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TagJustin Brierley

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Ideas escape from brain of pensive african man

Does Left Brain-Only Thinking Impoverish Our Mental World? How?

A discussion of the left brain vs the right brain that avoids pop science can set us thinking, as psychiatrist McGilchrist and neurologist Dirckx show

Recently, we looked at a discussion between Christian neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx and eclectic psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist on the nature of the mind. The stimulating level of their conversation on Justin Brierley’s show Unbelievable pointed up — by omission — the wasteland that eliminative materialism brings to so much discussion of the mind today. The middle part of the discussion focused on McGilchrist’s approach to the difference between “right-brain” and “left brain” thinking. Essentially, our brains are lateralized, such that two duplicate halves control opposite sides of our bodies — but they also specialize for some specific functions. So your right brain controls your left hand, and so forth. This topic often degenerates into debunkable pop science fluff. The fluff loses Read More ›

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The Mind: A Neuroscientist and a Psychiatrist Walk Into a…

Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, conversing with Christian neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx about materialism’s deficits, shows considerable sympathy for panpsychism

No, this isn’t the beginning of a stand-up gag but rather of an interesting discussion at Unbelievable’s The Big Conversation (Episode 3, Season 4, Jul 1, 2022), hosted by Justin Brierley. The participants seem well-matched: Sharon Dirckx is a neuroscientist and Christian apologist who speaks and writes on human consciousness, and the problem of evil. The author of Am I Just My Brain? (Oxford Apologetics, 2019), she is especially interested in “intersection of science and theology, questions of human consciousness and identity, and the problem of evil.” and Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist who has specialized in the overlap between psychiatry and neurology, has written both for colleagues and the public about the mind–body relationship. He “is committed to the idea Read More ›