tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post94011754983830482..comments2024-03-28T00:17:55.823+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Free will versus the Left brain - a 'fusion' of McGilchrist and Sheldrake?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-40892302576300766782012-01-19T21:22:11.498+00:002012-01-19T21:22:11.498+00:00I have listened to Dr. McGilchrist's Schumache...I have listened to Dr. McGilchrist's Schumacher College talk "Things Are Not What They Seem" on Youtube. Much that he said would appeal to readers who are sympathetic to this blog, e.g. comments about organized education and about government. His audience appeared to be made up of people who 25 years ago would have been associated with the "New Age Movement." I would be interested in hearing what McGilchrist would say were he addressing orthodox Christians. (Christians of the Orthodox tradition would have corrected the good doctor's mistake about Judas being canonized as a saint, I am sure.)Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-15770362088229637762012-01-12T22:39:32.756+00:002012-01-12T22:39:32.756+00:00I'm amazed by how much McGilchrist sounds, as ...I'm amazed by how much McGilchrist sounds, as I begin his book (pp. 5-6), like Owen Barfield in Saving the Appearances -- yet McGilchrist doesn't have OB in his bibliography; so he apparently worked these things out without knowing Barfield's work. I wonder if McGilchrist will be giving us much that's the best in Barfield, but without Barfield's baggage from Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy (e.g. the latter's gnostic Christology, his belief in reincarnation, etc.).Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-56173897454060808752012-01-05T05:10:51.478+00:002012-01-05T05:10:51.478+00:00Outstanding post, Bruce.
It has great relevance f...Outstanding post, Bruce.<br /><br />It has great relevance for the study of financial markets and society (the topic of most pressing interest to me at this time).<br /><br />Older writers (as late as late Victorian era) were very much more aware of this approach. History was written with the idea of an entelechy inherent within the beliefs and ambitions of those alive at a certain time. And the idea of Providence shaping history led to a much more complete grasp of how events unfolded than our linear causation model of today.<br /><br />By the way, with respect to the left hemisphere understanding events as a series of snapshots, one can see this manifesting in a very literal way in popular culture, with the proliferation of the use of 'bullet time' that first appeared with the "Matrix" movie.Cantillon Bloghttp://cantillonblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-52257989760757024232012-01-04T19:25:15.108+00:002012-01-04T19:25:15.108+00:00Thanks to bothThanks to bothPhilRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-45236320256300141012012-01-04T17:27:24.910+00:002012-01-04T17:27:24.910+00:00PhilR,
I found Morphic Resonance to be a good ove...PhilR,<br /><br />I found <i>Morphic Resonance</i> to be a good overall introduction to Sheldrake's ideas.Wm Jashttp://wmjas.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-6268267624806815422012-01-04T08:45:24.484+00:002012-01-04T08:45:24.484+00:00@PhilR - start with the web pages - http://www.she...@PhilR - start with the web pages - http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html<br /><br />There are also some detailed explanatory video lectures on YouTube. <br /><br />then decide which aspect most interests you.<br /><br />Sheldrake is a very consistent thinker (unlike me!) and his career has been an elaboration, testing and extension of a few basic insights which are present in his first book - so it doesn't really matter where you start. All roads lead into the same universe of ideas.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-46458659515189619882012-01-04T08:03:10.419+00:002012-01-04T08:03:10.419+00:00Bruce,
Where would you suggest beginning to read S...Bruce,<br />Where would you suggest beginning to read Sheldrake?PhilRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-72245417467374685612012-01-04T06:08:38.288+00:002012-01-04T06:08:38.288+00:00@WmJas - Although I was for several years (around ...@WmJas - Although I was for several years (around 1996-2001) working beside colleagues who who working on the 'binding problem' - I never could see the nature of the problem. I suppose I had a different conception of how the brain worked than they. <br /><br />*<br /><br />But from Sheldrake I got this amazed recognition that my whole concept of cause and effect was linear and sequential, and that field based thinking had many different qualities at a deep level. <br /><br />I wonder to what extent the past success of science was due to its self-imposed constraint of dealing with very short chains of linear causality - and ignoring what initiated that chain. <br /><br />One of the ways science goes wrong is in trying to deal with complex and inter-related causal chains, and thinking understanding has been achieved when it is only incomprehensibility - and another way is to forget that the first cause which science considers in any particular instance has been arbitrarily cut off from *its* causes.<br /><br />* <br /><br />But the main problem with free will for moderns is that we don't recognize any entity that could have will - free or otherwise.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-25876663974618286662012-01-04T01:04:24.396+00:002012-01-04T01:04:24.396+00:00I'm also reading McGilchrist, and reading him ...I'm also reading McGilchrist, and reading him in light of Sheldrake, and this post opened up some interesting avenues of thought.<br /><br />It occurs to me that many of the philosophical difficulties associated with causation and free will (neither of which makes any sense if the universe is "just" a series of snapshots) are essentially versions of the binding problem.Wm Jashttp://wmjas.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-21762262219734607692012-01-03T17:35:02.268+00:002012-01-03T17:35:02.268+00:00The matrix of cause and effect is a useful way of ...The matrix of cause and effect is a useful way of looking at the world. But the soul which is the source of all consciousness and volition is not bound by this matrix because it is not part of it. It exists in another spiritual dimension of which science is not aware.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-653043571057777002012-01-03T09:08:45.168+00:002012-01-03T09:08:45.168+00:00The question of free will has been confused by inc...The question of free will has been confused by incorrect positing of the binary "free will/determinism."<br /><br />The medieval understanding goes as<br />A) Things that act without judgment (e.g. rocks)<br />B) Things that act with judgment but without free judgment (e.g. animals)<br />C) That act with free judgment (e.g. man).<br /><br />Animal judgment is held to be instinctive since they lack intellect. <br /><br />The "free" in "free will" refers to freedom from intellect (the will is free to disregard intellect and choose evil) and does not refer to freedom from physical determinism.<br />Even animals are free from physical determinism as they are not rocks.Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.com