Iain McGilchrist, Rupert Sheldrake and Alex Gomez-Marin in conversation
What this covers
In this three way conversation, Iain McGilchrist, Rupert Sheldrake and Alex Gomez-Marin discuss the brain, the mind, resonance, morphic fields, where information is stored, the role of science today and their life, education and career paths.
To find out more about the work of Dr Iain McGilchrist including his latest book, The Matter with Things, visit https://channelmcgilchrist.com/buy-now-the-matter-with-things/
To find out more about the work of Dr Rupert Sheldrake visit https://www.sheldrake.org
To find out more about the work of Dr Alex Gomez-Marin visit https://behavior-of-organisms.org/
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McGilchrist and Sheldrake argue that brain hemispheres coordinate through field-based resonance rather than direct neural connection, and that education and science must recover the balance between analytical rigor and imaginative freedom that modern institutional structures have destroyed.
- Split-brain patients show remarkable coordination despite severed corpus callosum, suggesting non-neural coordinating mechanisms like morphic fields
- Modern professionalized science and education have become bureaucratic machines that suppress originality, whereas historical science thrived on philosophical inquiry and institutional freedom
- Developing creative, flexible minds requires both disciplined analytical training AND periods of unstructured intellectual freedom—a balance undermined by current micromanagement
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Much 18th- and 19th-century science was produced by priests, monks, and clerics—people like Mendel, a monk—who had the security of institutional support and were allowed to think and observe, conducting inquiry unrelated to professional advancement.
“for this reason that so many as we both know in in the past so much of the science of the 18th and 19th century and even into the 20th century um comes from the work of of priests or of records of monks I mean Mendel was a monk yes um they weren't part of any particular mainstream but they they had the security of a place and they were allowed to think and observe and ask interesting questions why do pea plants work in this way”
Even receiving a Nobel Prize and holding tenure does not guarantee that a scientist's views will be taken seriously or respected by colleagues: the example of Brian Josephson at Cambridge shows that colleagues actively worked to prevent him from having students and influence, despite his Nobel Prize and position as a fellow of Trinity College, because of his interests in consciousness and psychic phenomena.
“Branch Josephson for example at Cambridge well as soon as you got interests in psychic phenomena and the nature of Consciousness yes um although he's a professor with tenure his Nobel Laureate a fellow of Trinity College yes you know his colleagues so make sure he doesn't get students and there's is more generalized Etc because his views are untenable in their eyes”
The scientific profession was professionalized in the 19th century, becoming a priesthood analogous to the Christian clergy; this professionalization moved science from amateur natural philosophy to a credentialed, exclusive professional organization governed by rigid rules and hierarchies.
“it was a struggle in the 19th century a lot of scientists in Britain were either amateurs like Charles Darwin yeah they had an academic the Pharaoh day or you know Faraday was at the Royal Institution not in the university in a rather eccentric small institution yes yeah and so but when you became professionalized something th H Huxley was one of the drivers of in Britain you know to make sounds a professional like a priesthood yes um where only people who got the right degrees and qualifications could teach it and influence people through universities and the school system and what was taught in schools and all that was professionalized”
The requirement for a formal degree or credentials has not always been necessary for scientific contribution; in the 19th century, many important scientists (Darwin, Faraday) were amateurs or worked outside the university system, and professionalization through credentialism has suppressed rather than enhanced genuine scientific inquiry.
“It was a struggle in the 19th century a lot of scientists in Britain were either amateurs like Charles Darwin yeah they had an academic the Pharaoh day or you know Faraday was at the Royal Institution not in the university in a rather eccentric small institution yes yeah and so but when you became professionalized something th H Huxley was one of the drivers of in Britain you know to make sounds a professional like a priesthood”
All phenomena in life are about balancing seemingly opposing things that are not really separate; integration of opposed forces creates something richer than either alone.
“everything in life is a matter of balancing things and coming to a position which honors and respects and enhances by integrating the two things that we think are as separate in some way but they're not really separate”
In the 1960s, institutions used to take people who had proved themselves intelligent and give them career security (office, income) and then said 'follow your intellectual interests' about what you find interesting; this led to many inventions and breakthroughs.
“and I think that more institutions ought to follow what happened in the 60s which was you know um institutions used to take people that had proved themselves to be intelligent and give them Car Wash and they gave them an office gave them a you know an income for a few years and then said follow your into things about what you find interesting and after that came many many inventions”
In social insect colonies, when workers or soldiers are removed from a hive, the entire system readjusts—some workers stop doing what they're doing and take on different functions and roles—demonstrating that coordinating fields apply to social systems and collective behavior as much as to individual organisms.
“and this all this similar kind of coordination applies in Social insects if you remove some of the workers or remove some of the soldiers or remove some of the hive or something the whole system readjust some of the stop they stop doing what they're doing some of them take on different functions and roles so these coordinating Fields I think are underlying all of biology actually all of nature of self-organizing systems”
Sheldrake initially became disenchanted with mechanistic science at Cambridge, adopted the idea of holistic science, and although expected to pursue a PhD, chose instead to attend Harvard as a special student where he could freely explore history and philosophy of science.
“I became increasingly disenchanted with mechanistic science which I was studying I started reading Gerta and I had the idea of a holistic science and I just everyone assumed I'd go on and do a PhD because I got a double first you know I didn't think so um but I wasn't sure if I wanted to I mean I liked science but I didn't like killing animals all the time and I didn't like the throne treating them as machines and the whole attitude of mechanistic signs”
Sheldrake traveled to the University of Malaya for a year to study rainforest plants, traveling through India on the way, with the college's support—this freedom to pursue personal research interests was extraordinary and laid the foundation for everything he did subsequently.
“when I said to the college you know just got this thing from the Ross site and I'm going off to the University of Malaya for a year to study rainforest plants and traveling through India on the way uh there's a well fine you know so I I it was incredible period for me laid the foundation for everything I'd done since”
Learning practical skills is extraordinarily satisfying and life-enhancing—probably more satisfying than almost any other activity—and encouraging people not just to feel demoralized while economically inactive but rather to develop skills would be beneficial for both individuals and society.
“one thing I've known from experience is that in the few cases where I've learned a practical skill that it has been enormously satisfying probably more satisfying than almost anything else um and so encouraging people not just to feel demoralized and not have any goal it might be better to allow people to train to develop a skill which which is a very life enhancing thing and useful to society”
Colossal agenesis—the congenital absence of a corpus callosum—occurs not uncommonly in humans and is often discovered by chance at postmortem; people with this condition can lead reasonably normal lives, and casual observers would not notice any functional problem.
“it's not uncommon for people to be born with what's called colossal agenesis in other words they don't have a corpseconosum and it's often a chance finding a postmortem so quite clearly um the finding that you can sever the connection and people can lead a reasonably normal life almost impossible really so if casually encountered you wouldn't notice that there was a problem”
The divorce between science and philosophy—treating them as separate enterprises rather than continuous—has been detrimental to both; science properly understood is a form of philosophy, an investigation of nature using particular empirical methods, but always drawing on and implying philosophical principles.
“Whitehead said this divorce between science and philosophy is is has been the detriment of both and I think that science properly understood is a it is a form of philosophy it's an investigation of philosophy in certain particular empirical methods but it has a philosophical implications and it draws on philosophical principles at its outset it may not understand that it does that yes but that's more dangerous when people don't realize what it is they're doing they don't do it well”
We need philosophically minded scientists and scientifically minded philosophers willing to spend time learning about science, which gives them insights into philosophy; this is the ideal scientist-philosopher.
“but that's more dangerous when people don't realize what it is they're doing they don't do it well but I think that you know we need to get back to the understanding that science is has philosophical meaning and that this is not enough discussed so we'll need philosophically minded scientists and scientifically minded philosophers philosophers who are willing to you know spend time learning about the science that will give them in the sights into the forming of their philosophy”
There is a current skills shortage despite low unemployment because millions of people have voluntarily retired from the labor force before retirement age; they prefer to accept lower income rather than work, indicating that most people find their jobs very unrewarding.
“what seems to have happened is a large number of people have just voluntarily retired from the labor force before retirement age simply can't be bothered to have a job and that must mean a drop in income but there's millions of people who prepared to take that rather than carry on yes well what that tells you is a lot of people's jobs are very unrewarding yes and I think what's really sad is that jobs that are in the past obviously rewarding like being a teacher or a doctor and I think people are probably not keen to we know there's a shortage of doctors there's a shortage of teachers”
Modern education is excessively technically oriented and mechanically skill-focused, losing sight of education's true purpose which is to 'draw out our humanity' by cultivating the humanities—music, poetry, and imaginative thinking—which are predominantly right-hemisphere functions.
“the trouble with our education now is it's very much technically orientated more and more we're saying what's the point in teaching people unless teaching them some mechanical skill that will be useful to them but in fact the point of an education is to draw out about our humanity and Humanity used to be part of what we discussed in school the humanities and I think that a greater emphasis on music on poetry which also involves very largely the right hemisphere whereas ordinary discursive languages probably more dependent on the left hemisphere than on both and that these ways of thinking should be part of the way we educate children”
Modern education was designed on a Victorian model intended to prepare people for life in an industrial society, emphasizing discipline and fixed schedules (e.g., 9 a.m. school start) to condition children for factory work, rather than fostering creativity.
“we've got a system of Education which is designed for well basically it follows some kind of Victorian design doesn't it Preparing People For Life in an industrial society and one thing is to make children used to getting up and showing up for school at nine o'clock in the morning and we're fixed hours I mean which you need an industrial society you do disciplining from an early age”
Working outside mainstream institutions is not a career path that can be recommended to most people because it is not easy to survive outside regular salary structures; it requires either unusual privilege, independently wealthy circumstances, or institutional tenure that provides security.
“I'm just not prepared to live like that and I don't expect you where Russia no no um but it does I mean it's not a career path one can recommend to other people because it's not very easy to survive outside the framework of regular salaries”
At Harvard graduate school, Sheldrake found that students were spoon-fed and tested constantly with no freedom; the dense reading load was designed to prevent exploration outside the prescribed curriculum, forcing students to read until midnight every night just to keep up.
“I found that they treat graduate students at Harvard um in a way I hadn't been treated and I since I was about 15 you know read these Pages this week read those and we'll test you to make sure you've read it was spoon feeding there was no freedom I tried doing what they said and after about a month I I just couldn't do I mean I you'd have to stay out till midnight every night to read all this stuff and they test you there's no time to read anything else to study anything else that interests the Jews completely on a track”
McGilchrist is a member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, which was originally called the Cambridge Natural Philosophy Society in the early 19th century, and subscribes to Biological Reviews, which has as its subtitle 'of the Cambridge Philosophical Society', preserving the original terminology.
“I'm a member of the main Cambridge University scientific society which is called the Cambridge philosophical Society because when it was started in the early 19th century it was called natural philosophy as Cambridge I've subscribed to biological reviews which was on the main review journals in biology the subtitles of the Cambridge philosophical Society”
Micromanagement of researchers—constantly dictating what they read, what they write, what they publish—produces only mediocrity; the risk of giving people freedom (that they will waste it) is much smaller than the certainty of mediocrity from micromanagement.
“I like you I think it's very important like you I feel very grateful for having been given it My worry is that it won't be given in the future to many people but I think it's important we live in an era of micro management and I think micro management produces only mediocrity if you're constantly controlling and dictating what people read and think you'll only get mediocrity yes and that if you give people a degree of Freedom okay there's a risk that they will abuse it and they won't come up with something but it's it's a much smaller risk than the risk of micromanaging them which ensures that they will never come up with anything interesting so you actually have to in a way trust and give time to to people”
Education should be about growing things (drawing out innate capacities) rather than inserting things (imposing external information); it should abandon the micromanaging administrative approach and allow people to develop the skills they have innately.
“and it's about abandoning this micro managing administrative approach to education to science and allowing people to develop the skills that they have innately in other words education should be a matter of growing things not inserting things and at the moment it's mainly about inserting things”
Constant musical practice, rather than the distinction between amateur and professional, is what modifies the brain; people who play regularly develop differently from those who play only occasionally.
“of course the distinction is not between amateur and professional but between people who are constantly playing and those who are only occasionally playing yes um so I don't think there's a problem with that um but I would imagine that starting early to learn and instrument like this will modify certainly we know in respect of the appreciation of sound but it does modify the brain and I don't see why it should not modify the brain in other ways”
Scientific careers are systematically hostile to originality; scientists pursuing novel ideas face widespread rejection ('rubbish, nonsense, where's the evidence?') and are unlikely to be promoted, receive grants, or be taken seriously without conformity to mainstream views.
“whenever I'm trying to be or am being or you know just doing something that seems to me original and creative instead of people saying how wonderful I mean the vast majority of people say rubbish nonsense where's the evidence Etc and if you have the evidence and you do an experiment you think is creative as well you've got these results but where's the theory you know and uh you know so and as as Alex sometimes says you know one of the responses I get to my research on telepathy and things like that is you know it's all very well in practice but does it work”
T.H. Huxley, one of the primary drivers of science professionalization in Britain, aimed to exclude 'country vicars' who did excellent natural history work, particularly because many believed in God and Huxley sought to keep religious belief out of public science and education.
“you know to make sounds a professional like a priesthood yes um where only people who got the right degrees and qualifications could teach it and influence people through universities and the school system and what was taught in schools and all that was professionalized and then you've got to have the right qualifications his aim was to squeeze out country vicos who did wonderful Natural History they did who believed in God he thought everyone and Son should believe in God or if they did it should be kept you've got these to very much their private life”
The predominance of the administrative or bureaucratic mind over almost every aspect of modern life is deeply damaging; it reflects a left-hemisphere way of trying to control and 'understand' things while misunderstanding what it is dealing with.
“one of the things I feel about the age we live in is the predominance of the administrative or bureaucratic Mind Over almost every aspect of Our Lives and I think this is deeply damaging and I think it's an exhibition of the left hemisphere's way of both trying to understand but misunderstanding what it's dealing with and above all to control it”
Teaching, medicine, and other historically rewarding professions are now experiencing severe shortages because management culture has replaced professional autonomy; workers in these fields are no longer allowed to pursue their own judgments but are micromanaged like Harvard graduate students, making these jobs no longer rewarding.
“I think what's really sad is that jobs that are in the past obviously rewarding like being a teacher or a doctor and I think people are probably not keen to we know there's a shortage of doctors there's a shortage of teachers and I think that's partly to do with the way again a management culture has taken over from a professional culture and the individual is no longer allowed to pursue interests and it is internally Mercury managed like the Harvard thing today you read these things and tomorrow you read those”
Approximately 500,000 neurons are generated every minute during gestation in the womb, and all those neurons must end up precisely in the right place in the brain with minute three-dimensional architectural accuracy—the complexity of this three-dimensional information could not be encoded in simple linear code and must be stored or coordinated by some overarching field.
“in the brain um I forget the exact figure but it's something staggering like 500 000 neurons are generated every minute in in the business of gestation in the womb and all those neurons have to end up precisely in the right place in the brain and the brain has minute architectural where exactly is this information stored about the three-dimensional structure alone of the brain I don't think it could be even encoded in simple linear code in the sense that we think of code of course we've now dropped the idea that it's a tool a linear code in the way the computer is coded but instead must be a three-dimensional code and so we know about the conformation in epigenetics of of different um of the genes involved but nonetheless where is this you don't see anywhere in that this intricate three-dimensional structure stored and the simplest thing I can imagine is that there is some overarching field”
The 'aha moment' insight of scientists and mathematicians—the moment when a new gestalt or understanding suddenly becomes clear—is robustly associated with activation of the superior temporal gyrus and sulcus of the right hemisphere.
“and it the best um kinds of thinking that will allow this are those in which analytic Acumen is there but coupled with rather like the left and the right hand coupled with a more imaginative and intuitive way of thinking and I describe the the insights of many scientists and mathematicians and it's quite extraordinary how virtually all of them describe this so-called aha moment as being the creative thing that reveals the new Gestalt and this aha moment is robustly associated with the superior temporal gyrus and sulcus of the right hemisphere so we know that this is right hemisphere mediated”
Quantum field theory suggests that what we describe as 'particles' or 'little balls' is metaphorical language for particular states of an overall field with energy and influence; such coordinating fields are very basic and fundamental.
“immediately of course I think of the way in which Quantum field Theory suggests that the way we tend to think in terms of little balls or particles is at most of metaphorical meaning and that what is being referred to there is a very particular state of something that is an overall field of that is that has energy and exerts influence so such fields are very basic”
People born without limbs nonetheless have a phantom sense of those limbs they have never experienced; this internal sense is generated from an organized field rather than external experience.
“one is the Striking fact that people who are born without limbs nonetheless have the sense of the limbs they've never had them but nonetheless they they have an internal sense of those Limbs and um ramachandran describes a woman who had um uh no limb no upper limbs having Phantom limbs which she couldn't stop gesticulating when she talked so this uh part of evolutionary history the the hand movements are coordinated with speech was there in her although she had never experienced hands or arms”
Music is abnormally lateralized in the brains of non-professional musicians: only rhythm is understood by the left hemisphere, while melody and harmony are almost exclusively understood by the right hemisphere.
“one of the Mysteries is that music is abnormally lateralized in the brain of performers so in the general population who are not professional musicians or full-time musicians um the only bit of music that is really understood or interpreted by the left hemisphere is rhythm and Melody and Harmony are almost exclusively um understood and experienced in the right hemisphere”
Interesting ideas in the current era are increasingly coming from outside the mainstream—from people working independently or in small groups—rather than from within mainstream institutional science, which enforces conformity through promotions, grants, and gatekeeping.
“very often now um the really interesting ideas are coming forth from places that are not in the middle of the mainstream they're coming from people who are working on their own or working in small groups and these are producing highly interesting and imaginative propositions whereas in the mainstream there's far too much emphasis on not stepping out of line not rocking a boat not even if you say something that isn't what your colleagues are saying then you won't get promoted you won't get a grant and all the rest so it must be deadening actually living like that”
The model of science as priesthood spread globally from Britain: the Soviet Union elevated scientists to the highest rank of intellectuals; in India and China, engineers and scientists command very high prestige; but in Britain itself, scientists have never commanded the same level of prestige as other elites.
“and then this model of scientists as priests then spread tune in the Soviet Union scientists were the highest rank of the intellectuals and all that kind of thing and so it became all over the world and who known countries like India and China engineers and scientists have very very high Prestige they're not terribly High prestige in Britain because they're regarded as boffins and Geeks and things and you know the highest Prestige goes to people who've been to Eaton and Oxford and who belong to the Bollinger club and become conservative Prime Ministers”
The corpus callosum is a mammalian invention; reptiles, amphibians, and many creatures lower in the evolutionary tree have two brain centers that are not connected by direct neural pathways as mammals are.
“the corpus callosum many people don't realize is a mammalian invention so although reptiles amphibians and many other creatures lower down that tree have two centers in their brain they're not connected in this direct way the corpus callosum started with the first mammals”
The word 'science' was not introduced until the 18th-19th centuries in Britain; prior to that, the inquiry into nature was called 'natural philosophy,' a term that captures the philosophical character of the scientific enterprise more accurately than the modern term.
“I mean here in Britain the word science wasn't introduced until the 19th century 18th and before that it was called natural philosophy exactly and you know Newton's great book principia Mathematica the mathematical principles of natural philosophy um so I think the natural philosophy is actually really good word and for it and I'm a member of the main Cambridge University scientific society which is called the Cambridge philosophical Society because when it was started in the early 19th century it was called natural philosophy as Cambridge”
Writing a major book (like McGilchrist's master work) requires years of hard work and disciplined study; originality cannot be achieved without first establishing mastery of the field through sustained analytical work.
“I didn't write this book out of not knowing anything about Neuroscience already years of hard work yeah and your work it also involves years of hard work”
Modern science has become a huge bureaucracy with financial incentives that favor conformity; money flows to researchers who 'toe the party line' and 'do more of what everyone else is doing,' making it extremely difficult to break out and see or do something different within a 'sclerotic hierarchy' like 'the middle of an enormous Byzantine civil service.'
“what has really happened is there's something much less glamorous has happened in science which is simply that it's become a huge bureaucracy it has money to spend which it which follows people who tow the party in line do more of what everyone else is doing and it's very difficult in this sclerotic hierarchy as it would be in the middle of an enormous Byzantine civil service to be able to break out and see something else or do something else”
When one part of the brain is damaged, other parts of the brain can take over the function—but the mechanism by which one part of the brain that is supposedly doing X 'knows' it needs to reconfigure itself to provide a needed function elsewhere is not understood and suggests an overarching coordination principle.
“we know of course that when people have damage so one part of the brain other parts of the brain can take over the function but how is this coordinated how does one part of the brain that's supposedly doing whatever it does no we need speech how are we going to get it back I mean in a way there's a there's a need for something overarching to draw out that function in a new place in the brain”
Morphogenetic fields—coordinating fields that bring forth biological patterns and underlie regeneration—were first proposed in the 1920s and explain phenomena like salamander eye regeneration, where the lens regenerates from the iris (which is not how the lens normally forms in embryos), indicating that fields coordinate the modification of one structure to restore a missing function.
“my own starting point for my idealism morphic resonance whilst morphogenetic Fields form shaping fields and I started my scientific career working on plant development yes and how is it that leaves and flowers and and stamens and so on develop and the hydromorphic genetic Fields first put forward in 1920s um was exactly that of a coordinating field that that brings forth these patterns and underlies regeneration and so for example in in the Regeneration of salamanderers so-called wolfian regeneration you cut out the lens of the eye of a new Taurus salamander and it will regenerate new lands from the edge of the iris which is not how the lens forms in the embryo it forms by folding in of skin from the outside so there's a completely filling a missing structure by modifying some other structure would never normally be modified exactly to to create to fill that function”
Many people in science approach their work without deeper questioning about why something works the way it does, and they don't engage in reflective analysis of their observations within a broader context—developing the habit of asking 'why does it actually do that?' and thinking about deeper implications is crucial but uncommon.
“I think it's open to more people than one thinks they don't have to go out completely on a limb but if you look at what you experience and think about it in a deeper broader context you see something different and I just think that an awful lot of people see what they're doing in science as sort of self-evident and not not raising further questions is is there other unusual kind of mind that that asks the question so why does it actually do that why does it work like that”
The brain hemispheres communicate not only through direct neural connection (corpus callosum) but also through shared sensory experience of the body, the endocrine system, a common internal environment, the brain stem, and other non-corpus-callosum pathways.
“they very obviously share a body and the eyes and the senses take in both parts of the body so they know as it were if you like they can sense outwardly as well as inwardly what's going on um mostly in these cases the operation was done in somebody who've had a long-ish life and had got used to the coordination of the two hemispheres they they communicate with one another through the endocrine system there are all sorts of ways in which they they have a common um internal environment um and as you say they communicate at the level of the brain stem and and even a little bit above it so there is definitely connection there of a kind”
A morphic field covering the whole brain could coordinate the two hemispheres by being an overarching organizing field in which both hemispheres are embedded, similar to how electron clouds coordinate atoms within covalently bonded molecules like CO2.
“what I think of it say that there was a field morphic field covering the whole brain and brain activity that included within it the activity of the two hemispheres then the way in which they're coordinated might be through this field coordinating the two parts within a larger hole and the coordination wouldn't necessarily mean that one Echoes the other in a most literal resonance no but the way in which say the different organs of a body or say different atoms within a molecule are coordinated within a larger field”
Without some overarching coordinating field, it is difficult to explain how single-celled organisms detect changes and respond to them in other parts of even that single cell; this coordination problem becomes even more acute in multicellular organisms.
“without the idea that there is some sort of coordinating field it's difficult to explain how a simple organism a single celled organism can detect uh changes and respond to them in other parts of of even that cell I mean this is something that has been puzzled over by many biologists um and there seems to be some overall coordination and of course this goes much further when you come to a multicellular organism and how do the various parts of this organism know that certain things need to be responded to elsewhere”
McGilchrist feels sorry to say that Oxford and Cambridge are turning themselves into something easily dispensed with through not sticking to their guns; they have a thousand-year history but are now committing suicide.
“I'm very sorry to say this but they're beginning to turn themselves into something that can be easily dispensed with how to prevent those institutions from following the same path and also how to solve the accreditation problem there because in a way that I wanted to ask you both this very question like you have navigated outside the institutional seas and nevertheless there's some appreciation for institutions still in both of you and so how much of it can we still Embrace and how much we need to just reject so this this Back to the Future these future scientists and philosophers are they going to be in institutions and if they're not how is the new order or the new business going to be in terms of accreditation”
Snowflakes are coordinated structures in which all six arms are identical to each other despite developing in a fluctuating environment; the coordination cannot be fully explained by local environmental conditions, suggesting some form of internal resonance or field-based coordination within the crystal lattice.
“the thing is how come they're coordinated because you could say well the particular branches only are random to do with the immediate environment but then you'd have to say to explain the whole snowflake being the same the every arm of the growing snowflake was exactly the same on that Snowflake and all they're all the same just because they were in exactly the same fluctuating environment fluctuating the same way and the next snowflake was in a completely different environment or you could say as I intriguingly the late editor of nature Sir John Maddox a new friend of mine in many ways puzzling over this question of snowflakes said there must be some kind of internal resonance within the latter structure of the snowflake that enables it to be okay”
The hemisphere-specific design of the piano keyboard (low notes on left, high notes on right) corresponds to fundamental principles of how the developing brain and sensory systems organize sequences: from left to right, from lower to higher, suggesting this orientation is innate rather than arbitrary.
“in the brain there are certain things that are um positionally uh it seems like for example the sequence from left to right in which things grow is is innate in for example chicks they tend to see the thing a series of numbers grows as you move towards the right which is the way in which we see from one to itself and so we we start from lower to higher and it may be that this is also the way in which it seems fundamentally the the lower notes are basic they are the base and the the other is what is built more complexly on top of it and so it may be natural that an instrument developed in this way”
Good education requires both disciplined rigor and imaginative freedom: disciplined study of difficult foundational knowledge (trigonometry, calculus, classical languages, Greek) must precede and enable creative thinking, not substitute for it.
“I mean what I want to emphasize is it's not about letting it all hang out I mean it was an enormous amount of discipline you know at an early age one had to know trigonometry and calculus one had to be able to understand Greek grammar and Latin all these things and and these are difficult I mean they're not things that you get by sort of going oh well whatever I mean they really require serious application I think one does need that structure”
The creative development of thought follows a cycle from right (perception and imagination) to left (analysis and structure) and back to right (reintegration into a new whole); this is not a linear progression but a recursive process.
“it also involves years of hard work and your work it also involves years of hard work I know it's then commute from right to left to right by which I mean that one's first apprehension that something is isn't a perceptive and imaginative understanding and then one leads to as you will learn more by the process of analysis and seeing the structure of what one's doing and making comparisons and putting things together in a certain way but they must never stop there that is an intermediary phase and then it needs to be reintegrated into a new hole in which those that laborious analysis has been not lost because that suggests that it was pointless but it had its point at a certain period in time”
Renaming unemployment benefits as 'research grants' or 'sabbatical grants' would cost the state no additional money (since it already pays out unemployment), but would transform the psychology and social standing of idle people, allowing them to be productive in ways they value rather than remaining demoralized.
“I think one simple way this could be achieved with the strength of a pen is is simply changing the name of Unemployment Benefit to research grounds so then we could have lots and lots of people on Research grants and the stigma of being on unemployment it would be transformed at least for some people yes well what I have a lot of people who are economically idle as they were in the classification yes yes who are actually being paid by the state yes um and so much of that could be repurposed I mean mostly people are disempowered by being unemployed yes but if this could be seen as a as a positive thing”
Sheldrake has proposed an experiment to test whether phantom limb fields can be detected by Reiki healers or practitioners of subtle energy medicine: amputees push their phantom arms through one of six randomly selected panels in a barrier, and healers blind to the setup attempt to identify which panel has the phantom arm, with results so far significantly above chance.
“I recruit amputees through Veterans organizations tried recruitings through hospitals but they were extremely uncooperative but and then I have the Phantom amputee but they push their Phantom arm through one of six possessions in a barrier a door for example and on the other side that's done in a randomized sequence on the other side I have people who do subtle Energy Medicine Reiki healers and so on and one at a time I lead them in I say one of those panels has a phantom arm sticking through it um and the others don't which has got the Phantom and they sort of feel in the different places and they say that one and they're right more than chance so far substantially more than chance”
The master and emissary metaphor addresses the question of whether there is an organizing principle that unites the master and emissary or whether the master can act on its own; the answer involves differentiation within a single overarching field.
“your question perhaps rephrase by saying is there an organizing principle that unites the master and his Emissary or can be a master do it on its own no I think when we're thinking about what you're talking about is it just says in the developing organism there needs to be differentiation say that on one part side of the body it'll be a liver on the other you know spleen and so on these things are also part of the single overarching Fields if you like um and the Brain could be seen as similarly asymmetrical but powerful the note that that asymmetry is already part of a of a single field”
The question of how to nurture young brains so they can grasp the world with the kind of integrated, imaginative understanding that McGilchrist and Sheldrake have developed is important and requires thinking about how to foster both intuitive and analytical capacities.
“how to nurture the ruperts and Ian's of the future which is something I'm very concerned with and what can we do to facilitate those intuitions that you both have been pursuing in different ways but but scientifically and and Beyond you know if you have some thoughts on that”
Encouraging creativity in all students through education is not universally beneficial; for most people in routine jobs, creativity is a disadvantage because it causes them to conflict with organizational requirements.
“for most people I don't think creativity is that I don't think we necessarily need to have creativity built into the entire educational system yes absolutely it's a disadvantage for a lot of people to be creative I mean if you've got a regular job and you're creative you're going to have an awfully difficult time”
During the COVID pandemic, there was a brief period when management systems broke down and doctors could use their own judgment and experience to decide treatment approaches; this led to creativity and experimentation, with some successes and some failures, representing the kind of professional autonomy that should be normal.
“there was a a wonderful moment of creativity early on in the covid crisis when managers couldn't keep up with the situation and doctors said well the hell whether we're going to do what we think will work and lots of things were experimented with and some of them were successful and some of them not but this is a good situation there's one in which doctors use their experience are not told what to do by a manager who has no experience”
In India, the primary motivation for scientific careers is parental expectation and social status rather than curiosity about nature; science and medicine are among the three highest-prestige careers, and bright children are pushed into them to advance family status through marriage markets, not because of intellectual interest.
“most of my Indian scientific colleagues had not gone into science because of a deep curiosity about nature they'd gone into it because their parents believed in education and science and medicine and Engineering were the three top careers yeah and and so any bright children who had been pushed into that and pushed in their studies and pushed through the university and then they got jobs in high Prestige institutions if they worked hard enough yeah um and their whole social status and the ability to marry off their daughters to a more prestigious husbands in an arranged marriage system it moved them up to social scale instead it wasn't at all about curiosity from most of them”
These phantom limb detection experiments are not expensive and in fact are free to conduct, making them accessible for future research; this raises the question of why such experiments are not being conducted more widely in the scientific community.
“these experiments are not expensive and in fact they're free yeah yes but so I think that actually this whole question can be taken much further yes this is not the kind of thing people do in in absolutely women but they could”
Simple organisms like E. coli navigate the world through a balance of 'tumble and run' behavior: they need both forward momentum (running) and periodic directional changes (tumbling); a dose of 'dogmatism' is needed to maintain direction, but without periodically stopping and reassessing, no progress occurs.
“this discussion reminds me of these simple organisms I used to study E coli how they navigate the world okay it's like learning to Tumble and learning to run they need to run and Tumble so in a way a certain dose of dogmatism is needed to just keep on going for some for some while because it would stop at every point do they consider you would get nowhere but if you don't stop and Tumble then you just you also go nowhere so it's it's this balance”
The future of intellectual inquiry will depend on the development of small private colleges that admit only the brightest people and give them freedom to think; large universities are 'turning themselves into something that can be easily dispensed with' as they succumb to bureaucratic logic.
“I think the future will depend on the development of small private colleges where people are very much um you take in only the brightest people I think that's very important we're sort of worried by the concept of elitism but looked at another way education depends on and our future depends on people who have the capacity to think clearly and to think imaginatively being encouraged and that's what a good college should be doing in my view and so I think it's from those small institutions which are beginning to spring up in competition with the with the great universities that the future will flourish”
A seven-year fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, with freedom to pursue whatever intellectual interests one chose, enabled McGilchrist to later write comprehensive philosophical books drawing on wide fields of inquiry that would have been impossible without that freedom.
“I got this fellowship at 21 of all cells and I was to embark on a doctorate on um 18th century English literature and this Fellowship was a seven year Fellowship after examination there's this strange thing that doesn't have any equivalent to Cambridge or anywhere else in Oxford of economies that consists only a fellow it's not of any students graduate or otherwise and when you become a fellow after examination which is a three-day examination if you become one you get seven years in which to do whatever it is that interests you intellectually”
The ethos at All Souls has changed over time: previously, fellows had freedom to pursue intellectual interests; now there is more emphasis on monitoring what fellows are reading and whether they have published papers, suggesting that credentialism and bureaucratic oversight are gradually replacing the original institutional model.
“I'm not sure that even I don't know enough I wasn't speak about what I'm not certain of but I think that the the ethos at All Souls is rather changed as everything does and there's more of that you know we must keep an eye on what he's reading and has he published a paper and all that but I was free of that”
Intellectual range—the opposite of ever-greater specialization—is very important for producing substantive intellectual work, and institutions should recover the practice of giving people periods of freedom to explore diverse interests.
“this business of range which is exactly the opposite for the tendency towards ever greater specialism is very very important and I think that more institutions ought to follow what happened in the 60s which was you know um institutions used to take people that had proved themselves to be intelligent and give them Car Wash and they gave them an office gave them a you know an income for a few years and then said follow your into things about what you find interesting and after that came many many inventions”
Sheldrake's research fellowship at Cambridge provided six hours per week of teaching (tutorials) for five and a half months per year, with a six-month vacation, and a few years had only a one-page annual report requirement; this minimal teaching load and reporting left him completely free to pursue any research interests.
“and then later when I got my fellowship at Claire College in Cambridge it started as a research Fellowship and it was a I had a six-year research Fellowship where my teaching load was limited to six hours a week of tutorials and since in Cambridge like Oxford the vacations last six and a half months a year yeah this is only six hours a week for five and a half months a year and actually less than that because half a month is exam so it was not exactly an onerous teaching burden it was the nicest form of teaching to students at a time informally in tutorials um and the rest of the time I was completely free I didn't even I don't think I even wrote annual reports then I got a research Fellowship from the Ross site and I did have to write a one-page annual report but I was completely free in what I inquired into”
Both McGilchrist and Sheldrake feel enormously grateful for the freedom they were given within institutions; they feel this is very important and worry that it will not be given to many people in the future.
“like you I was given an extraordinary Freedom within an Institutional framework um which was vastly valuable now very very few people have that opportunity absolutely and you know what I want to emphasize is I like you I think it's very important like you I feel very grateful for having been given it My worry is that it won't be given in the future to many people but I think it's important”
Learning musical instruments at an early age (from age 4-5) means children are 'using brains in a way that would be somewhat counter-intuitive if they read McGilchrist first,' suggesting early music education can override or reorganize the standard hemispheric specialization described in neuroanatomy.
“I wonder how much learning the piano you see I started learning pianos as five I come from a musical family yes and my son Merlin landed five Cosmos started learning at four and that means from a very early age um I'm there and lots and lots of other people yes have actually been using brains in a way that would be somewhat counter-intuitive if they read mcgilchrist first”
Islamic musical and written traditions, which read right-to-left, might have developed piano keyboards in mirror-image to Western layout if keyboard instruments had originated in Islamic cultures, demonstrating that cultural-linguistic orientation can override or interact with supposed innate ordering principles.
“well look at Islamic music you see because they read from right to left yes and so their whole where is sense of the way things develop yes you start at the back of the book by our criteria and you you read from Wright's letter exact opposite of course if if if pianos had first been developed in the caliphate who in Baghdad or somewhere perhaps the the upper part of the keyboard would have been the lower notes and the Rhythm Section and it would might have been a mirror image of existing people it's a hypothetical”
Working in the mainstream of a field can impede creative thought if one remains aware of broader context and asks deeper questions—it is not necessarily the case that being in the mainstream prevents heterodox thinking, but mainstream positions require navigating complex institutional constraints.
“I haven't found that I mean largely being in the mainstream rest of my life has impeded me and because I was you know I was a fellow of Oxford College and I became a psychiatrist and director at the development mostly Hospital in London which isn't of all the institutions of mental health one of the most you know Central in the world but you know and I was salaried um but of course there was freedom to to use what one saw and think in another way”
Erwin Chargaff's autobiography 'Heraclitean Fire' is an excellent book on what science should be, contrasting genuine scientific inquiry with the deadening approach of following out linear paths mechanistically—Chargaff was a great biochemist who laid groundwork for Watson and Crick but thought more deeply about science's meaning.
“I have found one of the best books um on this topic is uh Erwin chargaff's um autobiography Heritage and fire and you know he was a very great um honored biochemist at Yale who laid the groundwork for Griffin Watson and so on um the author of chargers rules but he writes brilliantly and with enormous imagination about what he sees science to be and he contrasts it with this extremely deadening um simple following out of linear paths”
Both McGilchrist and Sheldrake describe themselves as 'feral academics' who escaped from domestication and lived intellectually in the wild rather than conforming to mainstream institutional expectations, and they view themselves as successful examples of this path despite its risks.
“we're both feral academics and we were both fellows of colleges and you know talks with me at Cambridge and uh we somehow escaped from domestication and and lived in the wild as much in the wild as you I mean you've retreated to a while the fastnesses at The Western Isles um I'm merely on the edge of Hampstead peace”
Alex (presumably a Spanish scientist) has the unique privilege of being a scientist within a civil service system in Spain where tenure provides security and freedom to pursue inquiry without institutional pressure, unlike the British system where scientists must maintain grant funding and career advancement.
“Alex is a uniquely privileged being Spanish in a way that we can't be being British yes because being a scientist in Spain is to be part of the Civil Service yeah and once you've got tenure as he has then you've got it for life and two you can do what he likes you know he's in the uniquely privileged position of having an actual salary which neither are you or I have had for a very long time”