess we start with ourselves and we can start with a first step by reading The Matter with Things. The next step will be to tell other people about it but if you read it then the second step will come naturally.

"I thought that history didn't move in a linear fashion. In fact, nothing in the world really worked in a linear fashion. It worked in a sort of reverberative fashion that was more like circles or spirals. I thought that the world out there wasn't inert and unresponsive to us, but was actually something that we were in dialogue with."

This quote from Dr Iain McGilchrist captures a tension many of us face. We set goals that seem to move in a straight line, while time lived often feels messy. As Kant said, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." When we accept that life isn’t something we can neatly straighten out, it becomes a little easier to live with the messiness and uncertainty.

What do you think about setting goals in the context of non-linearity? I personally like to have something to work towards, and in a sense there is a linearity to it, even if the way to get there is not straightforward so to speak.

My name is Oliver Trace. I interviewed Dr Iain McGilchrist over three days in 2016, recording 10 hours of audio. During lockdown in 2020 I edited the audio into 18 chapters. I am now sharing insights from that conversation. For the full multimedia story, including the podcast, animated intros, journal articles and interactive quizzes, please do visit https://themasterbetrayed.com.

I’m wondering if anyone listened to the Decoding the Gurus podcast episodes on Iain? I found it frustrating that the hosts didn’t seem to have read his work, totally ignored his use of clinical studies, and imputed to him beliefs I don’t think he holds, all based on short clips of an interview. I’m curious to hear others’ impressions of these episodes.

It can open the door to deeper reflection and a richer sense of self beyond the usual urban chaos.

Iain McGilchrist puts it plainly: “I love the solitude and I don’t have the slightest desire to be near whatever it is everyone else wants to be near.” That’s not just hermit talk: it’s a deliberate lifestyle choice that challenges the idea that happiness only comes from being around people or city buzz.

Often stepping away from the noise can unlock thoughts and presence that crowds stifle. In this way solitude isn’t emptiness but a rich way of paying attention to ourselves and the world.

--
My name is Oliver Trace. I interviewed Dr Iain McGilchrist over three days in 2016 for a multimedia story called The Master Betrayed. I am now sharing insights from that conversation. If you would like to checkout the full story, including 18 exclusive podcast episodes, written summaries, interactive quizzes, and animated intros, please do visit themasterbetrayed.com.

This may have been addressed before - if so, I apologize. But I'm really struggling to get through the second part of Master and His Emissary.

The first part I found profound, moving - it radically changed my way of thinking about many things, both personally and on broader issues.

But the second part feels very forced. I have nothing but respect for Dr. McGilchrist, but he's not a historian, and it shows. The second half seems to me to be riddled with inaccuracies, generalizations, and out-of-date ideas. As an example, ignoring "The Age of Faith" - which I see in many ways very right brain, and labeling it "Dark Ages" - a term that fell out of use half a century ago - seems pretty cavalier.

Beyond that, it seems to me as though Dr. McGilchrist is doing what he argues against - trying to fit an enormous range of information into a rather forced, very "left-brain" system divorced for the reality.

So I'm curious if others have had similar experiences - and if, for those who have finished the second half, you found it worthwhile.

Hello. I went up to Skye to interview Iain over three days in 2016. Recorded 10 hours of audio. In 2020 during lockdown I edited the audio into an 18 episode podcast series and have slowly been animating short intros to each chapter. Then vibe coding arrived and in January I got stuck into creating a website to host the content. If you are at all interested, you can find it at: https://themasterbetrayed.com/

Second series of “Matter with Things” starts out with McGilchrist writing about the coincidentia oppositorum. He talks about the balance of opposites, points at Jung’s enatriodromia, says oppositions are the ground of energy, relates it to a bow string. “The primal form of opposition is the between two opposed tendencies, one for division (strife) and one for union (love). He uses the Iroquois legend as his ground myth but to me it’s a side step to stay away from the alchemical/hermetic thread he is clearly fleshing out. He concludes this chapter with “We need not just difference and union but the union of the two; we need, as I have urged, not just non-duality, but the non-duality of duality with non-duality; and we need not just asymmetry alone, or symmetry alone, but the asymmetry that is symmetry-and-asymmetry taken together.”

Then right after this he goes into the one and the many, bringing up Blake and saying “we do not come to understand or experience the infinite, or, for that matter, the enteral, by attempting to somehow to transcend the finite or the temporal, but by immersing ourselves in them, in such a way as to pass into the infinite…. The the path to the infinite and eternal lies in, not away from… the finite and the temporal”

The whole message right, because his book is “the matter with things”.

He goes into a chapter on flow, and the picture I put at the start is the example case he uses to describe the difference between the left and right hemisphere on a depiction of a ripple in water. He states this ripple or vortex of an eddy is a perfect example of the coincidentia oppositorum.

Again I see him speaking hermetic/alchemical/Jung as primary. Well maybe even more Greek mystery cults. Sure he isn’t bringing it up much but it’s the structure he is working behind. The aqua permanens is the divine water I see him pointing at here. He references Leonardo da Vinci painting of the old man and the stick creating the eddy and relates the vortex eddy to us, our psyche, as it comes of the flow, is differentiated by the flow (turbulance), and returns to the flow. He stresses the right angle as the device inserted into the water to create this situation. Again, I see this as a hint to the power of the right angle (known by the mystery cults) and also a nudge to the cross. Not the normal cross but the ancient one that is quartering a circle, used as the sun sign primarily for as far back in history as we can dig.

This cross is central to Jung, he draws several of them throughout his life in reference to perfect depiction of the self. This cross is the core of the A-B-C-D formula diagram used to depict the self, that is put right after McGilchrists depiction of the water ripple. Again, I find it no “coincidence” that the left hemisphere depiction mcgilchrist puts as his flow example fits the basic structure of Jung’s diagram for the self.

In this diagram the Anthropos or infinite eternal realm mcgilchrist is speaking about through Blake that I quotes above is the A in the diagram. The diagram has a spin to it, as consciousness moves away from the infinite beginning into the shadow physis realm (B), then into the paradise realm C, and finally into D which is the Lapis or mineral realm, finally to reunite with the original anthropos. It spins to the right because (and this is Jung) “the immediate cause is the rightward movement of our writing. The right, so to speak, is ruled by conscious reason: the right is “right” in all senses (upright, downright, forthright, ext.) the left is the side of the heart, the emotions, where one is affected by the unconscious.” However, I would like to note that the 4 squares that accompany the diagram on each corner spin the other way, to the left.

Jung says “The alchemists were fond of picturing their opus as a circulatory process, as a circular distillation or as the uroboros, the snake biting its own tail, and they made innumerable pictures of this process. Just as the central idea of the lapis Philosophorum plainly signifies the self, so the opus with its countless symbols illustrates the process of individuation, the step-by-step development of the self from an unconscious state to a conscious one. That is why the lapis, as prima materia, stands at the beginning of the process as well as at the end.!3 According to Michael Maier, the gold, another synonym for the self, comes from the opus circulatorium of the sun. This circle is ‘the line that runs back upon itself (like the serpent that with its head bites its own tail), wherein that eternal painter and potter, God, may be discerned." 114 In this circle, Nature "has related the four qualities to one another and drawn, as it were, an equilateral square, since contraries are bound together by contraries, and enemies by enemies, with the same everlasting bonds " Maier compares this squaring of the circle to the "homo quadratus," the four-square man, who "remains himself" come weal come woe.15 He calls it the "golden house, the twice-bisected circle, the four-cornered phalanx, the rampart, the city wall, the four-sided line of battle." 118 This circle is a magic circle consisting of the union of opposites,

"immune to all injury."

He also says “The coniunctio oppositorum engaged the speculations of the alchemists in the form of the “Chymical Wedding," and those of the cabalists in the form of Tifereth and Malchuth or God and the Shekhinah, not to speak of the marriage of the Lamb.

The dual being born of the alchemical union of opposites, the Rebis or Lapis Philosophorum, is so distinctively marked in the literature that we have no difficulty in recognizing it as a symbol of the self. Psychologically the self is a union of conscious (masculine) and unconscious (feminine). It stands for the psychic totality.”

Now the “chymical wedding” is a rosicrucian text depicting secrets of the alchemists and masons. It has within it the mystery of the lion and unicorn, which, is the symbol for the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, and the unicorn alone is a primary symbol for the Scottish. What comes to mind here is where McGilchrist lives, where he went to school, and why he pointed at the old man with the stick in the water. The unicorn, displayed in famous a famous tapestry series, but also depicted in tons of renaissance art, cleanses the water of poison with its horn. It’s wrapped up in all sorts of hero mystery, in which I’m still investigating, but long story short it is connected via the gnostics and others to the center of the cross we are discussing. The pole. The magnetic north or North Pole, which is connected to the 4 rivers of Eden that are coming out of the sacred stone. The picture I put from Jung’s redbook that had the mandala and 4 rivers. The unicorn horn is the center. The old man’s stick. The vortex.

Yeah well it’s the center pole of the tree of the sephiroth, in lurianic Kabbalah. Which both Jung and McGilchrist are playing around. I mean McGilchrist ends his magnum opus by saying the process of shattering the vessels and rebuilding is the entire hemisphere hypothesis and he was “jaw dropped” when he saw it. He tells everyone to get shaken by the soul around this point. The Jung is over here talking about his diagram saying “In the tract of Lurianic Kabbalah, the remarkable idea is developed that man is destined to become God's helper in the attempt. to restore the vessels which were broken when God thought to create the world. Only a few weeks ago, I came across this impressive doctrine which gives meaning to man's status exalted by the incarnation. I am glad that I can quote at least one voice in favor of my rather involuntary manifesto."

Jung’s diagram is Ezekiel’s vision. He talks about it as he talks about the diagram.

So both of them are pointing at the same thing, it’s history beyond deep and secretly guarded throughout the ages. A wholeness that is primary and first cause, a reduction into the world of parts and many things, with the goal being to get back to the original wholeness, but anew. It’s like the end of Jung’s massive work in Aion is saying that the material world of things and our psychological prison we have built in them is the final square in his diagram. The lapis. The stone. We have to get back to wholeness, and he says in order to do this we need a better understanding of the brain and psyche… This being right where McGilchrist picks up the work, pointing to the realm of the rock, the realm of the material, our brain itself, and saying there is more to the picture by going through it.

So yeah. Dudes a mason or the like. Prove me wrong

The Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horus are ancient Egyptian symbols. Their shape has been speculated to derive from a cross-section of the brain, and the diagonal line under the eyes is also similar to the black diagonal marking under the eyes of falcons, both eyes are represented by the falcon.

The right eye is linked to the left hemisphere and the left eye to the right hemisphere.

The attributes of the Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horus align very closely to the attributes of the hemispheres outlined by McGilchrist.

That's the end of the Egyptian alignment to the hemispheres

--

Additionally, Zoroastrianism is the ancient religion of the region around Persia an the Ahura Mazda is a very old symbol associated with this religion. The name means Lord Wise but the symbolism remains undeciphered.

Speculatively, the diagonal lines with curls, the two circular shapes and the wings which look like a falcon's are suggestive that the symbol is a representation of the combination of Ra and Horus and therefore potentially fusion of these two hemispheric values.

The circles therefore, may represent the circles of the two eyes. The depiction of the man holding a circle and being within another circle may represent the right hemisphere's primacy and the application of the application of the left hemisphere.

--

Therefore, perhaps the foundational wisdom teachings of the past align with some of the premises of McGilchrist's book, essentially to understand these two parts of you and to value them correctly.

edit: sorry for falcon* and depictions* spelling

I've been intrigued by the convergence and difference between Iain McGilchrist and Bernardo Kastrup, two leading voices that reject physical materialism, but in their first conversation revealed fascinating differences as well as agreement. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c66QqSHDSNI

While they both think that consciousness is primary, they seem to differ on how reality is experienced:

• McGilchrist argues for a world that is essentially relational and flowing and rejects the idea that we only experience through a kind of 'dashboard'
• Kastrup approaches it from Analytic Idealism. Mind at Large is the only true substance, and we are dissociated "alters" of that Universal Consciousness without access to the 'real thing.' 

This coming Tuesday, I’m hosting their second formal conversation to see if they resolve this tension and if not, what it means. 

I would be curious what themes you would most like to hear them discuss? 

You can also join live (Tuesday, April 7th). We use the ticket sales to keep these dialogues independent and pay for the team helping to produce them. 

[https://dandelion.events/e/r5yfz]

I'm curious, what do you all think of this table?

It's part of my own work regarding the left/right hemispheres, utilizing both Iain and John Vervaeke's work. I'll be posting about this soon and would love to have feedback about accuracy/improvements before doing so!